Vincent's Reviews > Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It

I checked this out from my library thinking this would actually discuss the wellbeing of people but this just wasn’t it.

First of all the author juxtaposes the argument of this book in opposition to feminism and women. Mental health issues and suicide rates are high in men and the wellbeing of masculine people is a serious concern. But to pit it against a movement advocating for the well-being or others isn’t helpful. Be better than that. Stand on your own two feet and say this group of people need help because they’re humans. But honestly this book wants to be more a antithesis to feminism than do anything helpful.

Here are multiple examples: only brings up Black men to justify points and knock back against feminism (at no point does it feel like the author actually cares about the wellbeing of Black men), doesn’t consider anyone outside of cisgender men or cisgender women and doesn’t even bother to mention intersex people, similarly no nuance in discussing LGBT+ or other racial identities, does not identify the groups these statistics represent (is the pay gap info about ALL women? Or just white women? Regardless there’s many issues with both that fail to understand nuances in intersectionality, which this book shits on for no reason, that highlight that non white women make less than white women and non white men make less than white men AND with all of this factored in women STILL make less than men), and a quick Google search highlighted that not all of the statistics were valid or reliable.

On top of this….what were these policy suggestions? Men teaching boys won’t change anything. Having a good teacher in general will change lives but that’s not what this is arguing. Also neither will having men go into trades work. If anything these are just playing into stereotypes that men need to be doing jobs that are deemed masculine further perpetuating toxic masculinity. And the author brings up HEALS (aka helping professions) but CONVENIENTLY leaves out that men CONSISTENTLY make more in these professions solely due to being men. Male nurses will be offered and often make significantly more than their female counterparts solely because they are a man and hospitals want male nurses. My policy suggestion is unpacking why you think to justify that your group needs help you have to knock down other groups? Why are you so quick to throw away toxic masculinity when the topics depicted in it, like men feeling like they cannot express their emotions, contributes to the issues that are discussed?

For me this was just a complete miss.