Beyond the manosphere: Supporting boys and men in the real world

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

TED Radio Hour | "Beyond the Manosphere: Supporting Boys and Men in the Real World"

Host: Manoush Zomorodi
Guest: Richard Reeves, President of the American Institute for Boys and Men
Date: May 29, 2026

---

Main Theme

This episode explores what it means to be a man in the modern world, moving "beyond the manosphere" (extreme online male spaces) to tackle how we should support boys and men as gender roles, family structures, and work evolve. Through a conversation with Richard Reeves—author and researcher—the episode aims to break down data-driven realities, social narratives, and ways to create positive change, all while challenging sensationalism and advocating for pragmatic, even "boring," cultural shifts.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Framing the Crisis: Boys and Men in Today's Society

• Alarm over Boys' Struggles:
  Richard Reeves details how, on measures like education and mental health, boys and men are increasingly at risk:

  • Boys a year behind girls in literacy by the end of high school.
  • The college gender gap now favors women more than men ever outnumbered women in the 1970s ([02:59]).
  • Rising suicide rates among young men, with a fourfold gender gap.

• Cultural Discomfort and "Toxic Masculinity":
  Reeves critiques how discussions pathologize masculinity, especially since the rise of the term “toxic masculinity” in 2016, shifting debates into deficit-based frameworks ([08:55]).

• Zero-Sum Fallacy:
  He stresses the importance of seeing work for boys and men as complementary—not oppositional—to women's progress ([04:18], [08:55]).

  “It doesn't mean doing less for women and girls. We're gonna try and find stuff that works. And if that sentence sounded boring to people, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Because I want the debate about gender to become much more boring.”
  —Richard Reeves [09:47]

---

2. From Real Crisis to Online Culture War

• Online "Manosphere" vs. Real Life:
  While the manosphere and hypermasculine online spaces are loud, changing gender dynamics in reality are often muted, with steady progress toward equality in family and work ([16:50]).

• Political Weaponization:
  Reactionaries have filled the vacuum left by mainstream institutions, using neglect of boys’ issues as ammunition ([11:24]):

  “The mainstream institutions and the government were doing the work of the reactionaries because it allowed them...to claim with some plausibility that we were just ignoring these issues of boys and men. That created a vacuum. That vacuum got filled.”
  —Richard Reeves [12:41]

---

3. Economic Shifts, Work & Masculinity

• Changing Roles at Home and Work:
  Massive economic changes have led to:

  • Dual-income households becoming the norm.
  • More women out-earning men ([18:51]).
  • Men’s traditional roles destabilized, particularly for working-class men.

• Future of Work and Occupations:

  • Healthcare, education, and social care—professions with job growth—are female-dominated, with male representation declining.
  • Reeves advocates for outreach and scholarships to recruit men into these “HEAL” professions (Healthcare, Education, Administration, Literacy) ([22:02], [23:12]).

  “Breaking down the gender stereotypes around occupations has now become a bit of an existential thing for the employment prospects of men.”
  —Richard Reeves [23:21]

---

4. Empathy, Identity, and Political Shifts

• Hypermasculinity as a Reaction:
  Political figures have shaped masculinity into a combative identity, making it harder for men to embrace empathy—key in many modern jobs ([24:20]).

• Young Men and Political Disaffection:
  Increased support for right-wing or reactionary candidates among the youngest male voters may reflect alienation rather than ideological conversion ([24:40]):

  “Are you quite sure that they didn't move away from the left?...They just want to know that they're included.”
  —Richard Reeves [27:11], [39:13]

• Democratic Branding Gap:
  Notably, men feel excluded from progressive institutional narratives:

  “The Democrats...have a website...who we stand for. And...which group do you think is missing from that?”
  —Richard Reeves [27:48]

---

5. Tech, Relationships, and the “Loneliness Epidemic”

• The Algorithmic World:
  Young men’s lives are deeply online, blurring on/offline distinctions and exposing them to extreme content—but the greater concern is what’s displaced (in-person relational skills) rather than direct harm ([29:41]).

  “For boys and young men, it's less that what they're doing online...is directly harmful...it's more, what are they not doing, when they're doing that, what is it displacing. And...it's about how it displaces the in real life activities...”
  —Richard Reeves [31:13]

• Parental Engagement is Key:
  Curiosity, not panic, is the right parental response—a call to discuss content, not just condemn it ([32:48]).

• Loneliness: Not Just a Male Problem
  Reeves’ research finds class is a bigger predictor of loneliness than gender ([34:10]):

  “We don't find much of a gender gap. We do find a big class gap. It's more of a class story than a gender story.”
  —Richard Reeves [34:13], [44:26]

---

6. Policy, Politics, and Positive Role Models

• Policy Momentum:
  Increasing bipartisan interest in boys’ and men’s issues, with new programs (Male Educator Network) modeled after successful women's initiatives ([37:09]).

• Culture Shifts Rely on Role Models:
  Men and boys don’t want male-only spaces or a “men’s party”—they want to feel included and not pathologized ([39:03]).

• Race, Class, and Intersectionality:
  Disadvantage amplifies gender gaps—problems are most pronounced among working-class and Black boys and men ([41:45]).

---

7. Social Life, Friendship, and Healthy Spaces

• Male Friendship and Social Structure:
  Men require more institutional support to socialize; suspicion of all-male groups may be counterproductive ([45:53]).

• Healthy Male Spaces:
  Not all-male groups are toxic—positive male spaces, mentorship, and rites of passage can be healthy if not exclusionary or bullying ([48:09]).

---

8. The Way Forward: Redefining Masculinity

• “Show, Don’t Tell” Masculinity:
  Individual role models—fathers, coaches, teachers—matter more than online scripts. Expanding possibilities for men is key, avoiding prescriptive “formulas” ([50:28]).

  “You don't tell boys and young men how to be a man. You show them.”
  —Richard Reeves [50:28]

• Positive Male Presence:
  Encourages volunteering (e.g., Big Brothers, Big Sisters), and direct involvement in boys’ lives.

• Don’t Script, Expand:
  The ultimate message: Expand what it means to be a man, channel naturally male traits positively, and resist simplistic or reactionary narratives ([52:34]).

