It’s the End of Men as We Know It

Hanna Rosin has written an interesting and complex article at The Atlantic titled, “The End of Men.” Citing the recent shift in the national payroll – more women are reporting to work than men, and the fact that two women per every one man are graduating college, Rosin asks, “what if equality is at a standpoint?” Perhaps, she posits, our postindustrial society is better suited to accommodate women.

It’s an interesting concept following closely on the heels of Maria Shriver’s report, “A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.” After all, women are the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of U.S. households. And, we control 85 percent of consumer purchasing power. Women even represent just a tiny percentage more of the population than men do. Beyond the statistics, women have had some recent, high-profile successes. Two women just won their primary races in California – Meg Whitman in the governor’s race and Carly Fiorina in the Senate race (where she will face another women opponent, Senator Barbara Boxer in the final election). More women than ever before were awarded Nobel prizes this past year, including the first woman to win the prize for economics. And we are close to reaching a critical mass of women justices on the U.S. Supreme Court if President Obama’s nominee Elena Kagan is confirmed.

But neither statistics nor individual anecdotes tell the whole story. For every Sonia Sotamayor, or Urusla Banks, (the CEO of Xerox who succeeded another women, Anne Mulcahy) there are multiple women struggling to take home a fair paycheck, managing a disproportionate amount of housework to the tune of 53 percent more, or dealing with domestic violence and sexual assault. It’s unlikely anyone will convince those women that we’ve achieved equality, not even the dozens of college women interviewed for The Atlantic story who believe women will “hold the cards” in this new economy.

Rosin must have anticipated responses like mine when she penned the piece because early on she writes, “In feminist circles, these social, political, and economic changes are always cast as a slow, arduous form of catch-up in a continuing struggle for female equality.” That is indeed how I view things. After all, yesterday was the 47^th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act and the wage gap has widened in recent years. Women still earn, on average, just .77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That, to me, is “a slow, arduous form of catch-up.” But I also know that perspective matters and where I see the glass half empty, others see it half full.

As evidence that the new world may be better suited for women, Rosin cites some of the same ideas that those of us advocating for the advancement of women have cited. She writes, “The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male.” She says that in the white collar world, communication skills and social intelligence are required, and there again, women have the advantage.

And among the working class, she says, the gender role reversal is “obvious and painful.” Men who were once solidly in place as the heads of households now struggle, not only to make child support payments, but to cope with women who are economically and emotionally independent of them.

Things are changing, no doubt. But it’s not the end of men. They still run the White House, and Capitol Hill, and Fortune 500 companies, and newsrooms, and organized religion. But it could be the end of men as we know it. Women have successfully adapted to societal and economic shifts over the years. They were cheap labor in the textile mills then formed labor unions to protect themselves. They entered the workforce in large numbers after the Civil War took so many men’s lives and again during World War II while the men were away fighting. Then they handed those jobs back to the men when the war ended. And now they are moving into breadwinner roles while still mostly managing life at home.

If men can demonstrate the same ability to adapt, letting go of how it used to be and moving forward to how it will be, then perhaps we can move into a “modern, postindustrial society.” Women will make progress, gender roles will shift, and the men will be just fine.

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Tags: Elena Kagan, equal pay, gender gap, hanna rosin, obama, rape, the atlantic, violence against women, women's equality