Many social scientists agree that contemporary American men are mired in malaise, even as they disagree about the causes. In academic performance, boys are well behind girls in elementary school, high school, and college, where the sex ratio is approaching two female undergraduates for every one male. (It was an even split at the start of the nineteen-eighties.) Rage among self-designated “incels” and other elements of the online “manosphere” appears to be steering some impressionable teens toward misogyny.
VERY MUCH out of necessity, 2020 has been a year of hobbies. All across social media, our feeds were filled with knitting and crochet projects, cross stitching and needlepoint, freshly baked banana bread and other such homely things that have kept people who are endlessly housebound from going mad.