Throughout recent decades, the gender conversation in the West has blamed one consistent villain: men. When times were good, masculinity was dismissed as an unearned privilege. When times turned darker, it was rebranded as toxic. Beneath every hashtag and viral moment, the same warning echoed: collectively and individually, men are an impediment to womens safety, prosperity and fulfillment.
What surely started as a sincere attempt to encourage genuine equality among the sexes and correct course in places where injustice and cruelty occurred ended up veering far off-course, as these things often do. Suddenly, masculinity a biological reality a male has no more say over than breathing was qualified as either healthy or destructive, trapping men and boys in a cycle of constantly proving their harmlessness to females around them.
Now, splashy media headlines and bestselling books are sounding the alarm: young men are suffering . While there are some who foolishly insist that any attention paid to the plight of men overlooks the systemic inequalities facing women, there is a growing consensus across disciplines and the political spectrum that imparts long-overdue social permission for immediate concern for men and boys.
The urgency is no hyperbole. In a recent poll conducted for the inaugural Symposium on Young American Men , Cygnal discovered that 57% of males 16 to 28 rate their mental health as "fair," "poor" or "very poor." Nearly half of the nationwide surveys 1,000 respondents said they had two or fewer friends, while 11% have no friends at all.
Their loneliness is due in part to a pervasive trade of meaningful relationships for shallow digital engagement. Cygnal found that 50% were engrossed in online recreational activities for at least five hours daily, and 45% dedicated at least three hours per day exclusively to YouTube. Meanwhile, 48% of Gen Z males spend five or fewer hours per week interacting with others in-person or participating in social activities, and 4 in 10 dont have a male mentor.
These data reveal a generation increasingly disconnected from the very fabric that has historically sustained young men through life's trials: earnest human connection, multigenerational learning and community belonging. This epidemic of isolation doesn't merely represent a social inconvenience. It is nothing short of a civilizational crisis whose most intimate burdens are felt in families, romantic relationships, workplaces and communities.
Yet amid this bleak landscape, there exists a proven model that consistently delivers the exact opposite outcomes the ones our leaders should want for all young people. Fraternity men report dramatically different experiences than their non-affiliated peers, demonstrating that the right kind of structured community, when applied broadly, can reverse these troubling trends.
Those who belong to a fraternity on a college or university campus experience something remarkably absent in the wider youth population: balanced living grounded in relationships with others. Fraternity collegians and alumni are more likely to limit recreational online hours (36% spend more than six hours online daily, compared to 53% of non-affiliated men) and spend more time engaging in in-person activities (60% dedicate at least six hours each week socializing with others, compared to 49% of non-affiliated men).
They are also significantly more likely to say their lives are going the way they had envisioned they would (64% fraternity, 57% non-affiliated men). They're very likely to have a male mentor (71% fraternity, 42% non-affiliated) and maintain close friendships (64% of fraternity men have three or more close friends, compared to 36% of non-affiliated men). And their mental health is leaps and bounds better than their peers, assessing their mental health more positively (53% positive, 14% negative) compared to young men overall (41% positive, 24% negative).
These aren't merely marginal improvements from the general Gen Z population. The data demonstrate a fundamental difference in how young men experience their formative years and how joining a single-sex group catalyzes patently better social and emotional well-being for them.
Fraternities havent reinvented the wheel. They are simply creating the frameworks humans have always relied upon for personal fulfillment and growth. They promote structure, accountability, shared values, self-governance, mentorship and belonging for a lifetime. In an age when digital isolation has become the default mode of existence, fraternities insist on embodied presence, enduring ritual and communal responsibility.
The lesson here extends beyond fraternity life. All these results showcase how obvious the answer is to young mens struggles: community. We can see clearly what becomes possible when we protect and expand institutions designed to meet young men where they are and guide them deliberately and responsibly.
As policymakers confront the crisis facing young American men, they must begin with solutions rooted in those real relationships. Hope can be found in rebuilding the kinds of communities, mentorships and brotherhoods that have always helped young men navigate the transition to adulthood and beyond.
The fraternity model proves that when we create spaces where young men can be themselves, both vulnerable and challenged within a context of true brotherhood, they thrive. It's time we took that lesson seriously and extended it beyond campus gates to reach all young men searching for their place in an increasingly lonely and fragmented world for their sake and for all of ours.
