SUMMARY

Men and boys are struggling mentally, physically, academically, economically, and spiritually because of the absence of fathers, the failures of our education system and policies, and changes in both the job market and our culture. Playing a key role behind the scenes is expressive individualism, a radical autonomy that replaces the embodied relational person, connected to family and human nature, with the isolated psychological self who constructs his or her own morality. Solutions to the boy crisis must encourage relationships rather than personal license. They must repair the ties between inalienable rights and their accompanying duties, between happiness and virtue, and better situate the individual within the broader social matrices that truly shape him: God, family, and country.

AUTHOR

Brenda Hafera is the Assistant Director and Senior Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation’s Simon Center for American Studies. She previously served as the Director of International and Continuing Education at The Fund for American Studies and the Assistant Director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good at Villanova University.

Brenda holds a bachelor of arts in Political Science, a bachelor of science in Finance, and a master’s in Political Science from Villanova University. She was a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a James Madison Fellow at Hillsdale College. Her articles have appeared in publications such as Modern Age, The Federalist, Law and Liberty, The National Interest, RealClear Public Affairs, and The Hill.