Shocking News: Men Are in Trouble

Add these to your already extensive “Men Are in Trouble” files.  My thanks to Mark Rogers for the first two.  First, “Lean Years” from David Brooks of the NYT:

Over the past few decades, men have lagged behind women in acquiring education and skills. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at age 22, 185 women have graduated from college for every 100 men who have done so. Furthermore, men are concentrated in industries where employment is declining (manufacturing) or highly cyclical (construction).

So men have taken an especially heavy blow during this crisis. The gap between the male and female unemployment rates has reached its highest level since the government began keeping such records.

And here’s an exchange between Brooks and Gail Collins of the NYT that raises some interesting questions.

Finally, here’s the article that sparked a major thrust of this conversation: “More Men Marrying Wealthier Women” by Sam Roberts.

It’s interesting to see the online conversation about this matter.  Some folks are straining with impressive effort to avoid the conclusion that, um, perhaps something needs to be done about the “man problem”.  Meanwhile, every week a new story comes out that reminds us yet again that Western men are struggling mightily to steady themselves in a modern world.  Take one look at articles those noted above, raunch culture films and tv, and the sports-obsessed boy-men all around us, and it is strenuously difficult to conclude that we do not have a problem–a major one–on our hands.

Evangelicals can’t necessarily fix the culture.  But we can address our own struggles in the power of Christ and seek to be a salve, a dash of salt and a ray of light, to the confused, broken, lost world in which we live.