We rise together

Hoping 2025 sees an end to zero-sum thinking on gender...

A version of this post first appeared on the Candid website under the title “Rising together: Supporting boys, men, and all communities”.

In May 2024, Melinda French Gates emailed 12 people—including me—offering each $20 million to spend on gender equality initiatives. All of us were surprised, but I doubt any were as surprised as I was—because I work on behalf of boys and men.

I felt this was an important moment for philanthropy. While French Gates continues to focus most of her giving on women and girls, she also recognizes the need to help boys and men. As she said on CBS News:

It’s not even enough to have a conversation about women’s rights in our country. We have to make sure that men and boys do well…If you have good men and boys in society, they are great partners for women; they help pull women along in good ways.

The money from French Gates is mostly being disbursed through donor-advised funds (DAFs); in the spirit of helping boys and girls, men and women, my new DAF is called Rise Together.

Beyond zero-sum

There’s an opportunity for more philanthropists to consider the unique challenges facing boys and men. Increasing support for men and boys—alongside ongoing investments in women and girls—could strengthen efforts to address diverse community needs.

In my experience, neglecting the issues of boys and men does not make those problems go away. Instead, they can fester and turn into grievances which can be weaponized in service of reactionary goals.

Gender equality cannot be a zero-sum game. We can do more for boys and men without doing less for women and girls. We can be passionate about women’s rights, and compassionate toward the struggles of boys and men.

As the political economist Stefanie Stantcheva, an expert on zero-sum thinking, wrote recently for AIBM, in an essay titled “Beyond zero-sum thinking on gender”:

While not every scenario can be transformed into a win-win, taking a step back to ask, ‘Where is the scope for mutual benefit?’ can shift perspectives and unlock creative solutions. By fostering this broader mindset, we can better equip individuals to find common ground and embrace gender progress as a shared endeavor rather than a divisive struggle.

There’s work to be done on this front! Stantcheva’s work shows that younger women and men are more likely to have a zero-sum mindset than older folks:

Time to help boys and men

Advocacy for boys and men is often met with dismissive responses that downplay or minimize their challenges. More often the idea of gender equality has been synonymous with the cause of women and girls, but gender gaps don’t stop there.

In the United States, for example:

• The gender gap in college enrollment and completion is wider for men today than it was for women in 1972, when Title IX was passed, with men earning only 42% of degrees.

• In the average school district, boys are almost a grade level behind girls in English language arts (there is no gap in math).

• The risk of suicide is four times higher for boys and young men than for girls and women and has risen by 40% among younger men since 2010.

• In 2022, male deaths before the age of 65 resulted in over four million years of potential life lost, three times the number for women.

• Employment rates among Black men are lower than for white men, white women, and Black women.

As U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says:

It’s important to start with acknowledging that young men and boys are actually going through a crisis of their own…the data is actually quite clear that young men and boys are actually falling behind on many metrics.

Thinking intersectionally, really

The challenges boys and men face intersect with race and ethnicity and social class, just as they do for women and girls. The data shows boys and men struggling most are those from disadvantaged families and communities, including Black boys and men and men from working class backgrounds, who have been hit hardest by recent social and economic changes.

Where to invest

Where best to invest on behalf of boys and men? The key focus areas I suggest are mental health, education, and fatherhood. These are the issues where the data is most concerning, and where action is most urgently needed. It’s important to learn more about which programs are most effective, specifically for supporting boys and men—and not simply assume that what works for girls and women works equally well for boys and men.

For example, we need initiatives to encourage more boys and men into “HEAL” professions (health, education, administration, and literacy). This would create more job opportunities for men, help address labor shortages in these key occupations, and improve the gender diversity of providers. We need more male teachers, especially male teachers of color, and we need programs that make mental health provision more male-friendly. Additionally, we need paid leave for fathers.

Helping boys and men is the right thing to do, period. But it’s also the right thing to do for women and girls. In the long run, a world of floundering men is not likely to be a world of flourishing women. Men and women together provide and care for our families, staff our companies and sustain our communities. When men struggle to play their full part, life becomes more demanding for women. Broadening the gender equality movement to include supporting boys and men does not come at the cost of supporting girls and women. We can—and must—do both.

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