“Can we have a problem without a villain?”

I think/hope I have written before here about how much I adore Richard Reeves, who seems to be one of the only sane voices in the “crisis of masculinity” discourse. He has a great interview here in The Sun this month. Most if it is similar points to what he’s said in other places: that we need to be able to recognize that both boys and girls are struggling in different ways, that we need messaging targeted at men on the left or else they will vote for Joe Rogan, that family courts kinda suck.

But what makes me hopeful about Richard (we are on a first-name basis now) is that he is good at marketing. He always comes up with clever new phrases and anecdotes to illustrate the same basic points, which is critical if you want your social movement to get anywhere.

I really like this quote about “a problem without a villain,” because it tells you something not just about the masculinity crisis, but offers a kind of meta-insight about our larger discourse, and there’s a little something in the paragraph for everyone to relate to, which makes it feel much less condescending than what you often here from enthusiastic activist types:

Where I think the debate goes wrong sometimes is when people look at these disadvantages for men and boys and try to find a villain or an oppressor. They’ll claim the “feminist woke takeover of institutions” is causing men’s problems. That’s just horseshit, and it distracts us from structural issues. For example, the school system doesn’t work quite as well for boys. It’s not intentional; there’s no feminist plot here. I have never argued that men are being intentionally excluded. Those are all myths—and dangerous ones at that. But that doesn’t mean that boys and men aren’t struggling in systems that are difficult for them to navigate. Can we have a problem without a villain? I think so, but that’s an unfashionable view right now.

Richard says he is planning to work with his local Big Brothers Big Sisters group, which made me think I should do the same, but unfortunately my city’s chapter closed down :(.