Why aren't we talking about the challenges young men are facing? Anthony and Scott continiue the conversation with Richard Reeves exploring the reasons behind the silence and the surprising truth about mothers' concerns and the need for a positive call to action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What unique challenges are young men facing today?
Welcome to Lost Boys, a podcast dedicated to shining a light on the unique challenges young men face today and an exploration about what we can do about it. In our last episode, Scott Galloway and I spoke with author and researcher Richard Reeves. He wrote the seminal book about the challenges young men face today called Of Boys and Men.
Last time we talked about how, by nearly every measure, young men are failing to thrive and They're doing worse in school. They're doing worse in relationships. They're doing worse in the workplace than ever before. Today, we're going to talk about why the challenges young men face is an issue that's been ignored.
And we'll ask the question, for men to do better, doesn't that mean women will have to do worse? The answer, of course, is no. Here's part two of my conversation with Scott Galloway and Richard Reeves. I'm going to play the progressive here.
Chapter 2: Why are the problems of young men overlooked?
I'm going to say, guys, I hear you, but there was five, six, seven hundred years of white male privilege throughout European society, eventually spilled over into American society. And frankly, the women were not even allowed to vote 125 years ago. They got the vote 105 or so years ago. And a result of which everything that's going on today is a counterbalance.
to what's happened over hundreds and hundreds of years. And again, I don't believe all that. I'm playing the devil's advocate because I want you to respond to it because that's some of the policy pushback.
Well, it's some of the resistance that you get to the conversation, which, you know, until you have the conversation and get the data, you can't even have the conversation. You can't have a conversation about solutions to problems that people aren't agreed are problems. Right.
And of course, it's uncomfortable to start talking about boys and men when we still know that there are so many things still to do for women and girls and because of that history. But just because it's uncomfortable shouldn't mean we don't do it. The failure to have the conversation has been a huge problem. And actually, Look, let's put it very bluntly.
Yes, it's true that we've had a society where most of the inequalities went the other way. Do we now want a society where we don't care if we just reverse all of that? Like either we care about gender equality or we don't. And right now there's a bigger gender gap in US colleges than there was in the 1970s. It's just the other way around.
So women are further ahead of men now in college than the other way around. Another question. So we cared about it then. when it was women who were behind. The question is, why would we not care about it now when it's men who are behind? And if the answer is, well, because they've had their turn, it's our turn now. That's a horrific way to think about communities. It's zero sum, it's pessimistic.
And by the way, it won't pass muster with moms. If you say to my wife, You've got three sons, but you know, we've had 10,000 years of patriarchy, so we don't really care about them and we don't care about their mental health and their education and get ready for a berating. Because the idea that two wrongs make a right is actually offensive, but it does get in the way of this problem.
But once you acknowledge that there's discomfort and you acknowledge the history, then I find that most people want to have a good faith conversation. So you played the part very well, Anthony, but it's almost nobody who actually thinks like that. Thank God.
Yeah, I call it the Red Army effect. When the Russians liberated Berlin or came in, they were pissed off. And there was a lot of unfair and unnecessary violence and just brutalization and criminal acts. And I was on MSNBC and I was talking about, you know, are we going to hold a 19-year-old kid from Appalachia responsible for the advantage I received?
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Chapter 3: How can we address the concerns of mothers regarding their sons?
Yeah, I guess consistency on that. Yeah, I shared Scott's frustration. And in fact, somebody told me when the Democrats put out their economic opportunity agenda, somebody said to me, look at the photographs of Harris and Waltz meeting voters and see which demographic you think is missing. And I couldn't quite believe it.
But of the every single photograph features female voters, there isn't a single man missing.
I got myself in trouble because I said about the democratic convention to one of the senior leaders, as I watched it on TV, if I was an alien coming in from Mars, I would have thought that the only people on planet earth were blacks and women because the only people they were showing on the television. And they got really mad at me for saying that.
And what's so infuriating about this is that I think too many people felt that in order to be credible with women, they had to ignore these issues.
And I got to tell you, I talked to some super progressive young women and I said, as long as they continue to talk about the issues you care about, reproductive rights, whatever, would it upset you if they also launched a campaign on mental health of young men, a campaign for male teachers, a campaign, a Coach for America program to connect young men to underserved communities?
