THE BUZZ: William J Bennett—CNN contributor, former U.S. secretary of education, and former director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy—thinks men are in trouble. “For the first time in history,” Bennett proposes, “women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.”

Meanwhile, he says, men are becoming more distant from their families (if they’re even having families at all), they’re going to church less, they aren’t graduating college as often as women are, and they aren’t working enough.

How do we solve this lack of “industriousness, marriage and religion” that the Founding Fathers said were such important qualities in men?

Here’s one idea Bennett has:

We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, “Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married.” It’s time for men to man up.

Yes, indeed—video games are a major part of the blame for you men out there that are no longer manly. In the challenges of the modern world, “Man’s response has been pathetic,” Bennett says.

“Today, 18-to- 34-year-old men spend more time playing video games a day than 12-to- 17-year-old boys.”

“Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?”

EGM’s TAKE: My response to this might be to quote a fact from the Entertainment Software Association:

Forty-two percent of all players are women and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry’s fastest growing demographics.

Of course, I suppose, the argument could be made that women have now evolved so far over men that they can be the dominant sex while also being avid video game players.

Maybe–if men really are in trouble—it is coming from some other element of society that is for influential in changing the personalities and priorities of men. Or, then again, maybe it’s just easier to blame video games, being how convenient of a scapegoat the hobby is.

Source: CNN