  "We shouldn't be trying to narrow what it means to be a man. We should be trying to expand what it means to be a man...The great gift of the women's movement has been to expand the ways in which it's okay to be a woman...we should do the same for men."
  —Richard Reeves [52:37]

---

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “We actually see a lot of men being attracted to more authoritarian impulses. And that's not necessarily a right left comment...We have to engage with this because if sensible, authoritative institutions aren't dealing with and noticing these issues, what that does is it gives ammunition to the reactionaries...”
  —Richard Reeves [04:18]

• “The people who are saying non boring things about gender are either wrong or grifters.”
  —Richard Reeves [10:09]

• “The mainstream institutions and the government were doing the work of the reactionaries because...they can plausibly claim we're just ignoring these issues...”
  —Richard Reeves [12:41]

• “My institute just published a paper...We've just seen the fastest reduction in that gap [parenting] convergence between mums and dads that we've seen probably for half a century...”
  —Richard Reeves [16:50]

• “...The best answer...is not to have more positive male role models online...but...honest-to-God, flesh and blood men in their lives.”
  —Richard Reeves [50:40]

• “We shouldn't be trying to narrow what it means to be a man. We should be trying to expand what it means to be a man, but also not in any way pathologizing the things that tend to skew a little bit more male.”
  —Richard Reeves [52:37]

---

Key Timestamps

• 01:05 — Introduction to the crisis affecting boys and men
• 02:59 — Data on boys’ worsening outcomes and rising male suicide
• 04:18 — The politics and controversy of speaking about men's issues
• 08:55 — Critique of “toxic masculinity” framing
• 11:24 — Rise of the manosphere and reactionary politics
• 16:50 — Real life vs. online culture and parenting shifts
• 18:51 — Changing economics, work, and what it means to be a father
• 22:02 — Women dominating job growth in new economy
• 24:20 — Rise of hypermasculinity as a political identity
• 29:41 — Technology, social media, and young men’s attention
• 34:10 — "Male loneliness" more a class than gender issue
• 37:09 — Policy progress and growing acceptance
• 39:03 — How to build healthy masculinity into the culture
• 41:45 — Intersection of race, class, and gender problems
• 44:26 — Class gap in loneliness, importance of male institutions
• 50:28 — Redefining masculinity: “Show, don’t tell”

---

Memorable Moments

• Reeves recounts attending a “new warrior weekend” men’s retreat—and walking out after an hour due to a culture of unnecessary aggression ([48:09]).
• Reeves describes his wife accidentally receiving a long voice message of him and friends passionately debating Star Wars vs. Star Trek, illustrating the benign reality of male social spaces ([49:43]).

---

Final Reflection

The episode moves beyond moral panics and sensational media to argue for thoughtful, incremental change: supporting boys and men where they are struggling, expanding what it means to be a man, and creating institutions and conversations that include rather than exclude. The solution is not in culture war rhetoric, but in pragmatic reform, curiosity, and showing positive masculinity in daily life.

---

Transcript

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Avalara. What's it like running a business with Avalara? No thinking about tax and compliance. It's handled calculating, filing validating accurately and audit defensibly Avalara agentic tax and compliance with confidence.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED talks.

[Richard Reeves]

Our job now is to dream big.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Delivered at TED conferences to bring about

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

the future we want to see around

[Minouche Zamorodi]

the world to understand who we are are. From those talks we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.

[Richard Reeves]

You just don't know what you're going

[Minouche Zamorodi]

to find challenge you.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy and even change you.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. On the show, what does it mean to be a man today? Turning now to an issue our next guest has been sounding the alarm on for years.

[Richard Reeves]

The current crisis, the crisis facing boys and young men in this country.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Our boys are in a crisis. Yes. This debate has been raging for a while, but since the 2024 presidential election, it has intensified.

[Richard Reeves]

Do you want men to be better or do you want to?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Phrases like toxic masculinity, the manosphere, or the male loneliness epidemic. They pepper conversations used to blame some and to rally others. It may start with simple ideas about

[Richard Reeves]

being an alpha male or toxic masculinity doesn't even exist. The only thing that is toxic, a man or a bear. And the women, like, unanimously said, I'd rather come across a bear.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

There are those who want to shout about these issues, but there are also people who would rather not talk about them at all.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

Honestly, I'm just sick of hearing about it.

[Richard Reeves]

Why are men like this? Why is this the reason for the male loneliness epidemic?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

There is no male loneliness epidemic. It is a loser epidemic. Richard Reeves thinks there's a better way.

[Richard Reeves]

Keep it boring. And as my son said to me one day, he said, well, if that's your motto, dad, you are definitely the man for that job.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Burn.

[Richard Reeves]

Exactly. I mean, but the point is actually by being quite dispassionate about it and just saying, look, these are facts. And hopefully reasonably even handed, I think what it did was create a space for a conversation that was already there. It just didn't quite know how to break into the open.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Richard is the founder and president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. He's also the author of the Book of Boys and why the Modern Male Is Struggling. Why it Matters and what to do about it. His interest in understanding what was happening to half the population started a decade ago. As a policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, he noticed some troubling trends and a warning. We do discuss suicide.

[Richard Reeves]

I just kept running across these data points that showed me on lots of fronts now, boys and men are the ones who are behind in education. For example, we see that by the end of high school, boys are a year behind girls in literacy. There's a bigger gender gap on college campuses today than there was in the 1970s, but it's the other way around. So men are a bit further behind women in college today than women were behind men. When we passed Title ix, we've seen a big rise in suicide rates among young men especially. And what I came to realize was that there's this cultural moment we're going through. I think a lot of young men and young women, actually, but young men are really struggling to kind of come to terms with what does it mean to be a man today? What does it mean to succeed? Who am I? Which are of course, age old questions. But I think I found that even through listening to the conversations my sons were having, that this was just a question that they were asking in a way that previous generations of men didn't.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah. So your book came out in 2022, and it really came out with a bang. This felt like a sort of fresh take to a lot of people, I think, particularly maybe of moderate or left persuasion in politics, because everybody had been talking about women's rights for so long. Tell us a little bit about the book, what you were trying to do and why you think it had such a big influen on people.

