The trouble with men: ‘We’re constantly competing, and we all lose’

Article here. Excerpt:

‘‘Now that we’re men,” sing Spongebob Squarepants and his friend Patrick in a well-known animated movie, “we’re tough enough to save the day.”

In the real world, however – or at least, our bit of the western industrialised world – it’s becoming clear that while men may be tough, they’re also having a tough time. Rates of male graduation and employment are plummeting as fast as statistics for imprisonment, aggression and suicide are rocketing.

Can art play a part in changing this distressing pattern? The American actor, poet and activist Carlos Andrés Gómez is convinced that it can. Gómez has been described as Keats meets Bob Marley meets Tupac Shakur. He co-starred with Denzel Washington in the Spike Lee movie Inside Man, played a gay paramedic in ER and appeared in an episode of Friends.'