Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley is “selling a vision of masculinity to White America that has much more to do with prejudice than manliness,” declared Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart last year. CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger in 2021 accused Hawley of promoting a “conspiratorial vision” regarding America’s crisis of masculinity. Rolling Stone that same year published an article titled: “Josh Hawley’s Bizarre Obsession With Masculinity Is the Most Pathetic Front Yet in the GOP’s Culture War.”
All of this opprobrium is because Hawley wants to save men from a culture that encourages their self-destructive behaviors. At least, that’s what Hawley claims is his intent in his new book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. Is there something prejudicial, conspiratorial, or obsessive about Hawley’s efforts? Hardly.
Men in Crisis
Hawley’s observations regarding the masculinity crisis are by no means new, nor particularly controversial. Men’s earnings are below levels from the 1970s and 1980s, and between 1973 and 2017, they fell about $3,200. There has been a significant increase in the number of men living at home into their 20s and 30s. Boys earn a far greater share of the Ds and Fs distributed in primary and secondary school than girls, and they are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Men now account for only 40 percent of college students in America.
The reasons for this are many. Offshoring and deindustrialization have served as a gut punch to the American working class — we’ve lost almost 4 million jobs
