Feminism Should Support Helping Troubled Young Men

American women seem to be of two minds about feminism. Opinion polling from Pew in 2020 shows that most women under 30 (68 percent) identify as feminists. Feminism tugs at our aspirations and summons our loyalties. We want to be strong, confident, and self-reliant, like the pictured feminist. Our mothers and grandmothers have told us dismaying stories of what the workplace was like before the cultural shifts of The Feminine Mystique.

Yet nearly 40 percent of women also believe that feminism is polarizing. They are right: Modern feminism is a branch of identity politics. By functioning as an interest group that solely represents women, it has been (at best) deaf to other injustices, including a crisis in our own homes: the boy crisis.

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About the Author

Brenda M. Hafera

Brenda M. Hafera is the assistant director and senior policy analyst at the Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

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American women seem to be of two minds about feminism. Opinion polling from Pew in 2020 shows that most women under 30 (68 percent) identify as feminists. Feminism tugs at our aspirations and summons our loyalties. We want to be strong, confident, and self-reliant, like the pictured feminist. Our mothers and grandmothers have told us dismaying stories of what the workplace was like before the cultural shifts of The Feminine Mystique.

Yet nearly 40 percent of women also believe that feminism is polarizing. They are right: Modern feminism is a branch of identity politics. By functioning as an interest group that solely represents women, it has been (at best) deaf to other injustices, including a crisis in our own homes: the boy crisis.