[Richard Reeves]

Yeah, well, I will say it was quite difficult to land the book in the right way and also to find a publisher. There were a number of conversations with publishers who just felt that it was too controversial. But it's my sense of this is that when there's something that's true and there's something that people are feeling in their own lives, so watching their son struggle at school, maybe, or their brother struggle with mental health problems or whatever it is, but they're also, and let's imagine this as a woman, you know, actually have struggled perhaps in the workplace and really committed to the idea of gender equality, and there's this dissonance. And I think what the book helped some people to do at least was to say, you know what? You're not alone. And it's okay to care about both. This is a time of considerable Concern about gender equality and what some people fear is a backlash against the rise of women and so on. Just a very. It's been a very contested and difficult time in our culture. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say and really a sort of pick your side sort of moment. And one of the reasons I was motivated to write the book is we actually see a lot of men being attracted to more authoritarian impulses. And that's not necessarily a right left comment. Actually, now is the perfect time to do it. We have to engage with this because if sensible, authoritative institutions aren't dealing with and noticing these issues, what that does is it gives ammunition to the reactionaries who are saying, you don't care about this stuff. I wanted to find a way to say, you know what? We actually do have a lot of work still to do for women and girls, but we can't do that in a way that makes the boys and men feel like it's somehow at their expense or vice versa. And so ignoring a problem in the hopes it'll go away. It won't go away. All that will happen is it will turn into a grievance and then that grievance will get exploited. And so this is a necessarily uncomfortable conversation, but it is also a necessary conversation.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Richard is wary of saying that boys and men are in crisis, but he agrees that over the past few years, the discourse over modern masculinity has reached a fever pitch. Do the fears and the data line up, though? What is the best way to support them when men's roles in families and the economy have changed so much over the past generation? Today, a conversation with Richard Reeves that is pragmatic, thoughtful, and yes, at times even boring in a good way.

[Richard Reeves]

Thank you for calling me boring. I mean this sincerely. That is an incredibly important compliment to

[Minouche Zamorodi]

me, starting with what's happening in schools. Here he is on the TED stage.

[Richard Reeves]

On some measures, at least now, men are lagging quite a way behind, not least on college campuses. That reflects the fact that boys are trailing girls throughout the education system. Two thirds of the top academic performers in high school, measured by GPA, are girls, and 2/3 of those at the bottom are boys. It's not just in the US. If we look at the 20 most economically advanced countries in the world, there's on average a 13 percentage point gap in the share of young men and young women with a college degree, with young women much more likely to have a college degree. And just like in the us, these differences at the college level reflect what's happening earlier in the school system. It used to be that maybe boys were ahead in math and science, girls were ahead in reading and language in roughly equal measure. That's not true today. Internationally, at the age of 15, there's a five point gap in favor of boys in math, there's essentially no gap in science. But boys are 30 points behind girls at the age of 15 in reading and language skills. But not all boys and men are struggling in the same way. The intersection of gender with class and race really matters here. So boys from poorer households and middle class households much less likely to attend college than girls from the same background. And the gender gaps are even more stark for black Americans. So anybody who really cares about boys and men has to care about racial injustice and economic inequality. And anybody who really cares about racial injustice and economic inequality has to care about boys and men.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So what was it that you were calling on people to do if they were persuaded that yes, boys and men are in trouble? What did you say that they needed?

[Richard Reeves]

There's a reframing to start with, which is it's not zero sum. Keep doing the work for women and girls. But if we think there's an issue with boys in education, let's ask ourselves whether it's okay that the share of male teachers has dropped by 10 percentage points from 33 to 23%. Let's look at what the trouble the boys are having in literacy and start to interrogate that. Make sure you've got the data on gender gaps in your school. And also, let's not pathologise what's happening with boys and men. I think that the rise of the term toxic masculinity in 2016, I didn't really realize it at the time, but come to believe that was a really, really unfortunate development because it sort of pathologized it. It meant that the whole conversation about boys and men was done in this deficit way. And so be curious, be open, and let's not start with this presumption that it's the problems. The problems of boys and men are the problems with boys and men, right? If they just tried harder and picked up their socks and, you know, didn't complain and went to therapy that they'd be fine. Right? It's very odd to me sometimes that are still quite happy to individualize the problems of boys and men in a way that they wouldn't for other groups. And then actually, let's look to some solutions like breaking down gender stereotypes around roles like education. We put huge effort into getting more women into male professions. And it's not mission accomplished yet, but women in stem, women into law and medicine and so on has been a huge push. It's been great. Where's the equivalent push for men in education and healthcare? So the point simply is to get to that point in the conversation where we agree it's a problem. We're gonna tackle it. It doesn't mean doing less for women and girls. We're gonna try and find stuff that works. And if that sentence sounded boring to people, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Because I want the debate about gender to become much more boring. The people who are saying non boring things about gender are either wrong or grifters.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

All right, well, I'm gonna say something not boring, I think, but I don't think. I mean to be a grifter in any way. But the very argument, your very argument from 2022 that addressing the needs of boys and men who were struggling needed to be claimed by moderates, otherwise it would be claimed by reactionaries. That has come true. No, like between the manosphere and YouTube channels about how to be an alpha male that are anti women, extreme self improvement, male victimhood, the right extreme and well, it's all sort of parties right now seems to be embracing this idea of hyper masculinity in a way that was just sort of. It was there in 2022, but boy, is it here now.

[Richard Reeves]

Yeah, I think what's happened is that in the culture and therefore to some extent in our politics, there has been a reaction, I mean, this is exactly the right word in this case, to the perceived and in some cases real excesses, perhaps the other way. And more broadly this, the neglect of these issues. One of the most difficult things for me to argue to someone from the more reactionary side of the aisle on these issues until very recently was when they would say, well, they don't care about boys and men. Right. The people in power. A boring example, but makes the point is that the CDC has a disparities in suicide page and it lists the various disparities for lgbtq, rural, urban veterans, et cetera. Race doesn't mention the gender gap, even though that's the biggest disparity. And men's, men's right, see people, manosphere type people, reactionaries would very often point to that fact and say, look, it's not. They won't even admit the gender gap. And I would be engaging with people at CDC and saying, what are you doing? Just put it on your website. Just acknowledge that there's a gender gap. Why wouldn't you acknowledge that there's a fourfold gap in suicide rates that's much bigger than any of the other gaps? And so it was frustrating to me that in some ways the mainstream institutions and the government were doing the work of the reactionaries because it allowed them to claim with some plausibility that we were just ignoring these issues of boys and men. That created a vacuum. That vacuum got filled. And the answer is not to necessarily blame the boys and young men who are looking for answers to these questions, looking frankly for someone who seems to care about them or at least not dislike them. That's our fault. By us, I mean mainstream institutions, mainstream conversations and families, because we didn't create enough space for this conversation. And as a result, the conversation went elsewhere.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

