How Democrats lost the male vote

OPINION:

While researching “The Boy Crisis,” I interviewed a young man from Mill Valley, California, a city with deep Democratic ties. As the interview concluded, he said, “I wish I hadn’t been born male.”

I knew why. He had already said:

“In public schools and even in the private all-male school I attend, it’s all we hear is ‘The future is female.’ That doesn’t inspire me for my future. As for masculinity, it’s ‘toxic masculinity.’ Then we are told we’re part of the patriarchy that makes rules to benefit men at the expense of women. The conclusion is that ‘men are the oppressors; women are the oppressed.’ I can’t help being who I am; there’s nothing I can do to feel valued.”

When I asked him with whom he discusses this, he said: “My guy friends. They feel the same. But I’d never tell my girlfriend. She’s a feminist. She’d break up with me.”

On spring break, I encountered seven men reuniting at Starbucks. Though they attend different colleges, the others nodded as one complained: “If I take a sexual initiative too quickly, I’m labeled a sexual harasser. But if I ask permission to hold her hand, she looks at me like I’m a wimp.”

One concurred: “I feel damned if I do, damned if I don’t. … If they’re so into equality, why don’t they take the sexual initiatives and risk the rejection?”

Once they felt comfortable, stories poured out. One recalled: “My best friend and a girl both got drunk at a fraternity party. They had consensual sex, but she had a boyfriend who found out, and she accused my friend of date rape ‘because she was drunk.’ Well, he was drunk too! A committee heard the case, but he couldn’t even cross-examine her. He was expelled, his record tainted for life.”

Their voices dropped. “It’s all #MeToo for women and #ShutUp for men.” One concluded, “College is a dangerous place for men.”

A couple of the guys knew that former President Barack Obama had written a letter to college presidents warning that if a woman reports any sexual violation, they must “believe women” lest they risk federal funding. This denial of due process distanced them from Democrats even if their family and community were liberal.

In another interview, one man said: “It’s mostly girls in college now, and the girls are complaining this is unfair to them to have to compete for small numbers of guys. Ironically, many colleges are finally giving some affirmative action to guys to please the women.”

Among working men, the feeling of having the cards stacked against them is directed at human resources departments. “If I tease a man, no problem; if I tease a woman, I’ll be reported to HR. HR doesn’t ‘get it’ that guys tease people we respect, so if I only tease guys, I’m really discriminating against women.”

In essence, they feel that HR is actually HeR.

Whether in high school, college or the workplace, they see this anti-male attitude as coming from the Democrats, with diversity, equity and inclusion meaning a diversity and inclusion that is not diverse enough to include them, especially if they are White.

But it isn’t just race. The Biden-Harris White House formed a White House Gender Policy Council that explicitly excludes men, even the most vulnerable: Native American men, Black men, gay men and transgender men. When it comes to benefits, the Gender Policy Council excludes the male gender.

A similar exclusion of males occurred under Mr. Obama, who created a White House Council for Women and Girls but refused to create a corresponding council for men and boys. The Trump administration discontinued gender-related councils.

The discrimination that men feel is not just perpetrated by Democrats. Many young men raised by  a single mother saw their father lose a custody battle that left them “dad-deprived” and experiencing some of the more than 50 problems faced by dad-deprived boys. Many became addicted to alcohol, drugs, video games and pornography. Both political parties perpetrate this family court bias.

Similarly, even though boys and men die sooner of 14 of 15 of the leading causes of death, it is not just Democrats that have created eight federal offices of men’s health and no federal offices of women’s health. Nor is it just Democrats that continue to require draft registration at age 18 only for men but require no registration for any contribution by women.

Democrats take the blame, though, because on top of these discriminations against men, Democrats, via DEI, HR, “Believe Women,” “#MeToo,” “toxic masculinity,” “the patriarchy,” “male privilege,” “male power” and taking pride in “the future is female,” create safe spaces and trigger warnings for women but not for men.

Democrats appear to be the ones blaming them for all the bad and showing no concern about their failure to launch, their suicides, their homelessness, their deaths from opioid overdose, their dad deprivation.

When many of these men hear that men are turning to President-elect Donald Trump because they have problems voting for a woman for president, they once again feel blamed by a party they feel has its blinders on. When Michelle Obama blames male rage for hurting women, they’d like her to understand that anger is vulnerability’s mask and to approach their vulnerability with compassion rather than blame.

Losing will be a gift to the Democrats if it generates more introspection than if they had won — if they take time to consider what the Democrats are missing about the men they are missing.

• Warren Farrell is author of “The Boy Crisis” and “Why Men Are the Way They Are.” He was on the board of the National Organization for Women in New York. He currently chairs the Coalition for a White House Council on Boys and Men.