The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It Read Free

group of guy friends where we hang out and relax.

Get everything, do nothing
    A highly educated female colleague alerted us to another new phenomenon. It is the sense of total entitlement that some middle-aged guys feel within their relationships with marriage or live-in partners. Guys don’t want to work either at jobs that will bring in money or even at household chores that will keep their abode tidy. They are content to just hang around doing their thing but perform nothing that traditionally resembles “work.” They feel it is their right to absent themselves from having to make money or do drudgery around the pad. In a sense, they are like old-fashioned gigolos, attractive men who were taken care of by older women in return for being charming dates/mates/sexual adventurers. That description does not fit this new breed of guys who want it all in return for no giveback. Consider a couple of the vignettes she shared with us:
    A physical therapist I know married a guy who basically quit his job once they got married. She did all the work and all the housework. She would come home after a long day at work, schlepping her heavy equipment through the rain, and he would not even come out to help her carry anything. When she got in, he would ask her what was for dinner, and she would have to go back out to the store and come home and cook. He sat on his ass all day and did nothing. Nice guy, handsome, but did not work or want to work. She divorced him after four years of marriage.
     
    Another academic I know gets together with this guy who quits his job to go back to graduate school. He incurs a $100,000 debt and is not able to get a steady job. She supports him although he is not willing to get married nor willing to help with any house chores.
    Why do women stick it out with such guys? Even their mothers might call them losers. The depressing alternative for these well-educated women is no guy at all, so they stick with their bad decision until it gets so unbearable that they decide to dump the dude.
    Aside from not understanding that all relationships involve a negotiation of rights and obligations, what this entitlement suggests to us is the abandonment of a sense of having to work for anything. These men are acting as if one gets what one wants just by being at the head of the line when the doors open or the party starts.
    A young British man told us this in his survey comments:
    It is my belief that entitlement can help shape men. What they are entitled to is responsibility. The achievement is fulfillment of responsibility that will let the world trust them to shape the future. Yes, men can be strong if they care about others. Responsibilities — such as to being gentle and a gentleman, manners to others to show courtesy, to take on duties to reassure others, being selfless — will help a young man find himself. … The key to being a man lies in responsibility. The responsibility to care about oneself and not ruin or abuse oneself, to care about others and not ruin or abuse them.
    We could not agree more. But it seems to us that this new sense of male entitlement is different from what it may have been in the past. It is more generalized, spreading to more settings and activities that tend to undermine any meaningful social or romantic relationships. These men seem to be emulating successful media celebrities who appear to have it all, but they see and admire only the desirable outcomes and products. What is missing from the analysis is any appreciation of what goes into any kind of success: a lot of hard work, trial and tribulation, practice, failures that are part and parcel of the process of trying to attain a goal. The good things in life usually take a commitment to success, to delaying gratification, to putting work before play and to understanding the importance and vitality of the Social Contract — giving to others with the assumption of reciprocal giving back.

Unstable role models, tarnished