When we come back, more from Richard Reeves on what we can do to support boys and men and define a new kind of masculinity. I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. We'll be right back. This message comes from cookunity, the first chef led meal delivery service where every meal is handcrafted in local micro kitchens, not mass produced in large facilities. With hundreds of dishes to choose from and over 10 different diets, dietary preferences like high protein, low sodium, GLP1 and more. Taste what happens when real award winning chefs make fresh, small batched meals just for you? Go to cookunity.com radiohour or enter code radiohour before checkout to get 50% off your first order.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

This message comes from Dell Technologies. Work interruptions happen, but with built in intelligence and optimized battery, the Dell Pro laptop, powered by Intel Core Ultra with vpro, is built for for those who stay in the flow. Built for you Dell.com Dell-Pro this message comes from BetterHelp.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

May is mental health awareness Month, a reminder that you don't have to do this life alone. From loneliness to anxiety to financial stress, right now people everywhere are struggling. But having a licensed therapist with you by video phone or chat can make a difference. And BetterHelp makes it easy. Sign up now and get 10% [e-mail] NPR that's betterhelp.com NPR this message comes

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

from NPR sponsor Carvana. Carvana believes selling your car should be refreshingly simple. Enter your license plate or vin, get a real offer down to the penny and schedule a pickup on your time. No surprises. Sell your car [e-mail] pickup fees may apply.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Hey, it's Minouche here. I Have a fun announcement. Before we start today's episode, we're doing a special virtual event just for plus supporters like you. It is happening on Zoom next week, Wednesday, June 10th at 3pm Eastern, noon Pacific. We are going to talk about how to live better with our technology, how to feel better in our bodies and think more clearly. It's going to be me. I've just written a book called Body Electric, which is a lot of it, based on a project we did with NPR listeners. I will be joined by Columbia University Medical center physiologist Keith Diaz. We are going to take your questions about movement, about being on screens all day, about how we can live better with our tech, about how we can be healthier. Keith is super fun. I think I'm kind of fun, too. I think the whole thing's going to be really fun. So bring your questions. It's just for supporters like you. So I really hope you'll join us. You'll be getting an invite in your email inbox soon with all the details. Look out for that. Thank you as always for your support and I hope to see you next Wednesday. It's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zamarodi. Today on the show, a conversation about boys and men with Richard Reeves. Richard is a writer and president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. And based on what we see online, most people might think that the discourse over masculinity is loud and aggressive. But Richard says that in real life, things are actually playing out very differently.

[Richard Reeves]

On the one hand, you do see these cultural and political signs of reaction, especially among men, arguably. But at the same time, in real life, we're seeing the onward march on most fronts towards gender equality. So, for example, my institute just published a paper on the amount of time that mums and dads spend doing childcare as opposed to paid work. We've just seen the fastest reduction in that gap convergence between mums and dads that we've seen probably for half a century now. Again, I'm not suggesting that we don't need to do much more on all those fronts, but there's this odd thing happening where online you have reactionaries, the manosphere, trad wives, no one wants kids, everyone hates each other. You know, no one's having sex, take it, whatever it is. And then you go into the real world and you say, well, but wait, the women are working more and earning more and the men are doing more parenting and actually divorce rates gone down and it's, it's sort of Weird. I think that away from the, the smoke and fury of the online culture war, American men and women are slowly but surely figuring this out. And what we need to do is have their backs and try and help them figure it out, rather than try and recruit them to a pointless zero sum culture war.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Can we talk more about economics and jobs and where that fits in? The narrative, of course has been that jobs went overseas 20, this started happening 20, 30 years ago, that there created a sort of permanent underclass of people who no longer could provide for their families, no longer had meaning in their life. Do you think that that's the right narrative that's been told? And how do jobs fit into the equation now in this era of, well, low unemployment rate, but sky high inflation and this constant conversation that AI is going to take jobs from everyone?

[Richard Reeves]

Yeah, well, I think there's a couple of things. One is that on the cultural level over the last half century we have just massively changed the economic relation between men and women. Most couples with kids, they Both work now. 40% of women now earn more than the typical, the median man, where it's only like 1 in 10 in the 70s and just become an expectation now that both men and women will work not in the same way. I'm not saying that we've solved the problems, but it's a very different world now. What that means is that the question of what does it mean to be a father? What does it mean to be, you know, a quotes breadwinner when you're not going to be the sole breadwinner anymore? That's a question. And it's the result of the greatest economic liberation in human history, which is the rise of women. And I think you'd have to be very odd indeed not to celebrate that fact. And pretty much everyone does really celebrate that fact, except again, some of these fringes online maybe. So that's great, but we shouldn't be naive and ignore the fact that that does raise questions. You know, I'm in my 50s, so even for my generation it's like, okay, my dad was the breadwinner and had a great marriage and great relationship. I'm not the sole breadwinner. In fact, I was a stay at home dad for a while. And so it's a very different kind of negotiation that we're having in our relationships now. And I just think it's naive to think that that isn't going to cause some friction, that isn't going to be difficult. And then especially for the men with less economic power, like I'M doing it from a position of great privilege, economically speaking, working class men, when without men, without college degrees, their wages have been flat, effectively for decades. And so it's not just a relative loss of position between men and women. It's in many cases a loss of absolute position. These men are actually no richer than their fathers were at the same age. That's a massive cultural shock. And so we don't go back on the rise of women. In fact, we need to do more, but we also need to figure out, what does that mean, how to be a father, et cetera, with fathers doing more and more in the home, we need institutions that support both mothers and fathers. And so we do need more generous paid leave. We need that leave to be paid at much higher levels if men are going to feel comfortable taking it. That's just a fact. The point about AI and the job markets now is a very interesting and timely one because what we're actually seeing right now is, and it's been true for the last few years, that there's been huge employment growth for women and much slower employment growth for men. Job growth for men. And so in 2025, about 3 in 4 of the jobs created were in healthcare or social services, overwhelmingly female professions. And so you'll see just this huge rise in employment for women and much less if pretty flat for men. But it's because of this occupational separation, right? The jobs that men have traditionally done in manufacturing, as you point out, manufacturing, mining, et cetera, they have declined. And they've declined under President Trump, just as they did under President Biden. There is nothing that tariffs or talking about this is going to do about that. And there was this very odd moment. I don't know if you remember this, but in one of President Trump's State of the Union addresses, he had this line where he said, we've created X number of jobs. Whatever it was, no one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women. And this is the one where all Democrat women were in suffragette white. Do you remember that?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah, yeah, uh huh, I do.

