For decades, Americans have told a clear story about gender. Women were held back. Society was built by men and for men. The moral task of our time, we were told, was to dismantle male advantage and help women catch up. That story may have once described reality. It no longer does.

Today, a growing body of evidence points to a different and deeply uncomfortable conclusion. Boys and men are now falling behind across many of the institutions that structure a stable, dignified life: education, work, family, and mental health. And yet our public conversation remains frozen in an earlier era, unable or unwilling to recognize what has changed.

This is not an argument against women’s progress. Women have made extraordinary and deserved gains. It is an argument that a society can correct one injustice and create another if it refuses to update its moral lens.

Start with education. In elementary and secondary school, boys now lag behind girls in reading in every developed country. They are more likely to struggle academically, to be disciplined, and to disengage from school altogether. That early gap compounds over time. Seven out of 10 valedictorians are female. On college campuses, the gender balance has flipped: Women now make up nearly 60% of undergraduates and earn close to 60% of bachelor’s degrees. Among young adults, women are significantly more likely than men to have a college degree, a reversal of the gender........

© Washington Examiner