DECEMBER 12, 2025 | OPINION | By Fiona Frankel
Last spring, I wrote an article titled “As Much As I Don’t Want to, I Care About the Crisis of Men.” This piece is not meant to contradict my former opinion; I am writing more so to demonstrate how my views have adjusted within recent months.
The crisis of men, the male loneliness epidemic, the masculinity crisis: whatever one may call it, the subject has dominated political and sociological discussions within recent years. The numbers are tiredly repeated: two-thirds of those in the top 10% of high school classes are women, while the bottom 10% consists of two-thirds men. In the workplace, one-third of men with only a high school degree are out of the labor force. And health-wise, deaths related to suicide and drug overdose are three to four times higher for men than women.
Earlier this semester, I took United States Politics & Government, a course in which political polarization was a prevalent topic. As we discussed gender gaps in voting patterns, the conversation inevitably shifted to the contemporary struggles of men. As a male classmate began reciting the numbers, I could see the discontent from several women in the classroom: shifting in seats, rolling eyes, shaking heads. One female student raised her hand to disagree, expressing frustration that these current struggles men are facing are ones that every marginalized demographic has experienced for centuries.
“Actually,” my professor interjected, “all of the research shows that [he’s] right.” The dissent ended there. This is not the first time the crisis of men has felt like an indisputable issue to be argued with. And I have usually aligned myself with one end of the discourse: while I am a staunch feminist, I have worked hard to educate myself on the current crisis of men. I bought and read Richard Reeves’ bestselling book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It, in which Reeves recommends equal shared parental leave, increasing the number of male teachers in early education and starting boys in school a year later than girls to correlate mental maturity.
And these issues have gained political attention as well. The Republican Party has effectively capitalized on them, scapegoating an assortment of identities—immigrants, people of color, Democrats and, of course, women—for why men are in the situations they are. Conservatives were the first, in fact, to address the crisis of men, albeit through toxic representations of masculinity such as Andrew Tate, Ben Shapiro, Dana White and, most obviously, President Donald Trump.
But beyond these extremists’ embrace of the masculinity crisis, it has been wholly accepted into mainstream sociological debates as well. Democratic figures such as California Governor Gavin Newsom and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy have voiced concerns similar to those of Reeves. Podcaster and professor Scott Galloway, who describes himself as a “full-throated capitalist” but advocates for bigger government as a self-proclaimed moderate, recently authored “Notes On Being a Man,” in which he presents an aspirational vision of masculinity.
The majority of the concerns regarding men are ostensibly obvious. Rising suicide rates, falling behind in academia, losses in the workforce: these are issues that, when trending among a particular group, deserve attention. And yet, these are issues that have impacted every other demographic to a far greater extent throughout history due to oppressive structures that have been created and maintained primarily by white men.
Galloway’s ideas have been embraced by the left: he advocates for a new vision of masculinity that is rooted in a repeated tenet that men “protect, provide, and procreate.” However, his stance is rooted in the economic perspective. The man endorsed by Gavin Newsom for his ideas of masculinity openly shared, “I tell my sons, when you’re in the company of women, you pay for everything. And if you can’t, you don’t go out … A woman is not going to have sex with a man who splits the bill with her.”
I have made a concerted effort to care about the crisis of men. I take the time to learn about it through literature and life experience. I refrain from rolling my eyes or ending the conversation when a male peer tells me he is, in fact, a minority as a conservative male at Colorado College. I take on the emotional burdens of my male friends in a way only a therapist, in reality, should. I try to understand that it is demoralizing for white men to be rejected for jobs with the slight chance that it was because of diversity quotas.
And I am exhausted. In conservative columnist David Brooks’ 2022 opinion editorial, “The Crisis of Men and Boys,” he cites the regular array of numbers, including this: “Men who entered the work force in 1983 will earn about 10 percent less in real terms in their lifetimes than those who started a generation earlier. Over the same period, women’s lifetime earnings have increased 33 percent.”
What Brooks fails to include is that women’s lifetime earnings were roughly half that of men’s in 1983. The gender pay gap has since narrowed but remains persistent, as women in 2025 now make an average 85% of their male counterparts’ earnings.
Last year, I wrote that I care about the crisis of men in part because “the consequences of ignoring men’s precarity at this time will predominantly impact women and other marginalized groups that fall victim to the resulting violence and discrimination.” I stand by these words. The heavy majority of the discussions around male struggles focus solely on the repercussions for men. What is omitted is how this generation of men can be deeply harmful to women.
Some of my closest friends are men and these friendships benefit me differently from my relationships with women. They can be thoughtful, particularly when discussing issues surrounding sex and hookup culture, and their perspectives are candid in ways that my female friends often shy away from.
But with these relationships comes tolerance. My male friends, as they have demonstrated anecdotally, will never understand some experiences that impact me deeply as a woman. They will never understand the self-consciousness and discomfort of walking by a male sports team or members of a fraternity, who know far more about your private life than you have permitted. They cannot comprehend the quiet frustration of paying more for an Uber when it’s unsafe to walk home at night, the despondency of hearing strict female professors casually deemed a bitch by male classmates or the fear of how their discussions of romantic interests may translate to the way I am talked about.
To be fair, not having lived these experiences is not their fault. Ideally, I and all women would not have sexism and misogyny occasionally define our emotional wellbeing. But there is something to be said for having friends with a shared understanding of these tribulations, and that is where my male friendships will nearly always fall short.