[Richard Reeves]

And they were kind of jeering him and then. But then it comes to this point where he says, we've created X number of jobs. And most of them went to women who have filled 58% of the newly created jobs last year. And you could just see all the Democrat women in their suffragette white thinking, oh, what do I do?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Do I cheer?

[Richard Reeves]

Do I cheer? They did end up cheering. There was this kind of moment where they're like, uh, yes, that's you weren't supposed to do that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before. But it's also kind of weird for President Trump to be bragging about the fact that he was the president who was creating the female economy. Right, given how he'd run. And so it's just a good example of the oddity of this. But the broader point is that many of the AI protected jobs in things like healthcare, more hands on, they are much more female dominated, at least for the moment. And so that does mean that, and no one can predict how this will go, that does mean that men are kind of losing out. And so for me, it means that the need to get more men into those professions, many of which are really desperate for workers, if you think about nursing and teaching and social care and childcare and so on, they're desperate for. It's not just that there aren't very many men in healthcare and education, it's that the share is actually declining. And so as those are the jobs of the future, we've got to do a better job and learn from the lessons of the women into STEM movement to get more men into what I call heal professions, healthcare, education, administration and literacy. I think that means, that means scholarships, that means outreach programs, that means particular institutions whose job it is to help boys think of those careers as ones for them, early apprenticeships, etc. Let's try and break down the stereotypes that these are somehow quotes, women's jobs. I long for the day when we don't say male nurse or male teacher in just the same way that we shouldn't anymore be saying lady lawyer or female doctor, because more than half of our law schools and medical schools are women now. And those professions are moving rapidly to equality. And so breaking down the gender stereotypes around occupations has now become a bit of an existential thing for the employment prospects of men. And no longer just a sort of seminar nice to have.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

How difficult is that going to be considering that Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who was in the White House at that time, have made masculinity, real masculinity, a political identity, and one that like, has no room for empathy at all, which is crucial to all those jobs that you're describing that will be available?

[Richard Reeves]

I think one of the really most unfortunate turns recently has somehow to feel that to pay attention to men, to be, you know, have some empathy for the position that men are in, to actually allow men to, quote, be men in Ways that are positive, not negative, but without expecting them to somehow become androgynous. Right. Somehow the reaction to that has been to lean back into a more hyper masculinity, as you say. It's just this sort of almost cartoonish adolescent view of masculinity. You know, I sometimes think about like, wow, what's all of this reminding me of? Right? And actually what it's reminding me of is not my 26 year old son to pick one of them, but my 16 year old son. And so I actually don't find the toxic non to, as I said, toxic masculinity is a very unhelpful term. But I do think there's some to the idea of maturity. What does it mean to be a grown up, to be mature? And I think for men that is much more of a social construction in some ways. So what does it mean to be grown up rather than adolescent? And so there's a bit of a glorying sometimes in the transgressiveness and boorishness that is much more associated with a young man, an immature man, a man whose puberty like I, I was not, I was not as boring when I was 14 as I am and I'm 56 because guess what? I grew up. And growing up is hard to do. And so, and again, I think that's a reaction to what was previously seen as a, I say a sort of squeezing out of any discussion of masculinity and sometimes a pathologization of any trait that seemed to be masculine. You did have a generation of young men who are probably a bit over it. So my view is that what happened here politically and culturally is that a lot of young men were just, they actually want their sisters and friends to have the same opportunities as them. They are doing more fathering, as I've said, violent crime has fortunately gone down, but they also don't want to feel bad about themselves and they don't want to be told that they're the problem. And so I think what happened particularly perhaps in 2024, was that just that a lot of these young men and you really, it was very interesting that it was the younger of the young men who are most likely to have voted Republican in the last election. So it was the 18 year olds more than the 28 year olds, which is again against trend. And I don't think that means for a moment that they're going to continue to do that. What I think happened was that I'll make a political point without perhaps taking sides is that I'VE noticed that when Democrats talk about what happened with young men in particular in the last election, they tend to say, why did young men move to the right? And I don't see any shift in their policy views or anything. And I would say to them, are you quite sure that they didn't move away from the left? Right. I guess that's a much harder thing to think. Right. It's in some ways very easy to think. These young men spent too much time online. They listened to too many podcasts, they got beguiled by this hyper masculinity, and we've created an overnight generation of misogynists who suddenly voted the wrong way. From their perspective, or is it that they were just up for grabs? They weren't sure, they couldn't make up their mind, and they were just kind of a bit sick of the left and sick of some of the language they were getting from the left and didn't really see anything for them on the left. They didn't see much from the Democrats. I mean, this is at this point, a little bit of a fable, although it's true. So fable's the wrong metaphor, but the Democrats famously have a website that says who they stand for. If you go to their website now, you'll see it. It's like who we stand for. And it lists various demographic groups that the party stands for. And you don't need to tell you at this point in the conversation which group do you think is missing from that? And so I'm not suggesting that young men were going to the Democrat website and seeing that it didn't mention men,

[Minouche Zamorodi]

you don't mention us.

[Richard Reeves]

Yeah, where am I on the list? But it does indicate something about the way in which the progressive side of institutions and political life somehow or other managed to convince themselves that in order to be for lots of other groups, they had to leave out or sometimes even be against men. And that was a fatal political error as well as, in my view, just a category error.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Anecdotally. I mean, I live in New York City, so take this with a grain of salt, but I can't tell you how many moms I know who, when Charlie Kirk was killed, said, I had no idea who this man was, but my teenage son was the one who explained it to me because they all knew, because they said, oh, he comes up in my feed all the time, Mom. So how much does technology. I mean, it feels like everybody is talking about sports betting and pornography and gaming and day trading and crypto and AI companions that won't be able to teach young men what it's like to have a real relationship. There seems to be an onslaught of looking for young men's time and money and attention. Do you think that people. There's a lot of hand wringing around that or is this very troublesome?

