Comment: Listening to, helping boys and men can help us all

Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 7, 2026

By April Berg / For The Herald

There is a story we rarely tell about masculinity in America, and when we do, it is often flattened into caricature: men as villains, men as problems, men as people who should simply try harder. What we miss in that story is something quieter and more dangerous: the steady erosion of belonging, purpose and connection among boys and men, and the way that erosion fuels pain that spills outward onto families, communities and women.

In Washington state, the data is stark. Men account for nearly 80 percent of suicides. Boys make up 94 percent of youth in juvenile rehabilitation. Men comprise more than 70 percent of the unsheltered population. In our schools, boys are falling behind academically, graduating at lower rates, and earning fewer college degrees. These outcomes are not evenly distributed: boys and men of color, those in rural areas, LGBTQ+ youth, and low-income men bear the heaviest burden.

None of this exists in tension with the reality that women, trans people and marginalized communities have faced (and continue to face) structural discrimination and violence. Two things can be true at once: misogyny is real and devastating, and patriarchal expectations also harm boys and men. In fact, they are part of the same system.

The version of masculinity many boys inherit is narrow and unforgiving. Be strong, but not vulnerable. Be dominant, but not emotional. Provide, but don’t ask for help. When boys fall short of these expectations — in school, in work, in relationships — they are often met not with support, but with shame or punishment. Over time, that shame hardens into isolation. Isolation becomes anger or despair. And despair, untreated, can be deadly.

Scott Galloway writes in “Notes on Being a Man” that we are raising boys in a society that increasingly offers them fewer pathways to dignity while still demanding the same emotional stoicism. We should not be surprised, then, that loneliness has become one of the defining public health crises of our time, or that it is so deeply gendered.

This is not an argument for centering men. It is an argument for refusing to abandon them.

That is why I introduced House Bill 2401, which would establish a Washington State Boys and Men Commission. The commission would serve as a focal point within state government to better understand the challenges boys and men face and to develop thoughtful, evidence-based policy responses, particularly for those who are most often left out of the conversation.

The commission’s work would not exist in isolation. It would coordinate closely with Washington’s existing women’s, LGBTQ+, and ethnic commissions, because the problems we are trying to solve are interconnected. When men have access to mental health care without stigma, rates of gender-based violence decline. When boys are supported in school and mentorship, communities become safer and more stable. When fathers are able to show up fully in their children’s lives, families thrive.

Public policy has long treated men’s suffering as either invisible or inevitable: as if despair were simply the cost of masculinity. But suffering is not destiny. It is a signal. And ignoring it has consequences for all of us.

The Boys and Men Commission would focus on improving mental health outcomes, expanding access to education and vocational pathways, reducing stigma around asking for help, and addressing the pervasive crisis of loneliness. It would elevate lived experience, gather data and make recommendations grounded in the reality of people’s lives; not ideology or culture-war talking points.

This moment demands nuance. We can reject the false narrative that caring about boys and men requires rolling back progress for women. We can say clearly that equity is not a zero-sum project. And we can choose to invest upstream before isolation becomes violence and disconnection becomes despair.

Washington has an opportunity to lead with compassion and clarity. To say that everyone deserves a life with dignity, belonging and hope, including boys and men who have been taught, for too long, to suffer in silence.

The call to action is simple: support HB 2401, and support a future where care is not conditional on gender. Our collective well-being depends on it.

Rep. April Berg, D-Mill Creek, represents the 44th Legislative District.