The average American now checks their smartphone 47 times a day, according to Deloitte’s latest Global Mobile Consumer Survey. Among Americans aged 18 to 24, this rises to 86 times a day. These numbers have remained relatively consistent for several years, indicating how smartphones have become a regular part of everyday life for most Americans....
Category: Boys
American Popular Culture Has Portrayed Fathers As Drooling Idiots For WAY TOO LONG
Most people see thousands of media images daily. Over time, these portrayals help shape our expectations of parenthood, in ways some call “gender stereotyping.” While the media now lambastes fatherhood, portrayals weren’t always this way. Bob Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, said: “While dads in ‘Leave It to Beaver’ and ‘The Donna...Continue reading
Can Schools Help Fill the Void Fatherless Boys and Girls Experience? ABSOLUTELY!
Male primary school teachers have become an endangered species. While pre-school and kindergarten gender disparities are worst, where women comprise 97.7 percent of teachers, elementary and middle schools aren’t significantly different. Between 1987 and 2012, the percentage of male teachers declined in every measured period, falling to 23.7% of all teachers. The future gender uniformity was exhibited in a...Continue reading
Feminizing Boys as We Masculinize Girls
Should we try to make our sons like what our daughters used to be? One of the things I remember from my graduate school experience was learning about “Occam’s razor.” Basically, what I recall is that it meant that when competing theories arise, it is best to use the one that makes the fewest...Continue reading
Does Concern for Boys Put You In the Alt-Right?
Progressives still label worry about men’s and boys’ problems as conservative. So there I was, reading a piece in the New Yorker by Steve Coll, titled “Donald Trump’s Fake News Tactics(link is external),” where Trump was seen as “draw(ing) on the contemporary idioms of the alt-right.” Quoting a report by researchers Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis, Coll...Continue reading
America Has A Major Fatherlessness Problem on Its Hands
After yet another school shooting, which we all knew would eventually happen, the connection between fatherlessness and school shooters has finally been seriously exposed. Several videos, discussing the links between fatherlessness and school shooters, generated over ten million views and articles drew an unprecedented level of interest. In fact, for the first time in decades, the issue broke into the national media, in...Continue reading
Check ‘Em Lads: Why Young Men Should Care About Testicular Cancer
In general, guys do not think about their testicles on a day-to-day basis. Unless we have some pain or feel an abnormality, we let them go on with their day. The testicles actually are very important to the male body. The testicles serve as a factory for sperm production, which is important for fertility. The...Continue reading
White Boy: A Summer Job and the Making of Manhood, Part III
20. Mid-July was a transition point for me in the warehouse. For the first time, I now had something interesting to do over the lunch break. In addition, I had become expert in my work, and had already cut the size of the pile of damaged bags in half. I felt that I could actually...Continue reading
White Boy: A Summer Job and the Making of Manhood, Part II
8. Over the next few days, I got better at my job. I became familiar with the dinky and organized all aspects of the reconditioning process. My arms and hands began to grow accustomed to the work. By the end of the first week, my daily output of reconditioned bags began to exceed the average...Continue reading
White Boy: A Summer Job and the Making of Manhood, Part I
0. ON A HOT SUMMER AFTERNOON in 1953, I answered the doorbell at our family home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was fourteen years old, and alone in the house at the time. I opened the front door and looked through the screen door to see a black man, naked to the waist and sweating...