[Richard Reeves]

It depends what which bit of it we're talking about. Honestly, I think like, I mean they live online, right? They live in an algorithmic online world, right? That's just the way the way it is. And they understand the algorithm in a way that frankly, I still don't. I needed my sons for a long time to say, dad, that's the algorithm doing that. How does it work again, what's the algorithm? And they play with their algorithms, right? So the digital natives, they live. Now that doesn't mean they only live online, but it means that they're kind of their online and offline lives don't have this clear bright line between them in a way that I think for those of us who are much older makes sense to us. You know, we actually I have a boys and men online program at my institute and that makes a lot of sense to us. But when they play with their friends online and they see them later and it's just, it's a much more blurry line for them, what do we. We have to be really clear. So in some ways, like we can't just worry about the online world. That's just like worrying about the world. What are we worried about? Sports betting is a huge young men. And it's a great example of a gendered problem because it's much more true for men. Because men we could get into this, but they are, they are more risk taking. Right. Especially at that young age. And it's partly about frontal cortex development, but it's just true. One of the most reliably found sex differences in risk taking. And so sports betting casino in your pocket. Disaster for young men. Disaster. And we're doing a lot of work with policymakers on that. That's huge problem. Some of the others, it's just a little bit less clear with gaming, pornography, etc. I think if I'm as I think about this as a parent myself and certainly when my kids are at home, when I talk to other parents about it, the way I think about it is for boys and young men, it's less that what they're doing online with some of the exceptions we just mentioned, is directly harmful. It's not much evidence that gaming is harmful in and of itself. It's more what are they not doing, when they're doing that, what is it? Displacing. And so if it's displacing in real life, activity and particularity particularly. And I think this picks up your point about relationships, developing relational skills in the physical world. And the thing that I really worry about is the atrophying of those relational skills, which are not just very important, but more important. We talked about AI a minute ago. We also talked about how marriages and relationships now need a lot more negotiation. I think actually relational skills are getting more important by the day. And yet if you're spending all your time online, you're not developing those skills. And so it's really, for me, it's about how it displaces the. In real life activities are where you really learn how to be in the world. And that's the bigger problem for boys. I think it's more directly harmful to girls and young women in some ways because of the visual elements and the bullying elements you see online and the self harm that will very often come from the body image problems. And so just playing out differently for boys and girls. But if I'm a parent, I'm just thinking, look, it's not that your boy being online is bad. And probably most of the content he's seeing, he's discerning and he's arguing about it. And you should be curious about that. Like, I had one of my sons sit down and we watched Andrew Tate videos together. Andrew Tate's this online. Probably most people know who he is now. We sat and we watched some of the videos together. She was one of the girlfriends. What do you like about this? What do you like about that? Well, that's pretty horrible. We don't agree with that. Right. And so just engage with the content because they're, they're, it's all coming at them. And the question is, how are they discerning it and how are they filtering it and which bits do they believe in, which bits they not believe and how is it shaping them? And the solution to it is not to sort of have a moral panic. We don't need the sound of slammed laptops across the country. What we need is the sound of curious parents engaging with their kids about their content and having honest conversations about it and correcting them, which is what I did with my son. Right, yeah, but that's not true, is it? Let's look into that. Or do you really believe that? Or whatever, just have that argument with them rather than just going, oh no, Internet manosphere bad, slam shut that lack of curiosity on the part of parents. And the panic sometimes gets in the way of real engagement. So sometimes it takes a deep breath. But just ask your sons if they if there's someone listening to this who can't quite believe their son is saying the things they're saying or is interested, just take a deep breath and say, huh? Why do you think that? Where did you get that from? Show me where you got that from. Let's look into that. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but let's look into it. If you panic and immediately go into judgmental mode, you've just done the work of the reactionaries because that's exactly what they say you'll do. So don't do it.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

In a moment, More from Richard Reeves on what people get wrong about the struggles of boys and men, including the idea of male loneliness.

[Richard Reeves]

There are some surveys showing that loneliness rates are higher among men, but we've published work on this now looking at a much wider range of surveys, and we don't find much of a gender gap. We do find a big class gap. It's more of a class story than a gender story.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I'm Anoosh Zamarodi and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr. Stay with with us.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

This message comes from Dell Technologies. Work interruptions happen, but with built in intelligence and optimized battery, the Dell Pro laptop, powered by Intel Core Ultra with vpro, is built for those who stay in the flow. Built for you Dell.com Dell Pro support

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

for this podcast and the following message come from Strawberry Me. If you could go back and talk to your younger self, would you tell yourself that you have a job that truly makes you happy? Many people are stuck in jobs they've outgrown or never really wanted. A career coach from Strawberry Me can help you move on to something you actually love. Benefit from having a dedicated coach in your Corner, and get 50% off your first coaching session at Strawberry Me.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

NPR New shows, new music, new movies,

[Richard Reeves]

keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full time job. Thankfully, over at Pop Culture Happy Hour, it's literally our job. We break down what's actually worth watching,

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

listening to, and pretending you already knew about.

[Richard Reeves]

So the next time someone says, did

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

you do you see that?

[Richard Reeves]

You can say, yeah, obviously.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice 2]

Follow NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour wherever

[Minouche Zamorodi]

you get your podcasts before we get back to the show, have you checked out the NPR app recently? From live radio and digital stories to videos and podcasts, the NPR app has everything you love about NPR in One place. It's the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. On the show today, we have been talking to Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys, Boys and Men. When Richard first started writing his book of boys and men, he says that publishers felt the topic was too political, too hot to touch, and that no one would want to read his research into why young men weren't doing as well academically, going to college less than women and having more mental health crises. But when the book came out in 2022, it was a surprise hit. Philanthropists started offering to fund his new institute, and politicians, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, Maryland's Wes Moore and Utah Governor Spencer Cox, have backed his policy proposals.

[Richard Reeves]

So what's happening, I think, is that slowly but surely this sensibility about boys and men is being built into the policy conversation and into the policy architecture, and that's starting to lead to some really exciting developments. I hope that within the next few years, actually having programs to help men in higher education, for example, having similar programs to get men into teaching and nursing, as we've seen in stem, would be great. I've just launched the Male Educator Network, which is specifically modelled on some of the organisations like the Society of Women Engineering, to try and get more men into teaching and support the men who are in teaching. I hope that within four or five years people are like, yeah, of course we would do that. Why wouldn't we do that? That we'll keep doing the other stuff too. So every year that goes past, it feels like the controversy quotient goes down a bit, and the more politicians and policymakers are talking about this in a positive way, then the more heat will come out of it. And also I'll risk saying this, that if you've got these mainstream politicians left and right, just engaging with this in a positive way, not in a culture wary way, but just doing something about it. I think that takes the wind out of the sails of the reactionaries, because they can no longer say that we're not doing anything. We can give them a whole long laundry list of things that we're doing. We're saying, you're talking about boys and men. We're actually doing stuff for them. Where's your policy agenda? You're good on podcasts, but where's your policy list? Like, we've, we've actually done a bunch of stuff for boys and men. Sorry, what have you done? That's the winning combination, I think.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

I mean, it's not as though culture shifting Culture doesn't matter. We see a lot of the most successful politicians who are really good at doing that, from Mayor Mamdani here in New York City to the White House. How do you begin to get these ideas into the culture as well and make them get them out of the State House? And they can't be obscure. Right. It has to be a sense of masculinity that will actually be embraced by everyone.

