I’ve been thinking a lot about the current Esquire issue on the state of the American male, in particular Tom Chiarella’s piece “The Problem With Boys“. He posits that school dropout rates (for both high school and college), low reading rates and high suicide rates among young American men belie a crisis. This generation, and possibly the next, have issues.

People disagree, but I see an iota of truth. I can’t speak to the dropout or suicide rates, but the reading deficit struck me as true (and addressing a reading deficit might dent the dropout rates).

Chiarella relates a story about a boy he knows shrugging at having to read Jane Eyre for a school assignment. I would too. It reminded me of when I shrugged off The Scarlet Letter in 9th grade. Boring! I read three pages, and put it down with glazed eyes. It didn’t matter to me that I got an “F” on the assignment. Books about nuanced interpersonal relationships numbed me to tears in school, and still do for the most part. That’s not to say that I don’t read books. I still read more than your average American (okay, that’s not saying much). But, as in movies, this boy finds more interest in action-packed subject matter.

I chewed through Macbeth. I devoured Beowulf. I must’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy three times between ages 12 and 16 — without being prompted by a school assignment. All have carnage or swords or fights or whatever. All still rank high among great literature.

The women’s movement added value to America, as it tends to for the economies and societies of countries that embrace women as equals. That movement fostered the idea that, ultimately, women are no different from men in capability. In theory and practice, that’s true. A woman could rise to the presidency