Women Are Quietly Giving Up on Men... Why?

It's a man's world. This is a man's world! So, where are all the men? I don't mean just males. Those are like everywhere, and they're easy to spot. They wear cargo shorts, they talk about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. I'm talking about men, the guys that can hold a baby and a conversation, and they own a belt, and they wear it to church. We are not short on males. There are more than 4 billion of them worldwide. But more and more women, especially younger women, Are throwing up their hands and giving up on the idea of finding one who's man enough for them to marry?

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a feature on women choosing to begin families alone. In other words, just have babies without the dad around. Not out of some bold feminist conviction, but because they simply can't find the right match. These women, successful, educated, motivated, aren't declaring independence. They are waving the white flag. Right now, women are outperforming men in many key areas of life. More women than men are graduating college. Buying homes and pouring their energy into careers and close-knit friendships instead of dating or marriage.

And we're not talking about a slim margin anymore. According to Pew Research, 47% of women aged 25 to 34 hold a bachelor's degree, compared with only 37% of men. That is a massive turnaround in a very short amount of time. You don't need a gender comparison to know that something has gone off kilter. Just look at the lives of today's men compared to their grandfathers. The traditional markers of manhood, what used to be considered sort of the rites of passage into adulthood, are increasingly absent.

So, where are the men? We're going to go looking for these elusive beasts today. After this word from our sponsor. Do you ever feel like your money is working against your values instead of for them? That is no way to build a future for your children and grandchildren.

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Visit Taylor Fragon in the link below. For a no-obligation consultation. And now, let's go find some men. A recent analysis broke down five basic milestones for men aged 25 to 54. Having a job, being married, having at least one child, owning a home, and maintaining basic physical health, which they... Couch does not obese. In 1970, 4 in 10 men had achieved all 5 by midlife. Today, barely 1 in 9. And the biggest swing factor of all? Family formation. Marriage rates are down by one-third, and the percentage of fathers has fallen by 20 points.

Some commentators like Tim Poole suggest women's rising economic power has made traditional relationships less For guys who are meeting women who are like, I'm a career woman who makes six figures, and I'm going to get the promotion, he's going to be like, okay, you're a guy. You know, I'm not, that's fine, but... I'm not looking to marry another guy. I want a mom. I want someone whose passion is to be a mom. Harsh? Maybe. But there's a truth worth examining beneath the provocation.

Feminism promised liberation, but instead, it handed women more responsibilities while rejecting male support in traditional roles. And the men, well, many of them disappeared. So, let's go deeper into that Wall Street Journal cocktail party set. Women are often prophetic in culture. We rock the cradle, and we serve as society's early warning system. The canaries in the coal mine, if you will.

So, when affluent women, those with the most resources, education, and autonomy, when they begin to opt out of marriage, we really should pay attention. Not because their solution, which is single motherhood by design, is a model to imitate, but because it signals a cultural malfunction. They have concluded they'd rather shoulder every burden themselves than risk relying on a man who can't or won't rise to the occasion. But not all women have the resources to go it alone. The Wall Street Journal focused on upscale, college-educated women.

But if we zoom out, we find a starkly different picture among working class and poor women. And that's where the story gets even more complicated. Dr. Brad Wilcox notes that poorer Americans are far more likely to replace marriage with cohabitation. In fact, Americans earning under $50,000 a year are nearly three times more likely to replace marriage with cohabitation. to cohabitate than those making over $100,000. What's more, children born to poor mothers are about five times as likely to be born outside of wedlock compared to those born to affluent mothers.

So, here's the paradox. Women across the socioeconomic spectrum are struggling to find a man, but in lower-income communities, the men are there, they're just not marrying the women. They're fathering children, but not building families. They're biologically present, but relationally absent. Why? Well, economics certainly play a role. When jobs that once made men reliable providers vanish, or can no longer support a household, confidence falters, and it's hard to propose to the girl when you're living in your mom's basement. But this crisis didn't start with globalization or the decline of factory work.

It actually predates the 2008 crash. It even predates Reagan's economic boom. In fact, marriage started declining back in the 1960s, before the industrial collapse. This means something deeper is at play than just economics. Anthony Esselin puts it plainly. He writes, every law in the last 60 years that has had to do in one way or another with sex has struck a blow at the family. And he's right. From no-fault divorce, which was a Reagan-era thing, if you remember, to the redefinition of marriage, we've dismantled the structures that once encouraged men to grow up and step up.

So, no, this isn't just an economic problem, and no, there is no simple policy fix, but we could do a lot better in that regard. What we're facing is a civilizational identity crisis, and the only way forward is a spiritual and cultural reformation of men. Here's Esalen again. On three great bonds of love do all cultures depend. The love between man and woman in marriage, the love between a mother and her child, and the camaraderie among men, a bond that used to be strong enough to move mountains.

That third bond, brotherhood, is critical. Men need other men to teach them how to be men, and to give them the courage to persevere when the going gets tough. You can't become what you've never seen, and boys raised without fathers, mentors, coaches, and strong male friendships are left adrift, directionless, purposeless, and easy prey to nihilism. The truth is, there are still good men. I am married to one. And we're trying to raise a couple more, but if we want more of them, we need to stop berating boys and start giving them purpose, because mission drives success.

Purpose drives maturity. We tell boys to follow your dreams, but we offer them no direction. We feed them a diet of ironic cartoons, deconstructed fairy tales, and sexualized escapism, and then we wonder why they can't get serious about life. They need challenge. They need hierarchy. They need to get off their phones. They need stories of virtue, suffering, noble sacrifice, and attentiveness. We need more children's Homer, and less Diary of a Wimpy Kid. More Hamilton, even. I might even go there, Hamilton.

Less wicked. Don't defy gravity. More you were made for this, and less you do you. Because here's the message that turns a boy into a man. Yes, you're a mess. You're a doofus. But you were born for a mission. And if you don't fulfill it, if you check out, the people you love are going to suffer. You were made to protect. You were made to provide, to suffer nobly, to lay down your life for something greater than yourself. So, let's teach our boys Kipling again.

If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, and ultimately, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and what is more, you'll be a man, my son. And here's the kicker. For the vast majority of men, this will happen Only through married fatherhood.

The unique demands placed on husbands and fathers require the man to remain in relationship with God, with one woman, and with his children. This is the crucible that turns males into men. For the rest of us, parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, wives, mothers, our job is not to flatten the path, but to clear it, to remove the chains we've placed on marriage and fatherhood, both politically and culturally, and to show boys that the obstacle course is not meant to destroy them. It is meant to forge them.

If we can do that, if we can raise up strong men with clear missions and faithful hearts, we might just answer the question, it's a man's world. So, where are the men? Well, they're right here. They're running the race.

I'm Erika Ahern with The Deep for LOOPcast. If you enjoyed this video and you would like more of The Deep, please be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell and share. Share the video. Send it to a mother of young sons. Send it to fathers. Send it to discouraged Wall Street Journal types. Whoever needs to see it. Thank you so much, and we will see you next time on The Deep.