“It’s never good for a society to have large numbers of unattached, dispirited and unhappy young men,” conservative researcher Brad Wilcox told the Washington Times last week. He was interviewed to discuss the astounding fact that 30 million men under 40 are now unmarried.
It’s common for media outlets–both conservative and liberal–to cover the trend of young men being left behind. Whether it’s worrying over how they’re not working or not dating, the consensus is that something has gone profoundly wrong with these guys. It’s common for this data to inspire confident predictions on the Right that these left-behind men will rise up against the system and that politicians need to do something to prevent that. You don’t hear many concrete solutions in these discussions, especially not from the mainstream commentators noticing the problem. But at least everyone agrees there’s an issue here.
But it’s an issue our society can largely ignore, at least for now. These guys are unlikely to start a revolution, or even cause much turmoil besides not providing enough GOOD MEN for women to date. It’s necessary to look at this problem honestly before trying to correct it.
Left-behind young men are the product of a massive social transformation where young women and the elderly take greater precedence than ever before. Most college graduates are women rather than men. Most new jobs now go to women rather than men. Much of the culture centers around the interests and attitudes of young women rather than men. The youth vote is primarily female rather than male.
At the same time, boomers hold an inordinate share of political and financial power in society. Politicians spend way more time trying to win the vote of this demographic than anyone else, especially young men. Seniors live longer than ever before and the boomers aren’t going to disappear anytime soon.
It’s rare to find an area where young men have a lot of influence. Once male-exclusive hobbies such as video games are now policed by others. Offices are governed by older bosses and HR women. Even sports fandom isn’t the dominant male space it once was. Pretty much the only area where young (or rather young-ish) men predominate is X. It makes sense why you see so many takes on that platform that young men will tear down the system.
Many young men have become a superfluous population in modern America. They can drop out of the workforce and the dating market without society slowing down. In the past, these populations of unattached young men could lead to a spike in crime and/or political turbulence. Just look at Weimar, the 1960s, and the Arab Spring for some examples of the latter. But we’re not experiencing either today. America currently has record lows of violent crime, and what crime we have isn’t committed by NEETs. This demographic is a source of online political extremism, but it hasn’t led to much real-world unrest. The political movements that do operate offline seem to be women-led rather than male-led. Just look at Black Lives Matter, MeToo, and woke in general. If anything, we seem to face a bigger problem of radicalized young women rather than men. And this is the demographic with more power and independence than ever before. Yet, they seem remarkably angry.
Young men are at the forefront of the Online Right, but one shouldn’t mistake that as a sign they are universally right-wing. Young men are also the primary demographic for transgenderism and FanDuel Americanism. Both are obviously very different, yet reflect how young men cope with being left behind. In a society where young women have far greater status and power than male NEETs, some men convince themselves that they can join the elite by changing their gender. Many FanDuel Americans don’t see a bright future ahead and choose to blow their money on sports betting and weed. Both show that young men are more likely to react to their plight with resignation and self-destruction rather than through revolution.
Society reacts to the young man problem in multiple ways. Some react to the fate of left behinds with glee. This group thinks these guys should learn their new place and accept their inferior status. The only response should be for the government to monitor and potentially arrest those guys who complain too much about their situation.
This view is limited almost entirely to the Left. People on the Right usually want some solution to the problem. There are two common responses to the problem. The most popular comes from Brad Wilcox and other mainstream conservatives.
They think the main problem with men is the popularity of video games and redpill influencers who tell them to not treat women with proper respect. This creates the GOOD MEN scarcity they always complain about. The solution is for men to stop playing video games, stop listening to Andrew Tate, and start acting like a caricature of a Victorian gentleman towards women. Conservatives want these men to be married, and think the best way to achieve that is to make them good little house husbands without any interests besides serving their wife. There’s not really anything for the government to do here. What these conservatives want is a social revolution that makes men give up their non-female-approved hobbies and independence to be the GOOD MEN demanded by conservative pundits. There’s little talk about how men will earn the money and status to make themselves more desirable to women. There’s just a demand they stop playing video games and don’t listen to redpillers. A number of them also insist that young men must reject college and do something else. (This message is rarely delivered to young women.)
This response completely ignores the larger socio-economic changes and pretends video games and Andrew Tate caused young men to fall behind. It makes the unappealing pitch to men that they need to be happy doormats for women. It also assumes men are the ones not wanting to get married when polling shows young women desire it less than their male peers.
This side accepts the new society–with women working professional jobs and going to college–and demands men adjust themselves to the moment.
The other right-wing position wants to revoke women’s rights and restore male leadership by government fiat. This opinion is very popular online but has little presence offline. It’s not hard to understand why. This view only appeals to the left behinds and alienates everyone else. No politician would dare suggest repealing the 19th Amendment and banning women from college.
This stance at least understands that a social transformation rather than video games and porn left men behind. But it has zero chance of actually going anywhere. People can say that it will happen through revolution rather than the democratic process, but that’s even more unrealistic than thinking people would vote to repeal the 19th. NEETs, the very young men left behind, lack any power, organization, or funding to turn their cause into the civil rights cause of our time. They’re notorious for not even going outside. It’s hard to think of how a low-status demographic will just suddenly, in unison, leave their parents’ basements and take complete power with minimal resistance. Some at least acknowledge that this demographic won’t start a revolution, but they are the key to winning elections and campaigns should base themselves entirely around their interests. James Fishback did that and got a mere 10 percent in the Florida gubernatorial primary.
Right or wrong, the rest of society doesn’t sympathize with young men, especially if they’re white. That’s why this demographic can’t replicate the playbook of other special interest groups. It was easy for blacks and gays to gain sympathy for their cause among the general population. The same isn’t the case for young white men, and they alone can’t change the present order.
Does this mean that all is hopeless? Not at all. There is a better alternative than telling men to be doormats or waiting for the incel revolution to solve everything. Targeting the Civil Rights Regime would both help young guys and make America more meritocratic. The Supreme Court dealt a heavy blow to affirmative action in 2023, but more remains to be done. There’s no reason this system should stay around when the courts ruled it unconstitutional.
Title IX should also be scrapped. This measure, which bans sex discrimination in schools, no longer makes sense when women are far more likely to graduate from college than men. Ironically, it’s led to more sex-based discrimination (this time, against men), and inspired draconian speech codes within higher education. Conservatives abandoned their past opposition towards it to become Title IX’s biggest champions as it serves a convenient tool to push back against the trans agenda. But its negatives outweigh its positives.
Laws and regulations dictating HR tyranny over workforces should be weakened or eliminated outright. The same goes for those government policies that encourage DEI to be a corporate standard. Companies found to be actively discriminating against white male applicants and employees should face the full force of federal law.
Outside of policy changes, conservatives should stop giving bad advice to young men. Not everyone should go to college, but telling every young man not to go is idiotic. Demanding men be doormats for women is not productive or even designed to make them more appealing to women. Pundits should stop pretending video games are the reason young men are falling behind.
Young men are not fated to become a permanent surplus population. We can still make America great again for them. It just requires realism and clarity–not fantasy and schoolmarmery–to achieve.
Order Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.
Ultimately, what they need to do is stop settling for mid women, and dating market will readjust itself. Its only a shame to be alone when you actually don’t have any options, which most young men do, they are just trash. And it should be a shame to date down for men.
Also conservatives, especially boomer/gen x sort, need to develop some basic standards for female beauty so we don’t see them shill malformed creatures like Sydney Sweenie as a good example. Also contributes to delusional skewed self esteem women nowadays have.