The Peculiar Condition of the Human Male

Boys and men are struggling. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have many losing ground in the classroom, the workplace, and the family. While the lives of women have changed, the lives of many men have remained the same or even worsened.

Our attitudes, our institutions, and our laws have failed to keep up. Conservative and progressive politicians, mired in their own ideological warfare, fail to provide thoughtful solutions.

The father of three sons, a journalist, and a Brookings Institution scholar, Richard V. Reeves has spent twenty-five years worrying about boys both at home and work. His new book, Of Boys and Men, tackles the complex and urgent crisis of boyhood and manhood.

Reeves looks at the structural challenges that face boys and men and offers fresh and innovative solutions that turn the page on the corrosive narrative that plagues this issue. Of Boys and Men argues that helping the other half of society does not mean giving up on the ideal of gender equality.

Biography

Richard V. Reeves is a senior fellow in Economic Studies, where he holds the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair. Richard is the Director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative. His research focuses on the middle class, inequality, and social mobility.

Richard’s publications for Brookings include his latest book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (2022) and Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It (2017). He is a contributor to The Atlantic, National Affairs, Democracy Journal, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Richard is also the author of John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand (2008), an intellectual biography of the British liberal philosopher and politician.

Richard sits on the Board of Jobs for the Future. He is an adviser to the American Family Survey and to the Equity Center at the University of Virginia. He has previously served as a consultant to the Opportunity Insights team led by Prof Raj Chetty at Harvard University (2018) and as a member of the Government of Canada's Ministerial Advisory Committee on Poverty (2017-2018).

Richard’s previous roles include director of Demos, the London-based political think-tank; director of futures at the Work Foundation; principal policy advisor to the Minister for Welfare Reform; social affairs editor of The Observer; research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research; economics correspondent for The Guardian; and a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He is also a former European Business Speaker of the Year.

Richard has a B.A. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. from Warwick University.

Assigned Reading

Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (Brookings Institution Press, 2022)