If Tim Walz stood up and gave a speech saying, we have a plan for our young men, would that upset you? And not a single one of them said yes because they're worried about their brothers and their boyfriends and their dads. So it's back to this point about Scott's point about not zero sum.
It was actually, I'll go step further, it was insulting to women to think that they couldn't advocate for men without those women thinking that somehow they weren't going to care about them.
Let me put you on to something that seriously upgraded my closet. Quince. You know when you get a shirt that just clicks, feels good, looks good, and you end up wearing it way more than you thought you would? That's exactly what happened to me when I picked up a few pieces from Quince. They've got everything you actually want to wear.
Polos, t-shirts, shorts, pants that work at a work lunch, or watching my two young boys play football after school.
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Chapter 4: What solutions can help young men thrive?
I think we should pay teachers a lot more period, but we should definitely pay them more for doing extracurricular. I think we need to find ways to encourage volunteering through things like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, etc. So that underserved communities can connect to young men who are looking for a coaching opportunity, get past some of the suspicion that we've had around all of that.
and there are there are organizations doing this to be clear but i think that the underlying message has to be two young men we need you the tribe needs you i've come to believe that there is always a contest for the allegiance of young men The question is who wins it? I think young men always need a bit more structure, a bit more script.
They need a cause, an institution, a tribe, a community, a nation to become part of. And we have, we are failing to say to young men, just address a group of young men. And some of them said, who should be the role model for kind of kids who don't have fathers and who are struggling? And I said, well, how about you? How about you all go out of here and volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters?
Find your local scout group. Find your local school that will be desperate for an assistant coach for their soccer team. And then find ways to have dollars, federal and state dollars, flow to support that because the share of men volunteering and coaching and mentoring is collapsing.
And that is a disaster, not just for the men who end up lacking purpose, but for the boys they would otherwise be serving.
And that goes to a call-out. It's And this is virtue signaling, but I have found it so remarkably easy to positively impact a boy's life. And that is you don't have to be a baller. You don't have to have training in it. You know, I have boys. I now, as a practice, say, I want you to bring one of your friends.
Because what's strange is, or what's interesting, even if it's not the son of a single mother, which I think corporations have a role here to figure out mentor programs for young men who have paternal and fraternal concern and love to give. They just don't know where to put it. Maybe they don't have their own families yet.
Identify women in the organization who maybe have single mothers who have boys who could use a little bit of guidance or just male companionship. These boys are everywhere. And you literally like invite them over to help you wash your car. They just start asking questions. And then they get comfortable with you. And then they see that you find value in them, that you think they have worth.
They start asking you questions and you can tell them very basics. No, your mom's not your enemy. Stop it. Like, how often are you getting high? Well, no, no, no, I'm getting high three, four times a week. Okay, is that a good idea? I mean, it's just not hard. The bar, it's not hard to add a lot of value And there's a very unfortunate dynamic. I experienced this when I was on Bill Maher.
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Chapter 5: How does societal change impact young men's opportunities?
And that will change in different societies at different times, but we have to make our men. And I agree that there's a real naivety about the idea that we just don't need to do that anymore, right? They'll figure it out. It'll be on the internet. It will be somewhere, right? We don't need to curate or form our men anymore, but we do. We've always needed to form our men.
and we need to continue to do that. The question is just how? And I was thinking a bit when you were talking, Scott, about the institutions that used to do that. I think to some extent you do, you need institutions that help that formation of, whether that's schools, churches, clubs, Boy Scouts, camps, I don't, you know, whatever, Wilderness rides.
I don't care like every society will do it differently, but but you do need to do it It has to be an active thing And it takes men to do it comes back to your point about we need men to staff those institutions and run them and what you discover is If you stop saying to men we need you to come and do this you as men to come and do this They don't do it and women end up doing it
Which is bad for the women because they end up carrying more of the burden. But it's also bad for the men that they don't feel called by the tribe. I think at some level every man needs to hear the tribe needs you. And as soon as they stop hearing that call, that's when things go badly for them and for everybody else. So the question we have to answer now is what's our call to men?
What is the tribe saying to them? What do we need them for? Do we need them as fathers? Do we need them as workers? Do we need them as protectors? Do we actually need men? And I think as long as we don't, if we don't have a strong positive answer to that question, we're going to keep losing them.
I'm reflecting on what you're saying, and I'm wondering if there's something actionable, something more formidable. Scott, one of the problems I've always seen with the educational process, and I've listened to some of your podcasts, we've got great educators, but we're asking local people to do the education process in their local neighborhoods.
