Comment threads and blogs have been exploding in response to Kay Hymowitz’s article in the WSJ. “Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children,” she notes; and that this is no longer the case is obviously and rightly a cause of great grief and frustration for many women.

However, though it seems de rigeur these days to allow the concerns and perspectives of women to overshadow others, let us be sure to take a complete look at the situation from the male perspective; and in particular how much harder it is for today’s man in his 20s to achieve the education, financial independence, marriage, and fatherhood (not mere baby-daddy-hood, which is depressingly easy to attain) than for the most recent generations of his forebears.

Given the following:

1. a) The economy continues to transform in ways unfriendly to the “living wage” and many workers, and the Boomers are busy pulling up the ladder after themselves, making long-term job prospects grim, even for men with multiple degrees under their belts. Also, while women still face subtle discrimination in a dwindling number of areas, non-minority men face overt discrimination in a growing number.
2. b) A high school diploma, while still free through public schools, doesn’t get one very far these days; and as for higher education, even as its returns have diminished its costs have exploded. Many people are now forking over a sizeable portion of their paychecks to the student loan companies well into their forties.
3. c) Student loan burdens are high, and housing is still unaffordably expensive post-bubble, while mortgages have gotten much more difficult to obtain. Taken together with ruinous (and non-dischargeable!) student loans, this makes it notably harder than in the past for a freshly-minted college graduate to find his way to anything more than either a crash pad or moving back in with the parents.
4. d) Cultural cues tell us that immature, foolish, and stupid men are the norm, and manly virtues are either forgotten or proscribed or in a state of complete confusion. The ubiquity of “idiot-man adverts” is just one easily spotted manifestation of this.
5. e) Female empowerment has had certain side-effects; for instance, empowering women to be demanding, self-centered, and unforgiving, with unrealistic expectations; and empowering them to elevate female friends (sometimes along with the ever-popular gay male mascot) above all others—including any man they might marry, whom it is all too easy to relegate to the status of a junior partner.
6. f) Women are much more eager to get married than to stay married. Your humble Blog Goliard knows all too many good guys who married, tried—albeit imperfectly—to please their wives and be the men they wanted, stayed away from the worst vices, had children with them…and then wound up kicked to the curb or abandoned at the wife’s whim. (Refer to e) above: girlfriends are for life, men are disposable.) This is a very, very common story these days.

Given all of this, why not take a slacker McJob, share a crash pad with some buddies, and retreat to a world of videogames, TV, beer, hookups, and porn?