I haven't read Hanna Rosin's book yet, The End of Men: And the Rise of Women
, so I really shouldn't write about it or rely upon David Brooks' interpretation of it. But I am a blogger and, thus, have no integrity, so here goes.
Brooks praises Rosin's book. He says that she correctly shows that women are managing to keep their heads above this new economy, while men are struggling to find work and a purpose. Women are more flexible about what kinds of jobs they will take. They work harder in school and get better grades. Men, on the other hand, are clinging to old norms and failing to make some necessary changes. Thus, their salaries are dropping and their role as "breadwinner" has eroded.
I would like to see this data fully broken down by income and by career. Men, who have traditionally worked in manufacturing and construction, have taken a huge hit in this economy. Many of those jobs are never coming back. Much blame can be laid at the demise of the unions. But upper income men in medicine, law, and business are doing just fine. Some men are in trouble, but it's not clear that all men are in trouble.
Part of me questions whether this is really a crisis or evidence that men are failing. If men take up the slack in the homefront, while women bring home the paycheck, this is not a bad thing. Nobody is failing. There's just a switch in gender determinism about divisions of labor. Who cares, right? If my son becomes the full time parent and his partner earns a big salary as a NYC lawyer, why would I care?
On the other hand, I want my sons, as much as my nieces, to work towards a goal and then later on negotiate with their partners about divisions of labor. We need to be preparing the boys for the new economy, so they have new skills to make a full range of decisions about their future. Sadly, there isn't much that we can do for older men who refuse to take the few jobs that are available, because they are traditional chick jobs. But, perhaps, we are making bad parenting decisions that end up hurting boys down the line.
I do think that boys, more than girls, are pushed to excel at sports at the expense of their education. Many parents think that sports are the key to getting into college and so don't get mad at them about C's in English class. Sports eat up time that could be spent reading. Now, you know that I love sports and support Jonah's soccer habit, but if he has a test, I don't send him to practice. Grades matter more than goals. So, even in upper income towns like ours, I see potential problems.
There will have to be other adjustments. Men will have to learn to consider new kinds of employment. There are more options than stock trader or auto-mechanic.
I do think that there's something else going on in these numbers. Something beyond a boy/girl thing. (It's not a competition, btw, and nobody should be celebrating these changes.) It's a decline of the one income family. Unions protected jobs and kept salaries high enough to allow for one person to support the family. Unions are gone, living wages are gone, whole professions are gone. Working class men do have to adjust, but let's give them a break. They haven't failed. Their entire way of life shifted in ten years. In time, new norms and, hopefully, new opportunities will arise. The former automotive worker might not be able to take the secretarial job, but his son will.
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