Esa's Notebook

In 2011, Philip Zimbardo gave a TED Talk called “The Demise of Guys,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJgZ4s2E3w).  “The Demise” here referred to the fact that we are facing a new world in which young men are getting left behind. There is a new generation of boys and men who are shy, socially awkward, emotionally removed, and unable to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school, and employment.

In 2015 dr. Warren Farrell in his TED Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi1oN1icAYc ) addressed the boy crisis. He said that the number one cause of the boy crisis is the absence of a father in the family and the boy’s  life. Boy crisis resides where the dads don’t reside (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAqCISsZEM4&list=WL&index=1). “Fatherless” boys feel that they have no structure or discipline, because in general fathers are more involved in boundary enforcement, while mothers are more geared towards empathy.

Another cause of the boy crisis is very much related to the fact that boys go from the dad deprivation in home to a male teacher deprivation. We know that boys do better with male teachers on average. But we have also discovered this year, as a result of the UN  worldwide study , that the feminization of education is a contributing factor to boys’  problems. The UN study found that boys all over the world are 1/3 more likely to be graded higher at a reading test when the teacher does not know that the person who took the test was a boy .

The third cause of the boy crisis is lack of purpose. According to Farrell, when the feminist movement came in, they did a wonderful thing which was the girls’ expanded sense of purpose from the conventional, i.e.  raising children. But there wasn’t any similar help for boys to regain  purpose, except for  earning money or alternatively being  a loser.

What should be done then?

It is evident that one of the most important things is to strengthen the role of fathers and male figures in general in families and in boys’ lives. The second focus is to embrace boys’ unique identities in education. The third factor is to find out about boys’ wishes and goals, what oppresses them and what they are disappointed with. In other words, you must familiarize yourself with a boy’s world. This may not be a task that is outsourced to professionals, but it should be done by a person close to him. We ought to support their masculinity, being what they basically are.