[Richard Reeves]

I think that's right. I think we have to improve the cultural conversation about this, but I think we have to do it quite carefully and quite slowly. Let's not play that culture war game in quite the same way. I think what we need is a. We need healthier role models and conversations, etc. I think it matters when you have a governor like Gavin Newsom, who is no conservative, standing up and saying, I want 10,000 more men into service. Right. The male service challenge. We need our men. And saying, we were wrong about this. We've got to do more on this. He then will go on to do excellent work on women and girls as well. And I could mention similar examples from the other governors, but that matters. And. And in some ways, just signaling that we've noticed and we care goes a long way, I think. In the end, I don't think men generally want. They don't want a men's party. They don't want a manifesto, a policy manifesto that's just about boys and men. In the end, they just want to know that they're included. Right. And that it's not just about women and girls. It's that they're not asking, I think, for a huge shift in the culture. They want to feel like they're not the problem. They want to know that we've got it, we're listening to them. And Mamdami is a good, interesting example. Actually. One of my supporters texted me after his win and said, I've just been looking at the exits. It looks like he did quite really well among young men. But I thought Trump did really well among young. What's happening? And I'm saying, well, what's happening is that, as I have been trying to say, young men's votes are up for grabs. They haven't somehow shifted into this other fixed position. And maybe they liked his energy and they liked his specificity. And here's the thing, maybe they liked his courage. Maybe they just liked the fact that he seemed like his own man and actually didn't lean very hard into lots of the kind of cultural culture tropes we've talked about before. And even if they didn't agree with him on policy in some cases, as they definitely didn't agree with Donald Trump on policy on many things, he seemed like a guy who was someone they could aspire to be. And so I think it's more important that we show what mature, positive masculinity looks like rather than telling people what it looks like.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Can I ask where sort of race and class figures into this conversation? Because the difference between a kid who maybe doesn't have access to really basic opportunities like getting out into the workforce or good teachers or supportive parents, that's going to be very different than another kid who's going to get an undergraduate degree but maybe feels very lonely for other reasons and doesn't know why he's getting a degree because everybody says AI is going to eat his job. And I'm just wondering, are you trying to break it out in some way depending on means and race?

[Richard Reeves]

I think some of these cultural questions about masculinity, my role, relational skills, those are not restricted to certain groups. I do think that at all levels of society, a lot of young men are struggling with those questions. It's just if you've got the resources, you're much more likely to be able to answer them or at least keep going while you're wrestling with them. But you're quite right that actually, if you intersect this with class and race, that's very, very different. The simple version of this is that if you take any level of economic or social disadvantage that will impact boys more than girls, it's not that it won't impact girls, but the education gaps, for example. This is a great example of this. And Sean Reardon out of Stanford has very good work on this. You see that there is a gender gap on most educational outcomes across the class distribution, but it's much smaller at the top than it is at the bottom. So the poorer the neighborhood, the weaker the school, the less stable the family structure is, the worse the boys will do relative to the girls. Right. So it's not that the girls aren't also going to suffer. So class compounds the gender gap in a big way. And for black boys and men in particular, you see very significant challenges. And there are lots and lots of measures where black boys and men are a long way behind Black women and girls. That's true for other groups of men, but it's particularly true for Black boys and men. So, for example, there are already twice as many black women going to and through colleges. There are Black men, men, HBCUs, now have historically black colleges and universities now have as many non black students at them as they have black men at them because the decline in the share of male enrollment HBCUs has been so significant. Obviously there's issues around incarceration, education, etc. And so you've got to have that sensibility and basically go to where the data is because honestly, not everything goes the way you're always going to expect it. So you can't decide in advance which intersections are going to generate which outcomes. And I think that's the problem with a lot of scholars is that they've decided in advance what the rank ordering is. Right? So women are always worse off than men, and certain groups are always worse off than white, et cetera. But if you then add class to the mix and you add geography to the mix, that's just not true. So let's be led by the data.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Where does it fit into? There's a trope, whether it's true or not, that men have such a hard time making friends that the sort of civic institution where, you know, the guys used to get together and play poker, or maybe they were in the Lions Club or whatever else there was, this sort of male gathering has stopped in some way. Are you finding that to be true? Is that part of the reason why there is also a lot of male loneliness and other mental health issues?

[Richard Reeves]

It's partly true, but it's a great example of what we were just talking about, which is the difference between class and gender as well. And it is something that I have had to change my mind on as the data has come in, honestly, because in my book and in the early parts of my work, I was very much talking about the male loneliness problem and through a very gendered lens. And there is, there are some surveys showing that loneliness rates are higher among men. But we've published work on this now looking at a much wider range of surveys, and we don't find much of a gender gap. We do find a bit class gap. It's more of a class story than a gender story, with those without college degrees being much more likely to be lonely than those with college degrees. And so again, like, who are we thinking about here? Who are we really worried about? Are we worried about our son who hasn't made friends in his dorm room at college? Sure, that's a worry that every parent might have, but the deep loneliness is actually among those with less economic power. There is is somewhat more social isolation among men, which is a little bit different to loneliness because that's Self, that's a subjective sense that you report on. And it does look to me as if male friendship, male socialization in the sense of kind of connection does seem to require more institutional support than female again, at the average. Right. I mean, stereotypically, like when I'm thinking about myself, my own friends, like, we have to do something thing together, right?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah.

