I'm tired of toxic masculinity. I mean, I'm tired of its existence in general, particularly in the corrosive radicalization of our boys and young men. But I'm also tired of how the phrase has become synonymous with masculinity in general. I'm tired of the ways in which the suffering of males — especially the ones who aren't white or straight or from a privileged socioeconomic background — is dismissed, marginalized and misunderstood.

And while I agree with my colleague Amanda Marcotte that "Healthy men draw their self-esteem from inside, by cultivating their own talents and good qualities," I also think that our culture is doing a terrible job of defining and encouraging that healthy masculinity.

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"We have so much work to be done," says Jennifer L.W. Fink, author of "Building Boys: Raising Great Guys in a World that Misunderstands Males" and a mother of four sons. "Gender affects boys lives, too, how they're treated and how they're limited. And they need and deserve our help and support."

"Gender affects boys lives, too, how they're treated and how they're limited."

The statistics are dismaying. Boys are 7% more likely to drop out of high school than girls, a gender gap that Fortune last year noted "has gone largely unaddressed by schools." They have higher rates of unemployment, have shorter life expectancies, and are four times more likely than females to die by suicide. They are significantly less likely than females to seek mental health treatment or assistance for intimate partner violence.

Just as it doesn't help any of us, anywhere on the gender spectrum, to take the advancements of girls and women as a threat to boys and men, it's likewise lazy and simplistic to use the damage wrought by the patriarchy to let ourselves off the hook for what's going on with our guys. So, how do we reframe the conversation from a zero sum game to one in which........

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