Where are the young men?
The evolution of sex-based differences and the re-election of Donald Trump
“The sight of a feather in a [male] peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!” Charles Darwin, 1860, Letter to Asa Gray
Where are the fading young men? What might evolutionary biology tell us about sex-based differences? Did young men reappear to re-elect Donald Trump, fueling a global conservative resurgence?
Watching my son’s graduation, you would have thought that Crested Butte’s senior class was largely female; 1 of 9 speakers/performers was male. I was tuned to notice this discrepancy from RMBL.

Female scientists have always had a presence at RMBL, even when rare elsewhere. Dr. Harriet Barclay started teaching at RMBL in 1929. After WW2 Dr. Jean Langenheim surveyed plants around Gothic and was the first woman to receive a PhD in biology from the Univ. of Minnesota. But ~100 years from RMBL’s founding, it is not women’s presence that is notable, but young men’s absence. Some of our undergraduate programs drop to 20% male.
Beyond RMBL, sex has long puzzled scientists. Why is sex maintained if females that produce offspring without males would double the number of genes passed on? Charles Darwin struggled to understand traits inimical to survival; he thought the gaudy peacock tail threatened his theory of evolution, hence his sick feeling. However, Darwin ultimately expanded his theory to include not just differential survival, but the differential ability to obtain mates.
The mysteries of sex started ~billion years ago with anisogamy, or the exchange of genetic information (sex) between cells of different sizes (sperm and egg gametes). Sex emerged with the appearance of complex multicellular organisms. Multicellularity allowed cell specialization (e.g., organs) and sex differences were not limited to reproductive cells but became expressed throughout. Boys and girls- viva la diferencia!
Gender expression can be complicated. RMBL’er Dr. Bruce Baker helped establish that sex determination happens at the cellular, not the organismal, level. As an extreme example, a person can have multiple, genetically distinct cell lineages. Whether a person tests as XY (male) or XX (female) can depend upon which cells are sampled.
Jumping forward a billion years, a look at the high school graduation platform revealed the young men were there, though faded. Eight of 20 women spoke/performed at graduation, compared to 1 of 29 men. You can just look at the numbers to know something is up, but for the statisticians, p< 0.001.
To the extent that being onstage at high school graduation predicts college matriculation, there are 3 million more women in college (60:40 female:male ratio), with the gap growing. With female scientists tending towards biology, it is no surprise that RMBL’s undergraduate programs are heavily female biased. It’s hard to argue, however, that men are worse off; a woman needs ~2 more years of education to make the same salary. It’s a mixed bag, however, as men suffer more from chronic disease and live five fewer years, a gap that has doubled since 1900. Wealth or health?
There are undoubtedly many reasons for the fading of young men, though standards-based education, with increased expectations around discipline, may disfavor boys, who are more active and aggressive, and less verbal. Boys are slower to learn reading, which school favors, though faster to learn spatial tasks, which schools ignore.
Is this a problem with boys or schools? The number of children diagnosed with hyperactivity, involving impulsiveness, restlessness, is increasing steadily, often leading to negative behavioral consequences, including self-harm and depression. Boys are more commonly diagnosed with hyperactivity, which may partially explain their fading in school. However, it might be not that children are changing, but that teachers increasingly expect more discipline. Kids with an abundance of energy and overflowing curiosity may experience cascading negative consequences.
Hyperactivity is not necessarily bad. It can involve hyperfocus, improving performance in graduate school and business. Medicating hyperactive kids makes them easier to manage, but doesn’t improve long-term academic performance, and may hurt it. When I was a RMBL student in 1988, a (male) classmate was grasping for a future, having struggled to maintain college grades. However, as he turned to curiosity-driven science he thrived and is now very successful, personally and professionally. Maybe classrooms need intervention, not the kids?
The mysteries of sex continue as young men helped elect Donald Trump, part of a global growing conservatism among young men. As with any behavioral trait, causation is complex. But changing expectations of behavior may be fueling alienation and illiberalism among young men. Overt discrimination may also play a part. I’ve seen undergraduate programs insist on affirmative action for women, despite the lack of men. Is it a surprise that young men might feel alienated?
While empowering women is a moral imperative, the lack of constructive conversation on how to move forward may be harmful to women and men. Increasing female participation in college programs that are already female-biased draws attention from the attrition of female scientists at later career stages. More importantly, overemphasizing the harm of gender-based discrimination may be fueling a mental health crisis among liberal young women. Finally, electoral backlash will likely set progress back decades, as we swing from a cancel culture that stifles honest discussion to a presidential decree that there are only two sexes, with its echoes of the Soviet Union’s attempts to have ideology dictate biology.
My experience as an educator, scientist, and elected official, given how much we have to learn about human behavior, suggests that to re-engage young men and enhance equality for women, we’ll need to embrace curiosity. We can’t shut out ideas, including canceling conservative voices. We’ll need to be humble, not holding on to ideas as our understanding evolves. We’ll need to experiment, as we learn by trying. Most importantly, given that mistakes will be the price of progress, we’ll need to be graceful, with ourselves and others.
A call-out to work by Jonathan Haidt and the NY Times Daily podcast that sparked this essay.