A couple weeks ago I published an OpEd in the Washington Post about the struggles of boys and men.  It received a lot of attention, including discussions in the national media.

But I’m far from the first person to sound the alarm regarding male struggles to develop and flourish.  Warren Farrell, PhD and John Gray, PhD published ‘The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It’ several years ago and made a very powerful, data-driven case.

Warren and John write about a Path-to-Purpose Generation Gap for boys that leads to massive challenges.  They hold that boys are told to value themselves for external attributes – strength and self-sacrifice, embodied in a heroic ideal – that end up running afoul of long-term Emotional Intelligence.  This can be encapsulated in a pretty simple phrase:  “I’m fine, leave me alone.”  They also write about the high incidence of ADHD accompanied by medication.

The book explores why Dads are so important for boys; indeed the data shows that having a Dad is an enormous boost for outcomes from education to health to earnings to avoiding legal problems and incarceration.  Dad-deprivation is, unfortunately, correlated to 70 negative data points for boys.  Dads have a tendency to enforce boundaries in families in ways that aid development.  They also tend to roughhouse and tease in manners that spur both empathy and resilience.

I interviewed Warren for the podcast this week – as you can imagine it was an absorbing conversation.  Warren served on the board of directors of the National Organization of Women in New York for quite some time, so he’s something of a feminist.  But during this time, he was exposed to many men and became equally passionate about their struggles.

Warren actually interviewed me along with other Democratic presidential candidates back in 2019.  He noted that a couple candidates expressed interest in men’s issues, but didn’t want to say or do anything official because they feared it would turn off certain voters.

This is something that makes me very sad – it seems plainly obvious that boys and men succeeding is both a condition for a thriving society and would help everyone.  I hope that the Forward Party becomes a voice and a force for both helping to recognize the depths and seriousness of the Boy Crisis and also pushes for real investment, commitment and solutions.