In a 2022 op-ed in the Washington Post, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang laid out “one of the biggest problems facing America: Boys and men across all regions and ethnic groups have been failing, both absolutely and relatively, for years. This is catastrophic for our country.”
I’ve been a high school English teacher for almost 30 years, so I’ve been hearing about this crisis for a long time. Some typical headlines: “Boys in crisis: Schools are failing young males," USA Today; “America's Boys Are in Serious Trouble," Education Week; “The Crisis of Men and Boys," New York Times. This is said to be happening all across the developed world. Educators and newspapers in Australia, Britain and across Europe bemoan a “masculinity crisis.”
