young men and hierarchy today
- Lisa
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
by Paul Strickland
Hierarchy (2026) - 06
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"Things About Hierarchy" is a thematic series of articles, sponsored by Reality Skimming Press. Pieces in the series run from Jul-Dec 2026. coordinator Lisa Van Gool at info@realityskimming.com. Query us about contributing for $25 CAD a post at https://facebook.com/relskim or by email at info@realityskimming.com"
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Declining health among youths and young men may be in part attributed to deteriorating employment and career prospects, but may also be impacted by their perceptions of their sinking social status and place in local and regional hierarchies.
To address some of these concerns, Health Canada earlier this year announced plans to engage provincial and territorial and indigenous partners and other key stakeholders to develop a Men and Boys' Health Strategy. Its goals include in part challenging harmful stereotypes and reducing stigma, according to a recent Government of Canada release.
The overall assumption in twenty-first-century North American society is that all men are wealthy and privileged and lead problem-free lives at the expense of others. It is often repeated on CBC news and public affairs programs that the majority of high corporate executive positions are held by men and all men benefit unfairly from this state of affairs. I believe this kind of assumption is in error.
Class position is sometimes ignored or downplayed in these discussions. If Jim Smith, CEO of XYZ Steel Corporation, makes $10 million per year, that does not mean that wealth is shared with a carpenter's son or a warehouseman's nephew. There are class barriers against the career advancement of these young men. Honest young men without the support of pillars of a community are forgotten or pushed aside as the "aggressive young men" (now no longer mentioned in want ads) are still what employers really want. Soft-spoken young men and those considered to be of doubtful orientation are not invited on company fishing trips for men who are believed to be of management material.
As to boys and young men with deficient self-esteem who might contemplate suicide ln later youth or early middle age, they are bullied from middle school through the first years of a potential career, slugged in hallways or called damaging names in front of fellow staff. This negatively affects advancement possibilities. If a young man can't find a career-track job within a few weeks of graduation from high school or university, too often he will be mercilessly criticized by other family members, male and female, who will call him out as "useless," "too smart for your own good," or someone who "doesn't know how to get out there, find a job, and make a living for himself." He is threatened with eviction from home before he has a job that will allow paying current levels of rent for apartments. If he loses a first job, he is called "lazy" or is told "You're living on welfare, aren't you?" They are grilled at length by neighbours and relatives about where they have been looking for work or how many job interviews they have succeeded in getting.
In our modern society the reigning assumption is that boys and young men do not face significant domestic violence or threats in their neighborhood. However, boys who show an interest in piano or poetry are sometimes brutally beaten up on the way home from school. This is often said to be their own fault for not having learned better boxing skills or developed an ability "to fight your own battles." In many conservative religious homes, including evangelical Christian homes, boys receive the major portion of the often severe corporal punishment meted out.
Because of the criticism of their gender, quiet timid boys and young men are often unfairly lumped in with the bullies and abusers who harass and beat young women. They do what they can, but they are usually unable to win fights with powerful bullies. Police often advise against trying to confront offenders unaided. However, many do intervene. During a tight housing market in a small Prairie city during the early 1980s, I had to settle for an inadequate suite in a run-down brick apartment building from the 1920s. A husband or boyfriend in a nearby apartment was beating up his screaming wife or girlfriend. Soon an off-duty soldier visiting from British Army Training Unit Suffield came out of another apartment, banged loudly on the door to the suite where the attack was occurring and yelled loudly, "You stop right now! Or I'll break down this door, and then you'll have me to deal with!" The attack stopped.immediately.
Egalitarians of good will do what they can to ensure fairness for all people in communities or organizations like corporations where hidden hierarchies may unjustly hamper the career progress of talented young people who are not temperamentally or naturally aggressive. There are those, especially the more thoughtful philosophical conservatives, who see value in some hierarchies that assist in the sorting out of the best people for the positions for which they are best suited in different sectors of an organization.
Edmund Burke was a foundational philosopher for this kind of moderate philosophical conservatism. Some subsequent moderate philosophers of conservatism sought to devise systems that were appropriate for all concerned and, in their view, reduced social frictions for all concerned. Left liberal and social democratic thinkers disagreed, but constructive discussions continued, despite interruptions from violent strikes, the establishment of dictatorships in many European countries and two catastrophic world wars.
More recent philosophical conservatives, some of whom endorsed reasonable hierarchies, included, in the United States, Russell Kirk (no relation to Charlie Kirk), William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Patrick Deneen, and, in Canada, George Grant and Hilda Neatby.
Debates over the roles of status and hierarchies continue. Efforts to increase the labour pool massively and quickly draw negative reactions from local workers not because of racism necessarily but because the local workers often lose their status in local hierarchies and fear becoming unemployed and eventually unable to provide for their families. This is a caution expressed by Joan C. Williams, award-winning scholar and author of Outclassed: How The Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back (St. Martin's Press, 2025).
"Class isn't only about material issues," Williams advises. "Beyond subsistence levels, economics is just one use-case of a larger dynamic: Class conflicts reflect the scrum for social honor.
"The desire for status is a fundamental human motive that is as powerful a motivator as money and power," she continues. People vigilantly monitor the status dynamics in their environments because status is integral to personal identity."
One hopes the debates and discussions continue in the spirit of constructive criticism that will see us to a better, more peaceful future, taking into account Canada's often communitarian values. One extends best wishes toward those participants working on the Men and Boys' Health Strategy that the Government of Canada has set in motion.
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In his 28 years as a full-time journalist and 6.5 years as a freelance journalist, Paul has worked for newspapers in Nevada, Medicine Hat and Prince George. Besides being an investigative reporter, he is a poet, a short story writer and an essayist. He has recently contributed to UNBC's Over the Edge, to CNC’s The Confluence and occasionally to the Prince George Astronomical Society's Pegasus newsletter. Paul also wrote a bi-weekly column for the P G Free Press and continues to freelance for electronic sites such as chickenbustales.com and www.dooneyscafe.com He presently resides in Prince George and haunts all the literary scenes that appear in town.
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