What’s Going Wrong with Men?

How Did Men Get to This Point?

Saturday Night Live’s narrator cooed, “Man Park, it’s like a dog park for males…. This unpleasant truth was highlighted in a sketch that was made around a year ago. Men are suffering from a crisis of meaning, connection, and contribution.

According to a research published by the Institute for Family Studies in January 2021, “Girls are outperforming males at every level, from elementary school through graduate school.” However, this isn’t happening mostly because girls are more successful than boys. Andrew Yang of The Washington Post explained why: “Boys and men across all areas and ethnic groups have been failing, both absolutely and comparatively, for years.”

The number of children growing up without a father has increased dramatically during the 1990s, at the same time as men’s median income has fallen. Boys get twice as many diagnoses of ADHD and receive 70 percent of all D’s and F’s thrown out by teachers. More than five times as many boys as females wind up in juvenile jail. Over the next five years, there will be two female college graduates for every man.

On Bill Maher’s program Real Time, NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway made the observation, “The most unstable countries in the world have one thing in common. They complain that “they have too many lonely, broke [guys],” yet that describes the typical member of today’s society all too well.

This coincides with a severe crisis in people’s capacity to interact with one another. Galloway noted an even more shocking statistic: fewer than 1 in 3 men under the age of 30 have had sex in the last year. Andrew Yang noted that “roughly one-third of men are either unemployed or out of the workforce,” and that “more U.S. men ages 18 to 34 are now living with their parents than with romantic partners.”

Despite its startling appearance, the final statistic has nothing to do with sexuality. In reality, it’s a symptom of a larger issue. In today’s society, young men are less likely to develop the kind of relationships that have traditionally captivated them with other individuals.

The mystery is why.

Maher acknowledges the influence of digital media, but he maintains that it deprives males of the opportunity to develop the social skills necessary to create meaningful relationships. According to Galloway, Tinder in particular has been a “disaster,” adding to the false impression that a market exists for enabling behaviors like gaming addiction and pornographic viewing. These sites make it seem like finding joy takes zero effort or giving anything up. Nothing more than a screen.

To paraphrase Andrew Yang: “Here’s the straightforward reality I’ve heard from many males. Having a purpose in life is important to us. We want to think of ourselves as contributors to a greater whole, as members of a family, a team, a military unit, or a brotherhood. The problem of inactivity is one that we handle very poorly.

There is a myth that has to be debunked: that if we assist young men succeed, it would be at the price of women’s rights, or that if girls thrive, boys will fail. That is completely not the case. Boys who are taught to be strong, independent men who put the needs of their families above their own are the finest candidates for marriage and fatherhood. They also play an important role in preventing boys from broken homes from developing aggressive or criminal tendencies.

Another error would be to blame women for men’s insecurities because they aren’t sexually accessible or because they don’t make their partners “feel needed.” This is contradicted by the statistics. The availability of women who are interested in having sexual encounters with males is the first positive indicator. Second, a man’s foundation for future success is not the community at large, but his family. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. The absence of a father figure is the main cause of this problem.

Christians have a solution for a culture that destroys the positive sides of sexual diversity, appeases men with vices, and offers sexual liberation without regard for the institution of the family. One half of it is men and women being called to be who they were made to be according to God’s original, good purpose for them. What Christ does to restore what sin has ruined is the other side of the equation. His life shows us how to treat women with respect, rein in our worst masculine tendencies, and sacrifice ourselves for a cause greater than ourselves; all of which are aspects of His redeeming work. And He extends an invitation to all people, regardless of their history, to come into the loving arms of a Father who will never abandon them.