Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men and author of Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It, spoke to parents and alumni in Baker Theater in an evening presentation in late January. 

He spoke to Upper School students and faculty earlier in the day.

Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and host of the 2023 TED Talk How to Solve the Education Crisis for Boys and Men, told parents that his goal is to lend facts and data to the often “frothy” conversation about gender in America, and help boys and men thrive now and in the future. The idea, he said, is to “keep it boring.”

“Facts are sacred,” he said.

He pointed to data that shows boys and men dying of suicide at much higher rates than women. He also said the data clearly shows boys and men struggling in school, with the gender gap in awarded college degrees completely reversing itself in the last half century. When Title IX was first enacted in 1972, far more men received degrees, while today, there is a 16-point gap in favor of women.  

“It is just a plain fact,” he said, adding: “We have got to be able to talk about boys.”

Reeves offered some solutions to the education crisis, including “redshirting” boys so that they start school a year later, creating more vocational and technical schools, and hiring more male teachers in K–12 public schools where there is a particular dearth of them.

“The future is not female,” he told parents. “The future has got to be for all of us.

 “We can think two thoughts at once,” he said. “This is not a zero-sum game.”

Reeves’ visit served as the third 2024–25 installment of the ’WICK Center Speaker Series, which brings leading health-and-wellness thinkers to campus.