And of course, the occasional slur is dropped. It is the sacrifice of not only the “chill girl,” the “bruh girl” and the “guy’s girl,” but what nearly every woman with any platonic interaction with men will face. And I see myself, as well as other women, holding our male peers to a far lower standard than that of other women. We regard the inconsiderate comments and the casual “bitch” and “slut” as permissible because, if we were to react—or in their opinion, overreact—how many male friends would we be left with?
What my experiences have fundamentally taught me is that daily challenges, frustrations and discrimination are ones I take with a grain of salt, constantly trying to find ways to improve my quality of life in spite of these events. I go on runs to relieve anxiety and attend biweekly therapy sessions. I cultivate a community of predominantly female friends that support me and align with my general beliefs, not because I am intolerant, but because I usually choose not to put myself in situations with people who hold offensive views.
A Substack post by freelance cultural writer Antonia Bentel summed it up well. Compared to women, men are purportedly helpless. The discourse surrounding the crisis of men is predicated upon the idea that the male population is being consistently failed by society, as though those structures were not both built by and for men. Bentel asked the basic question missing from the entire discussion on the male loneliness epidemic: if men are struggling so much, are they doing anything about it?
To explore this question, Bentel attended a workshop in London titled “No Longer Lonely: Male Discussion Group.” Sipping a pint, Bentel sat and listened as nearly a dozen people discussed and complained about the struggles they face as single, middle-aged men. One man shared that he “just wants mates to watch Arsenal with,” adding that his friends who are now husbands and fathers seem to have little time for him anymore. Other attendees chimed in with agreement, citing the frustration of unanswered texts and unreciprocating women.
“What strikes me,” Bentel wrote, “is how men experience any social friction as abandonment. Their friends get girlfriends, wives, children; or they simply stop replying or going out—and suddenly it’s the end of intimacy forever.”
And yet, I remain sympathetic to them, mostly because I can see where my male peers lose sight of agency. Men, particularly white men, are born with entitlement: as James Brown sang in 1966, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” Any hurdle they face is most often due to the costs of feminism, the Civil Rights Movement, LGBTQ+ progress and more societal change in which marginalized groups are gaining—but remain lacking—rights after centuries of oppression.
Race cannot be omitted in this conversation. In every struggle that men are facing, men of color experience it to a greater extent. Richard Reeves argues that economic mobility disproportionately affects Black men, also pointing out the negative stereotypes associated with men of color that subject them to higher rates of police brutality and incarceration.
But these are predominantly issues of race, less so of gender. In an opinion piece by the former mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, he links unaffordable housing to the crisis of men. While there is a proven correlation between racial inequality and housing, Emanuel ignores this distinction; his argument proposes that “American men are still raised to believe that their role is to act as providers and protectors. And when men whose self-worth is tied up in that aspiration realize they’ll never be able to buy a home, they’re bound to feel shame and anger.”
Emanuel is not wrong. But men feeling despondent due to the societal expectations they have founded and continue to perpetuate is not the pressing issue he claims it to be. Unaffordable housing is a critical challenge that people of color face disproportionately, with the potential of leading to homelessness, not just shame and anger.
Throughout Of Boys and Men, Reeves stresses that addressing men’s issues is not zero-sum. He acknowledges the persisting inequities that women face and advocates for a dual approach to all issues, though his research remains somewhat exclusive to males. But in a capitalist society in which education is costly, housing is unaffordable and healthcare costs are rising, it often does not pan out that way.
Education, for example, is a pivotal talking point in the crisis of men. They are falling behind women academically, producing lower test scores and struggling in an environment that, according to Reeves, is not built for men. They have fewer male role models in adolescent education, as the majority of K-12 teachers are women.
Yet as New Yorker opinion columnist Jessica Winter points out, women have dominated the educator field for no other reason than that early public-education advocates expanded the school system by hiring female teachers over males because they could pay them less.
And while boys struggle in early childhood education, which is an issue that absolutely should be addressed—I am wholeheartedly in favor of Reeves’ redshirting proposal—they also benefit from gender-based affirmative action during the college admissions process. Later in life, they occupy 65 percent of high-paying jobs; 91 percent of CEOs are men.
This begs the most pressing and frustrating question regarding the crisis of men, for every woman who has been told that she should care. Every marginalized group—women, people of color, LGBTQ+ identities, those with disabilities—has been systemically forced to adapt to a society built by white men that continually subjects them to discrimination. Why is it that when white men become the subjects of struggle, it is deemed a crisis?
It is hard to feel sympathetic to American men, a demographic that is growing increasingly conservative, when women across the country are actively being stripped of their rights because of these very ideologies. When I am told that conservative white men on this campus feel uncomfortable voicing their political opinions in class, it is difficult to hold space for that as I simultaneously see a growing culture of sexual violence against women at my own school.
This is not a black and white issue, nor should it be. I remain constantly conflicted as to what issues I should invest my time in and how much this particular subject deserves my attention. What I do know for certain, however, is that life is suffering. Everyone is facing a different challenge, and these do not exist in a vacuum; we live in a country in which white men hold the highest amount of privilege. And while we can acknowledge their trouble, we must hold them within the context of a society where they have always had an advantage.