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Why society is failing men and boys

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We need to turn this around.

With no purpose and a society that doesn’t significantly value boys and men, many are simply self-selecting out of society altogether. (iStock, courtesy of contributor JulPo)

I hear about addiction, depression and a feeling that there is no hope. Some of them tell me that my music helped them find a little light in the darkness. But while I’m glad I can be that for some, the fact that so many feel this way is a massive problem.

I consider myself lucky I had a dad who showed me what being a man is all about. He was a blue-collar guy from western Massachusetts. He was a machinist, a construction worker, an entrepreneur, and a business owner. 

While we didn’t do the same type of work, he was and has always been the type of man I aspire to be. So many young men today don’t have that, and it's showing.

But it’s not just about absent fathers. We’re also seeing fewer and fewer spaces that exist exclusively for men and boys to connect with each other. This trend is problematic for several reasons.

First, it reflects the lack of value we place on men – which can be viewed as an outright hostility to men and boys by society. Second, because of that lack of value we place on men, they no longer feel their own value in society and choose to opt out altogether.

And this gap in education is spilling downstream into the job market. As Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., noted in his report "The State of the Working and Non-Working Man," men are decreasingly participating in traditionally male jobs.

Rubio notes, "In 1985, the median male wage was sufficient to provide comprehensive health insurance, reliable transportation, good housing, a healthy diet, and college tuition, with 20% left over for other consumption and saving. The same man in 2022 could work the whole year to pay for middle-class essentials, and still come up 10 weeks short."

With no purpose and a society that doesn’t significantly value boys and men, many are simply self-selecting out of society altogether.

I believe we are at a turning point, and while I’m not the first to say it – and won’t be the last – if we don’t take these issues seriously, we’re going to lose a whole generation of men and the families they’d help build. That’s something society can’t afford to lose.