We don't have George Lucas coming in to do the education. stage photography or the direction of the local movie, if you will. But you could take leaders like Richard Reeves or Scott Galloway and get their wisdom imparted into the local communities. We do have the technology. We do have the skill set to do that. And I guess the question is, is that something that you think could catch on?
Is that something that you think people would be interested in?
I think the dissemination of kind of thought leadership or scaling people who might have interesting viewpoints, I think it's more important that I don't think that creates systemic structural change. I think systemic structural change, I think guys like Richard will play a role in highlighting the issue such that one, there's legislation that stops this transfer of wealth from young to old.
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Chapter 6: What role do male teachers play in supporting boys?
This may now be among my most socially conservative thoughts that actually, unless you say specifically to boys and to men, we need you to do this, that they might not do it. And, you know, you can then you can imagine people dialing in right now to say, well, there you go. You see, they won't even step up when we give them the opportunities.
QI role, you're blaming women for taking those opportunities. But I just think culturally,
we have to sometimes find ways to signal to boys it's why i think things like boy scouts or kind of roles for men and and these mentoring programs that are very specific like you mentioned biggs i don't know if i said this before but i just signed up for big brothers big sisters as well and where i live the waiting list for boys is nine months compared to three months for girls because they don't get male volunteers
And they've got more boys being referred. And all they've done is a general call for volunteers. So I actually think, Scott, we need a call for male volunteers. We need to say to men, we need you as men to show up. Not instead of women, but I think there has to be a specific call. Does that make sense to you? It's a slight amendment to your idea.
100%. The one question I would have for you is if you could pass, if you had a magic wand to pass one law or have one program get funded right now, what would that one thing be?
A massive recruitment drive for male teachers. If we can't get back to Reagan era share of male teachers, which was 33% and the coaching that comes along with that. On current trends, we're just emptying out. If we can't address the decline, the one place we can intervene, Scott, with a reasonable degree of certainty is during K-12 education.
And I actually think that the failure to act as we have emptied the men out of our classrooms. is a cultural shame and even now it's quite hard to get people to think that's anything we should do anything but does anybody think that we would think it was a good idea if the teaching profession became all male like the idea that we shouldn't have more men in front of our
Boys, I'm so proud of my son for standing in front of that classroom and being this dude teaching these kids. And so at a visceral level, I feel like, and anybody who can't get on board with that, the idea that we shouldn't be encouraging more men into our classrooms, into our playing fields.
I just don't think they deserve, I very rarely say, I don't think they deserve a place, honestly, in the conversation because there is no, but even like Josh Hawley in his book on masculinity and to say that Josh Hawley and I don't agree on anything, on everything would be an understatement. But even he says maybe some more male teachers would be a good idea.
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Chapter 7: Why is it important to advocate for young men's issues?
The American Psychological Association, one of the most progressive organizations in the U.S., says maybe it would be a good idea to have more male teachers. So when, for the love of God, is a policymaker, a governor, a president going to say, all right, we need a volunteer, we need an army of men in our classrooms. That's the one thing, if I could wave at one, Scott, that's what I would do.
Thank you. Yeah, actually, just come back to where we're at and love your work now, now that we know each other. The praise inflation comes around. You're awesome.
You have no idea how much I need it. Does that feel good? I'm surrounded by people that are bringing me down, Richard. No, men need to be here for each other. There we go. Thank you. We're friends now. The feeling is mutual, my friend.
Thank you again.
Hopefully you'll come back. Okay, we'll continue this discussion. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lost Boys. If you'd like more information, please go to our website, www.lostboys.men.
In our next episode, Scott and I talk with Dan Harris, the bestselling author of 10% Happier, who has a lot of good advice about how young men and really all of us can manage the stress and anxiety in our lives. You don't want to miss it. So be sure to like, follow, and subscribe to Lost Boys wherever you get your podcasts.
And please share it with someone who cares about this or should care about this. And let's spread the word. Lost Boys is a production of Salt Media and Casablanca Strategy Group. Barbara Fedita and Keith Summa are executive producers. Tanya Salati is our researcher. And Holly Duncan Quinn and Stanley Goldberg are editors. Special thanks to Christina Cassese and Mary Jean Rebus and Drew Burrows.
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