Young men are struggling. They need help, not hounding

Article here. Excerpt:

'Former President Barack Obama’s recent scolding of Black men for not considering a woman, Democrat Kamala Harris, a viable presidential candidate, has been much debated. What hasn’t been debated, and should be, speaks to a larger issue among many young men of all races.

Obama’s accusation that misogyny was at play — a fraught, oversimplified one — overlooks deeper trends and factors. Many young men of all races feel alienated from not just the Democratic Party itself but from a culture and future that doesn’t seem to include or welcome them.

For a long time, this sentiment has been dismissed as merely whining from a misogynistic group of over-privileged men’s rights activists. But growing trends speak to undeniable realities: The lower grade point averages boys earn in high school follow them throughout college. They are far less likely than female peers to attend four-year colleges, far more likely to implode when faced with academic struggles and less likely to graduate and to attend graduate school. (No, young men are not flocking to well-paying trade jobs or construction.) They are less likely than young women to hold down jobs, even with a college degree.

Other future prospects can seem equally futile. Males are more likely to be single, as well as romantically and sexually dormant: 63% of men under 30 describe themselves as single, versus 34% of women the same age.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that men, especially younger ones, are suffering far more from mental health struggles than we realize (health care workers are just starting to realize this), are three to four times more likely than females to die by suicide and are at the fore of the loneliness epidemic.

Two things are increasingly clear: Young men cannot simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps alone. Second, the common one-stop-shop response to their struggles — that it’s all a result of “toxic masculinity” — is overly simplistic and only exacerbates the problem. Males ages 16 to 29 are twice as likely as female peers to find this damning label unproductive and offensive at best, wounding at worst.'