[Richard Reeves]

We can't just like, I can't just say, hey, let's meet for a coffee. My friends would think, what are you talking about? What's wrong with you? Like, we have to go hiking or soccer or watch something or do something. We have to sort of, we have to pretend to be doing something else while we just being friends. And men are a bit more comfortable shoulder to shoulder than face to face. It turns out that seems to be true on average. But what that means is that we do have to have a bit more intention and social structure around male interaction. Women on the average women to be a little bit better at just making those social connections organically and naturally without the need for it to be because you're starting a pickleball league or whatever. And so what that means is that we need institutions for men. Right. And so whether it's church or union or club or whatever. And I'm a bit worried there's a suspicion about all male groups and all male spaces. And I get why from historically. Right, of course I get why. Fight club, that's what people are worried about. Or the old boys club or whatever. Like, it's like there's a Pew survey on this showing that like Democrat and Democrat leaning women are most likely to say that all female social groups are good for society. In the majority of them say that all male social groups are bad for society. Now they could be thinking about fraternities. We don't know what they're thinking about in answer to that question, but. And there's some evidence that women are now more likely to travel with other women in a group and so on than men are. So the kind of girls weekend away is more common than the boys weekend, et cetera. And look, I don't in any way want to inhibit women from doing it, of course. Hopefully that's clear by now. But I do still have some female friends. Like, yeah, I'm not sure I want these guys all going off on their own together really, because we kind of need to go off on our own together. We like hanging out with our mates sometimes. And the suspicion of that or the fear of that is maybe a problem now.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Well, you know, and maybe Social media has to do with that as well. With male circles going and playing drums and, you know, beating of chess and extreme sports and pain inflicted in order to reclaim your manliness.

[Richard Reeves]

Yes. These weekends, there's the new. There's a thing called the new. I think I tried it. The new Warrior Weekend is one of the mixes, I'll say in the spirit of doing the research for my book. I tried to do one and I lasted an hour. Like, I'm out of here. I really, I mean, I thought, I

[Minouche Zamorodi]

thought you thought he was sissy.

[Richard Reeves]

There were some issues right up front. Let's just say that I'm like, guys, like, is this. You're just going to be mean? Really unnecessarily mean and brutal. And they're like, yeah, that's part of the point of it. You know what? I'm out. I'm out. Don't need that. I've had enough. I don't need artificially inflicted pain, thank you very much. But they're like, well, that's part of the point. I'm like, yeah, okay, I'm out. And then they had this very earnest conversation about why I was leaving. I said, I'm leaving because you guys are just a bunch of bullying each other. And there are good versions of things like that, right? There are good versions of men being in community with each other. There are good versions even of sort of rites of passage and done in a good way and elevating each other and finding ways to progress through and help each other and mentor each other and maybe older men helping kind of younger men. And there are good non weird, non bullying, non creepy versions of those. And so let's not just categorize everything like that. Like when my friends and I go away for the weekend, it's like a quote hiking weekend. We drink and we eat and hike and chat and we just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. You know, it's. I would share this story at once on one of these where she's on a night out and I accidentally butt dialed my wife while I'm out with my male friends. And so she got this long voicemail from me out with my, you know, I think it was like five or six of us or whatever and we're out having a quite a rowdy night. So she gets a really long voicemail and she said, I knew I shouldn't have listened but like I just couldn't stop myself just listening to a little bit of it. Cause you could hear the conversation as she said. And then I got 10 minutes into the argument about whether Star wars was better than Star Trek.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Oh, wow.

[Richard Reeves]

And decided it was safe to stop listening.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

Yeah.

[Richard Reeves]

And I'm like, yeah, that is kind of the stuff we talk about. I don't know what you're afraid. And it's not, of course, that's not all we talk about. We will talk about our wives and our relationships and, you know, stuff that maybe, like, is more personal to those spaces. So I'm glad you stopped listening at that point. I can't remember what you went on to. But look, that's part of the point, isn't it? And I suspect that women listening will say, you might say the same thing too. Like, when you hang out with your female friends who are kind of similar situations to you, like, isn't part of the point of that to talk about your relationships and how you're doing and stuff that is maybe harder to talk to your partner about, or stuff that's about your partner and your relationship and sex and things like that? Isn't that part of the point?

[Minouche Zamorodi]

So where does all this lead? I mean, how do you define this new version of masculinity and how do we get there?

[Richard Reeves]

I strongly believe that you don't. You don't tell boys and young men how to be a man. You show them. And so that's about having more men in the lives of boys, whether that's teachers, mentors. There's a huge shortage of male volunteers. So anybody who's listening to this and wondering how they can help, well, one thing you could do is sign up to be a big. Because Big Brothers, Big Sisters is a huge lack of male volunteers and therefore a massive waiting list for the boys and other institutions where you're kind of just putting men in the lives of boys. And so there's this real concern about these negative male role models that boys are encountering either online or on screens, one way or the other. And the best answer to that, I think, is less having more positive male role models online. They're there, and we should encourage that. But it's more to have honest to God, flesh and blood meant in their lives. And so when I think about, like, the negative influences that many of the kids that my son teaches in fifth grade are getting, I think maybe the best answer to that is the island him at the front of the classroom and then coaching the girls soccer team afterwards and not saying, here's how to be a man, but just showing them, right, that you can be a guy and get be into your soccer and, you know, be into playful stuff that's maybe codes a bit more male. But you're also incredibly caring and a teacher and love kids. We can't script masculinity in this very narrow way any more than we should script femininity. If I try to write a script for what it means to be a mature and pro social positive woman, I think I would get into all kinds of trouble. And not just because I'm doing it as a man, but because a lot of women be like, no, that's not how I want to be a woman. I want to be a woman like this. And I want to be a woman like this. And I want to be a woman like this. The great gift of the women's movement has been to expand the ways in which it's okay to be a woman, to expand the opportunities for identity that women can take. And I'm not saying that we finished that job yet that we should do the same for men. So we shouldn't be trying to narrow what it means to be a man. We should be trying to expand what it means to be a man, but also not in any way pathologizing the things that tend to skew a little bit more male. So if men are a little bit more risk taking, let's channel that in a positive direction. And so I worry a lot. Sometimes people say, what's your solution? What's your formula for masculinity? And you either end up just saying something that just sounds incredibly vague or you end up with a procedure. Prescription are somehow like A plus B minus C is the modern masculine formula. And that's not the world we want to live in. I don't want to put my wife or my female friends in some sort of box as to what it means to be a good woman. And I don't want my sons. I don't want to put them in a box either.

[Minouche Zamorodi]

That was Richard Reeves. He is the president of the Institute for Boys and Men and author of the book of Boys and Men Men. You can hear his full [e-mail] if you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, Please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis lifeline. Thank you so much for listening to our episode. It was produced by Rachel Faulkner White and Avery Keatley. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. And our production staff at NPR also include James Delahousy, Katie Monteleone, Fiona Guerin, Matthew Cloutier, Harsha Nahada and Phoebe Lett. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineer was Becky Brown. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Helen Walters, Roxanne Hylash, and Daniela Belarrazzo. I'm Manoush Zamorodi and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's flexpath Learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.