Words&Dirt

Summary:

Warren Farrell and John Gray’s The Boy Crisis examines how and why boys and men are struggling to survive and thrive in modern life, and seeks to provide a preliminary blueprint for how to reverse this trend.

In Part One, Farrell lays out the statistical evidence for the problem, demonstrating how boys and men are failing across the board, especially in educational and economic outcomes, physical and mental health, and life expectancy.

In Part Two, Farrell argues that the boy crisis is “a problem created by a solution,” meaning that contemporary civilization has solved old problems and generated new freedoms that have rendered several core elements of male identity obsolete, namely our traditional ways of generating purpose and the models of “heroic intelligence” to which we have historically aspired.

In Part Three, Farrell describes the “purpose void” left in the wake of these developments, and suggests how boys and men can seek new forms of heroism and meaning more compatible with modern life.

In Part Four, Farrell makes his case for the special contribution of fathers to the healthy psychosocial development of their children, countering the cultural misconception that kids usually “do just fine” when their dads are out of the picture. This part also reveals and condemns the structural discrimination many men face when trying to secure equal access to their children, particularly in custody battles following divorce.

In Part Five, Farrell outlines the distinction between what he calls “heroic intelligence” and “health intelligence,” asserting that the latter is much more important in an era when male flourishing requires far less self-sacrifice and higher degrees of emotional maturity than in the past.

In Part Six, John Gray takes up the problem of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), making some good points and suggestions that are unfortunately overshadowed by a deluge of pseudoscientific folderol about how ADHD works and what we can do about it. The Boy Crisis would have been a much better book had Farrell not teamed up with Gray on this final section; as it stands, Gray’s chapters not only end the book on a bad note, but also cast an unfavorable shadow on Farrell’s research that may lessen its reach and impact.

Key Concepts and Notes:

• I’m completely behind the overall message of this book, which is that boys and men are facing a barrage of novel adversity, and everyone should care about that enough to devote time and resources to helping us. I plan on making this a central goal in my career as a mental health professional.
• I can see how uncharitable or cherry-picked interpretations of Farrell’s arguments could be construed as “anti-women” or “anti-feminist,” but anyone who tries to slap that label on him or this book either hasn’t read it fully or is arguing in bad faith. Farrell spent much of his career in the women’s rights movement, has a long track record of advocating for feminist goals, and repeatedly states that helping boys and men will also make the world better and safer for girls and women. In this sense he is a true humanist willing to advocate for gender liberation for everyone, even in a cultural climate that’s not particularly welcoming to the notion that boys and men are vulnerable and in need of support. 
  
• The first five parts (Farrell’s contribution) contain a lot of useful facts and perspectives, but they are organized poorly, with many sections in chapters seeming to come out of the blue without being properly tied into the chapter’s central theme. A lot of this information could have been condensed into fewer chapters with less bloat and repetition.
• As mentioned above, the last part (Gray’s contribution) is an absolute mess that made me question Farrell’s judgment for including it. I’m sure some of Gray’s information is correct (the first two chapters seem basically okay), but there’s too much quackery in the last three chapters to take him seriously. Some lowlights are his endorsement of homeopathy to help heal concussions, his false claim that “homeopathy has over twenty FDA-approved remedies” (364) (see here for the FDA’s actual stance on homeopathic products, which clearly states that “There are currently no homeopathic products approved by FDA”), and his absurd recommendations of craniosacral therapy and chiropractic work as treatments for ADHD. This is the classic “natural solutions” approach that has made the rest of the country rightly roll their eyes at people from Northern California and other hotbeds of pseudoscientific nonsense (I say this as a proud Northern Californian myself). I hope future editions of The Boy Crisis will excise Gray’s contribution in its entirety. For readers seeking a better framework for understanding and treating ADHD, I recommend Gabor Maté’s Scattered Minds. 

Favorite Quotes:

Educating boys that heroic intelligence is socialization for a short life, while “health intelligence” is socialization for a long life. Redefining masculinity as the courage to think for oneself rather than cave in to social pressure in order to avoid being called “chicken.” Teaching your son how to feel feelings, when to express what he feels, how to be assertive but not aggressive, the power of listening, and that health intelligence is not a facade of strength but the strength to not have a facade. (43)

Perhaps the most significant human accomplishment in the United States during the twentieth century was our awareness that defining our daughters in one way led to our daughters feeling confined to one way. It can be our most significant human accomplishment in the twenty-first century to create an awareness that defining our sons in one way leads to our sons being confined to one way. (230)

Traditional heroic intelligence is about taking care of others; health intelligence is about taking care of self. The new hero knows that he takes better care of others in the future when he takes better care of himself in the present. (312)

The old definition of male “power”: feeling obligated to earn money someone else spends while he dies sooner. The new definition of male power: discovering the work-life harmony that is most in accord with his unique self while not abandoning his commitments to others. (390)

The degree to which our sons become as free to be who they wish to be as our daughters are is the degree to which we will have taken a huge step––from women’s liberation to gender liberation. This requires not a women’s movement blaming men, nor a men’s movement blaming women, but a gender liberation movement freeing both sexes from the rigid roles of the past toward more flexible roles for our future. It will require a cultural shift that leads with the understanding that both sexes are in the same family boat. That went only one sex wins, both sexes lose. (397)

Rating: 6/10