America Has a Real 'Boy Crisis' on Its Hands

As women increasingly call for equality and an end to sexual harassment and violence, and highlight problems with rape culture and toxic masculinity, you might think that the US is in the midst of a "girl crisis." But according to author Warren Farrell, it's actually a "boy crisis" currently enveloping the country, he writes in a USA Today column. Boys' IQs are dropping and they're having academic problems. Boys and young men are at a higher risk of suicide than girls and young women. They're more likely to be mass shooters, terrorism recruits, or prison inmates. Their life expectancy is dropping as women's life expectancy holds steady. Males with no college education have a five times higher risk, compared to the national average, of being unemployed.

And this crisis is also "a crisis of shame—of boys feeling that their masculinity is toxic; that the future is female; that dads are but bumbling fools or deadbeats," writes Farrell (who has been described as "the intellectual father of the men's rights movement," but who himself does not use the term men's rights; he actually first rose to prominence as a supporter of feminism). In Farrell's view, the problem is an increasing number of boys being raised with minimal or no involvement from their fathers. "Dad-deprivation is a significant predictor of the increasing rate of male suicide, drug overdose, obesity and withdrawal into video game addiction. It even predicts by age 9 a shorter life expectancy," Farrell writes. The answer? Fewer divorces, more male figures in schools, and a White House Council on Boys and Men, among other things. Read Farrell's full column. (This school offers a course in "Angry White Males.")