How They Broke The Boys

The slow decay of masculinity in a world that told girls to conquer and boys to disappear

(cred: Carl Purcell / Stringer / Getty Images)

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Mary Rooke here 👋 This week, Brittany Hugoboom, founder and editor-in-chief of Evie Magazine, guest-wrote the Good Life newsletter. Evie is a publication that aims to break from the often misguided advice women get from traditional magazines, and opts instead (brilliantly) to celebrate femininity, joy, and beauty. Join me in keeping up with Brittany and Evie Magazine by visiting their site and subscribing to their Substack. Enjoy the piece!

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By Brittany Hugoboom

Back in July, the now-infamous Tea app had surpassed ChatGPT in downloads.

What is the Tea app? “Tea is a women-only app where users anonymously share info and warnings about men to spot red flags and get feedback.” If you’ve ever scrolled through the Facebook group “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” this is that, but entirely anonymous.

“Why aren’t men approaching women anymore?”
If you ask any young guy this question, he will look you in the face and ask, “Are you dumb?”

Anyone who’s paid even half attention to the dating scene for twenty-somethings knows it’s a wasteland. “All girls are hoes,” a 21-year-old boy tells me, blankly. Meanwhile, stunning 23-year-old women have never once been… asked to dinner?

What happened?

I’m a millennial born in the ‘90s. Aka, the last century. Back then, the message was clear: “Girls rule, boys drool.” Girl power reigned supreme. From Powerpuff Girls to She’s the Man, we were spoon-fed the narrative that girls were better.

Stronger. Smarter. In every way. The fact that our national women’s soccer team once lost to a team of teenage boys? It didn’t matter. The message was already embedded.

So think about what that means. Boys grew up being told that girls were superior in every way. That masculinity was toxic. That they were dangerous. That all boys were potential rapists just waiting for their moment to strike.

Of course, evil has always existed. Jezebel. Genghis Khan. Joseph Stalin. It’s not gendered. But what’s new is telling innocent, ordinary boys that they’re born broken. That their very biology is a threat.

Now layer in fatherlessness. We have more fatherless homes today than we’ve ever had in recent history.

As I’ve written before, boys need guides. Every hero has one. Frodo had Gandalf. Harry had Dumbledore. Dante had Virgil. But what happens when the father is absent and no one steps in to take his place? When the world just tells him he’s trash?

At church, men are told “stop watching porn.” It’s fair. Porn is not only cringe, but incredibly damaging. But where’s the sermon for women? Where’s the accountability for our sins? Why are men the only ones ever called to repent?

Then came the 2010s. Peak Jezebel. Feminist media went nuclear. To want male attention was to be a traitor to the sisterhood. To say you liked men? You were brainwashed by the patriarchy.

“Believe all women.” Any woman who admitted she dressed for a man or who desired love was immediately branded a “pick me.”

In 2017, #MeToo exploded. I was living in Los Angeles at the time. I remember one of my first Hollywood parties. I was 20. A Harvey Weinstein party. A girl leaned in, giggling: “If you want to be famous, sleep with Harvey Weinstein.”

It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t a secret. So when celebrities later claimed “not everyone knew,” I was stunned. I knew, and I was a nobody. It was suspicious to say the least.

People don’t understand L.A. But L.A. is full of the most beautiful girls from every hometown in America, all competing for one commercial. One campaign. It’s brutal. So what do you do? Sit in traffic and grind for years? Or take the shortcut?

Dating a celebrity is the fastest path to fame. Justin Bieber once posted a photo of Cindy Kimberly and it launched her career overnight. Girls who dated Leo? Instantly famous. Many became supermodels or famous actresses.

Same with Harvey Weinstein. If you slept with him, you got the part. It was a shortcut. A transaction. And once it all came crashing down, then came the posts.

I remember one girl on Facebook saying she was “grabbed at the club” every time she went out. I asked why she never reported it. She paused. “Well… maybe he just bumped me accidentally.” Oh. That’s a different accusation.

A photographer once told me he no longer shoots with women he hasn’t met beforehand.
“What if they don’t like the photos and accuse me of being a predator?”

At the time, it felt paranoid. But then I started seeing it—good, normal boys whose reputations were shattered by vindictive women.

A few years ago, a woman I’d known for years told me she’d been raped. I was stunned.
“What happened?” I asked.
She told me about a guy she’d been seeing. They’d gone on a few dates. She really liked him. They got drinks. She invited him back to her place. They made out.

“I mean, I definitely wanted to hook up. He was really hot,” she said.
I was raised with a rule: never be alone with a man you barely know, let alone invite him back to your apartment. But this woman was older than me.

“I think I told him I didn’t want to have sex… but I can’t remember. I was so drunk. But then he raped me.” I felt sorry for her. But I also felt something else: confusion.

What if a couple in the heat of the moment had sex and, the next day, the woman regretted it? Could a man be labeled a “rapist” and his entire life destroyed because of it?

Many men who’ve approached the age of reason think so. “Boys are cooked.”

My friend is a good guy. He wants to find a good woman. To find love. But in a time where one awkward date can have thousands of women anonymously label you a rapist or a creep, the risk is high. Is that woman worth the risk?

So when people act outraged about the Red Pill, the manosphere, all these angry boys online, they need to look back. They need to ask: How did we get here?

If boys are told they’re worthless their entire lives and suddenly a man online says, “No, you’re powerful. You’re strong. You matter.” Of course they’ll listen.

I’m a woman. I’ve always been one. I’ve been catcalled, followed, harassed. I’ve had stalkers. Old men that hit on me while I was still in school. But that’s why we need good men. Fathers. Brothers. Husbands. Protectors. They live to protect the fairer sex.

But society doesn’t want that. They don’t want the protectors. They want to kill the boys before they become heroes. They want to erase the men who love their families and die for what’s right.

They want you to believe you’re worthless.
But you’re not.
Stop destroying the boys.

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Mary Rooke will be back soon for the next Good Life.