The term "male sense of abolition" refers to the decline of men's status, how can we liberate men when they are no longer in a dominant position and at the same time shoulder society's unreasonable expectations?
Since the term "toxic masculinity" was coined by Wright College psychology professor Terry Kupers, people have begun to review society's irrational assumptions about men and begin to empathize with the position that men under patriarchy are also victims, but there seems to be no consensus on what constitutes "healthy masculinity".
Open the book "Of Boys and Men" published by the American scholar Richard Reeves, and you can find a discussion about the serious obsolescence that men face today, that is, men are not always in an advantageous position as we think.
The sense of waste may arise from academic performance and workplace advantages, and this phenomenon will be especially obvious in the lower classes.
Seeing this, you may be curious, when we say that patriarchy is not good, doesn't it mean that men are vested interests at the bottom, and now when it comes to men's sense of abolition, what is the meaning of representing? And where is the place of men in society today?
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Examples of male feelings of abolition
Richard Reeves' answer is that it should not be covered up by a small number of high-level men who arbitrarily enjoy male dividends, and the occurrence of male waste can be seen from academia and the workplace.
The overview of male abolition is provided in Of Boys and Men, which is well known to social scientists and many institutional insiders, but rarely featured in public discussion.
For example, since 1979, men's real wages have fallen by 14 per cent, while women's wages have increased. The labor force participation rate for prime working-age men has declined, with 9 million working-age men not in the workforce even before Covid-19.
In addition, boys do not perform as well in school as women, and the proportion of men attending college is much lower than that of women, and 57 percent of bachelor's degrees in the United States are currently awarded to women. In 2019, the proportion of women earning bachelor's degrees was 15% higher than that of men.
The same applies to the performance of the labour force, where there is a claim that men are actually losing control.
Richard Reeve's 1985 phrase "men in their early 30s shake hands about 30 pounds more than women their age" may no longer be there, and today "men and women have roughly the same grip."
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The wrong way to recognize men's sense of disretreat
The book also points out that today's society is often hostile to men, such as arbitrarily labeling men's behavior as reckless and aggressive.
Richard Reeve criticized both liberals and conservatives for failing to adequately address the male dilemma. The former tends to label men's predicaments as individual problems when men engage in behaviors that are not recognized by the public, ignoring the structural problems that men sometimes face. The latter, on the other hand, places too much emphasis on biological differences between men and women.
However, whether it is attributed to men "not being taught well" or attributing the problem to the difference in the innate structure of men and women, it is not the correct way for us to understand men.
Richard Reeves first points out that the lack of suitable role models for modern men makes it difficult for men to develop a sound "manhood," and he also shows that there is no shortage of contemporary advice on what men should not do, but there is little consensus on what constitutes healthy masculinity.
Therefore, how to speed up society's expectations of men, and even to help men free themselves from unreasonable presuppositions (such as should take on economic responsibilities), in general, Richard Reeves believes that we need to solve the problem of male waste from the structural side, but unfortunately after putting this point, Richard Reeves did not think much about how to effectively start from the structure.
Richard Reeves readily admits that he is essentially a nerd who prefers to work with numbers rather than grapple with mechanisms in society that should be removed.
Will promoting men into the Heal industry be the solution?
However, even if there is no direct solution, we can still refer to Richard Reeves' advice that men should invest more in the Heal (Health, Education, Administration and Literacy) industry to bridge the gap.
The so-called Heal field means health, education, management and literature, as the antithesis of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Richard Reeves argues that just as women are making progress in industries traditionally dominated by men, men should expand their position in different fields.
He hopes to find a route similar to helping women go to equality, to help men who are struggling or underrepresented, not limited to traditionally male occupations and roles, and try to try the Heal industry.
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However, Richard Reeves' solution may reduce the gender polarization of society – more women will become engineers, more men will become nurses – but will it work? And how many men expect to become like women? At present, they are still unsolved.
What we can do may be from the individual, in the daily examination of whether we have an unreasonable projection of the people around us, try not to digest the issue of equality with an antagonistic attitude, and finally let the misogynistic or menophobic discourse cease to exist.