The populist playbook blames the dislocation faced by many men on mythical ‘others’. Progressives should take these problems seriously
We need to talk about the troubles of men.
No, really. Even if the thought of being asked to sympathise with the modern male struggle makes you roll your eyes or turn the page, it’s worth examining that irritable kneejerk reaction more closely. Progressives should be able to acknowledge some real and serious problems – boys underachieving at school, high suicide rates among middle-aged men in particular, the online radicalisation of an angry fringe drawn to violent ideologies – without making women and girls feel guilty about their achievements or pretending that feminism has somehow gone too far. But that balance can be surprisingly hard to achieve in practice, as a thoughtful new book by the former Downing Street staffer Richard Reeves makes clear.
Reeves is a card-carrying liberal feminist, a former chief of staff to Nick Clegg turned policy wonk and (as he writes) the parent the school was asked to call when the kids got sick, except that invariably they’d call his extremely busy and high-flying wife instead. He is very clear that the problem isn’t female success, but some men’s inability to adjust to a world where they can no longer dominate simply as a right. But Reeves is also a father of three sons now living in the US, where he has watched the Republican right capitalise all too successfully on the rage of the supposedly left-behind male. In Of Boys and Men, he puts his finger on something uncomfortable.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
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