近几十年来，西方社会关于性别议题的讨论始终将矛头指向一个不变的"反派"：男性。经济繁荣时，男子气概被贬为不劳而获的特权；时局艰难时，它又被重新定义为有害特质。在每个话题标签和网络热点背后，都回荡着同样的警示：无论作为群体还是个体，男性都是女性安全、繁荣与自我实现的阻碍。
这场运动最初无疑是真诚地试图促进两性间真正的平等，并在存在不公与残酷现象的地方纠正方向，但正如这类事情常有的发展，最终却严重偏离了正轨。突然间，男性气质——这种男性与生俱来、如同呼吸般无法自主选择的生物特性——被简单划分为健康或有害两类，迫使男性与男孩陷入不断向周围女性证明自己无害的循环中。
如今，各类媒体头条和畅销书纷纷敲响警钟：年轻男性正深陷困境。尽管有些人愚蠢地坚持认为，关注男性困境会忽视女性面临的结构性不平等，但跨学科和跨政治派别的共识正在形成，这种共识为立即关注男性与男孩的困境提供了迟来的社会许可。
这种紧迫感绝非夸大其词。在近期为首届美国年轻男性研讨会开展的民意调查中，西格纳尔公司发现，16至28岁的男性中有57%将自己的心理健康状况评为“一般”“较差”或“非常差”。这项覆盖全美1000名受访者的调查显示，近半数人表示自己只有两个或更少的朋友，而11%的人甚至完全没有朋友。
他们的孤独感部分源于用深度人际关系换取浅层数字互动的普遍现象。调查机构Cygnal发现，50%的人每天沉迷于在线娱乐活动至少五小时，45%的人每天专门花至少三小时浏览YouTube。与此同时，48%的Z世代男性每周线下与他人互动或参与社交活动的时间不超过五小时，且每十人中就有四人缺乏男性导师的指导。
数据显示，当代年轻人正日益脱离那些曾支撑历代男性度过人生困境的核心纽带：真诚的人际交往、跨代际的知识传承以及社群归属感。这种蔓延的孤立现象绝非仅是社交层面的不便，而是一场不折不扣的文明危机——其最深刻的负面影响正体现在家庭、亲密关系、职场及社区等最贴近生活的领域。
然而在这片黯淡的图景中，却存在一种经过验证的模式，它能持续产生截然相反的结果——这正是我们的领导者应为所有年轻人追求的目标。联谊会成员的经历与非会员同龄人有着天壤之别，这表明当适当构建的社群体系得到广泛推广时，完全能够扭转这些令人忧心的趋势。
在大学校园中参与兄弟会的学生，能体验到广大青年群体中罕见的一种生活状态：以人际关系为基础的平衡生活方式。数据显示，兄弟会成员及校友更倾向于控制娱乐性上网时间（36%的人每日上网超过6小时，非会员男性这一比例为53%），并投入更多时间参与线下社交活动（60%的人每周至少花6小时与他人面对面交流，非会员男性仅为49%）。
他们更倾向于认为自己的生活符合预期（兄弟会成员64%，非成员男性57%）。他们更可能拥有一位男性导师（兄弟会成员71%，非成员42%），并保持紧密的友谊（64%的兄弟会成员拥有至少三位密友，而非成员男性中这一比例为36%）。此外，他们的心理健康状况远超同龄人：53%的兄弟会成员对心理状态持积极评价，仅14%持负面看法；而全体年轻男性中这一数据为41%积极和24%消极。
这些并非仅仅是Z世代整体中的微小进步。数据显示，年轻男性在成长阶段的经历存在本质差异，而加入单性别团体能显著提升他们的社交与情感健康水平。
兄弟会并未标新立异，它们只是构建了人类始终依赖的、实现自我价值与成长的框架。这些组织倡导结构化管理、责任意识、共同价值观、自我约束、导师制度以及终身归属感。在数字孤岛成为生存常态的时代，兄弟会仍坚持实体互动、传承仪式和集体责任感。
这一教训不仅限于兄弟会生活。所有这些结果都表明，解决年轻男性困境的答案显而易见：社群。当我们保护和拓展那些旨在接纳年轻男性现状、并有意识地负责任引导他们的机构时，我们能清晰地看到可能实现的改变。
当政策制定者应对美国年轻男性面临的危机时，他们必须从基于真实人际关系的解决方案入手。重建那些始终帮助年轻男性顺利过渡到成年及之后人生的社区、导师制度和兄弟情谊，方能寻得希望。
兄弟会模式证明，当我们为年轻男性创造能够展现真我的空间——让他们在真挚的兄弟情谊中既敢于示弱又勇于接受挑战时，他们就能茁壮成长。现在是我们认真汲取这一经验的时候了，应当将其推广至校园之外，惠及所有在这个日益孤独割裂的世界中寻找自我定位的年轻男性——这不仅是为了他们，也是为了我们所有人。
