<p>I like the way this revived thread has moved to questions of what counts as success. I agree with the comments that women are more likely to work for nonprofits and more likely to take on broader social issues. You could find that borne out by published evidence about this.</p>
<p>I’d like to add a slight twist on this, however. There are cultural reasons why women do this that are due to factors other than moral superiority. Whether we like it or not, men are still expected to be money producers more than women. Women have “more options” (a positive view) or “more contradictions to face” (a more realistic way of putting it) in their life. Women armore likely than men to take off time from work to raise kids, to work part time, and to accept jobs that pay less than they are worth. This contributes to women’s lower income relative to men. And it is not all to the detriment of women and the advantage of men. Men are under a lot more pressure to make a higher salary than their wife and also more than other men. As a man, I don’t find this particularly wonderful (though I am not saying women have it easier either). I don’t wnat to be a “house husband”–I’m one of the relatively few men who was actually given this as an option and I told my wife, thanks but no thanks! We struggled as a result like everyone else.</p>
<p>I’d like to offer a possible explaination. Society changes alot faster than culture. Women entered the work force in large numbers beginning in the 1970s. Socially women are now in a different position than in the 1970s for this and other reason. But our culture has not really caught up with this. Women still struggle with stereotypes of the past (being attractive; hence the epidemic of eating disorders), and men still worry about being “masculine enough” in a manner that hardly differs from the 1940s. </p>
<p>So, as we can see from the posts on this thread, women are ahead of men right now even in terms of recognizing that problems exist for boys. This reflects core cultural values of women as caring more for others and being less held to expectations of conventional male success (making their own money especially). </p>
<p>Crises are one way that culture is forced to catch up with society. Maybe when men notice boys are doing badly enough they will start to care more about recent social changes. They will listen more to the women who are telling them there is a problem. </p>
<p>It may make a difference to men that it no longer is “just a women’s problem” or even a “social problem” (men hear “social” and think “it’s about women”–as you can tell from previous comments on this thread about sociology as a “fluffy” field). But now it is a male problem!</p>