In the final section of Zimbardo and Coulombe’s ‘Man Disconnected’ the authors outline a few suggestions about how to combat the crisis faced by young men around the world. The post summarizes chapters 16-21).
Before reading this you might like to read the following posts:
- Man Disconnected, which summarizes the evidence that young men are in crisis (chapters 1-7)
- Man Disconnected summary part 2: why are young men in crisis? #1 (chapters 8-10)
- Man Disconnected summary part 3: why are young men in crisis #2 (chapter 11) – technology enchantment and arousal addiction
- Man Disconnected summary part 4: why are young men in crisis? #3 (chapters 12-15)
Solutions to the Crisis of Masculinity
Zimbardo and Coulombe break down their solutions to focus on what governments, schools, parents, men, women and finally the media can do…
What governments can do:
- Support the role of the father
- Limit the use of endocrine-disruptors
- Get more men into grade school teaching positions
- Get junk food out of schools
- Improve how schools prepare students for their lives ahead
What schools can do:
- Teach life skills
- Incorporate new technology for more interactive learning
- Quash grade inflation
What parents can do:
- Teach children to be resilient by letting them organise their own play and take risks
- Give children responsibility for important tasks within the family
- Encourage children to think about a future career, and to explore vocational options
- Discussing taboo topics like sex
- Fathers need to priorities fatherhood
- Get children to track how much time they spend on different activities
What men can do:
- Turn off the porn
- Track your activity and consider what else you could be doing!
- Play sports
- Make your bed (small accomplishments lead to bigger accomplishments)
- Discover your inner power
- Make a few female friends
- Don’t call women sluts
- Find a mentor, be a mentor
- Vote
What women can do
- Mothers and sisters basically need to encourage the strength and hardness associated with manhood, while having the depth of character and emotional sensitivity to help men become better communicators.
- Don’t be promiscuous – because this just sends out the message to men that they will always have a string of available sexual partners
- Choose a ‘good partner’ rather than a ‘flash partner’ – there are plenty of ‘good men’ (who want long term relationships) being overlooked because they are ‘drowned out’ on dating sites by better looking men who have no genuine interest in commitment.
Zimbardo’s final chapter is a brief one on what the media (especially the porn and gaming industries) can do to help stem the crisis of masculinity.
