It’s old news, but consistently ignored. In her 2011 book, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys, Kay Hymowitz reports basic facts about gender, income, and status. Here are some arresting statistics.
Women between 25-34 with college educations now outnumber men in their age group.
The pay for women has grown 44 percent since 1970. Pay for men during the same time period has grown 6 percent.
Single and childless women living in cities now earn 8% more than men in their age cohort.
I’m not altogether sure what these changes mean over the long term. But I’ll venture one thought. Men are in trouble, or at least the median man. (Elite men flourish in the hyper-competitive environment of global capitalism.) I’ve written in the past about how globalization hammers working class men with high school educations. Our educational system does as well. These days a great deal of emphasis is put on order and compliance, an understandable reaction to the laxity and chaos of post-sixties education. It’s an educational environment in which adolescent females excel and adolescent males don’t.
My son recently graduated from a large urban public high school with a diverse student population. The honor roll was 90% female. Shocking, and surely a sign of serious problems, though nobody seems to care.
January 16th, 2013 | 4:50 pm
Would you think there’s a problem if the honor roll were 90% male?
January 16th, 2013 | 5:01 pm
As a man, I suppose I am a bit alarmed, although I would probably be more alarmed if I had not worked all my career in educational publishing, with almost all of my bosses over the years being women. I remember one of my bosses, a middle aged woman, long ago telling me that in her previous job, they kept telling her how wonderful she was, and how they would love to promote her . . . except she was a woman. Those days, thankfully, are over, but it seems to me that women were kept down for so long (thousands of years!), it hardly seems right to be chagrined that they are finally getting so many opportunities they are quite capable of taking advantage of and excelling in.
These days a great deal of emphasis is put on order and compliance, an understandable reaction to the laxity and chaos of post-sixties education. It’s an educational environment in which adolescent females excel and adolescent males don’t.
I am not sure how believable this is, but what are we supposed to do now? Try and rig the system to favor of men again? Would 50-50 be acceptable for the honor roll? Or do men have to predominate?
January 16th, 2013 | 5:44 pm
Interesting article, and it would be good to know what the ratio was between male and female in the graduating group. That would put things in a better perspective.
January 16th, 2013 | 7:24 pm
I don’t know how this anecdotal observation applies, but when I graduated high school (1967), the majority of the honor roll was female as well.
January 16th, 2013 | 9:04 pm
Actually, this issue has received quite a bit of attention from the blogs of the Alt-Right – guys like Steve Sailer, Roger Devlin (a guy who has some issues, to be sure), Manosphere writers like Roissy in DC (another guy, to be fair, who has issues), and so on. To be sure, these writers often fire wildly, yet they also I believe make some fairly valid points about, for instance, the drawbacks as well as the achievements of feminism. One would do well to give some of these writers a perusal, even while holding one’s nose while reading some of their excessively misogynist thoughts.
January 16th, 2013 | 11:07 pm
It’s my understanding that in college admissions, there’s an informal Affirmative Action effort to admit more guys. It’s considered desirable to have a roughly 50/50 split, but fewer institutions are able to pull this off.
In short, yes, we’re rigging the system to favor men these days. Or, rephrased, to offset systemic problems men seem to be encountering these days relative to women.
January 17th, 2013 | 12:28 am
David,
The problem isn’t that men have to predominate, it’s that most men, by their very nature are dominant, physical, aggressive beings, therefore those who are disenfranchised will act out in those ways against the “system”.
Women are not nearly as violent, aggressive or dominant and subsequently, disenfranchised women become abused by the “system”.
Secondly, the twin life-sustaining acts of childbirth and breastfeeding tie a mother to her children in a way that fathers are never connected. I cannot sustain the life of my children or bring them into existence with anything of my flesh.
Therefore, disenfranchised women have a reason to stay with the family (their children) while disenfranchised men have a much easier time walking away.
Hence, 40% of all children born in 2011 were born to unwed mothers. About 70% in the AA community (the community where men have been statistically the most disenfranchised.).
But, please, persist in your desires. Your world remains unaffected by this. If it was otherwise you would rage, as I do, against the slow, torturous deterioration of American masculinity.
January 17th, 2013 | 1:45 am
One thing we don’t need is more nags like Hymowitz.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:16 am
” I’ve written in the past about how globalization hammers working class men with high school educations. Our educational system does as well. These days a great deal of emphasis is put on order and compliance, an understandable reaction to the laxity and chaos of post-sixties education. ”
The education system—at least at the university level—also seems to be following a fad that emphasizes women (their plight, their contributions, their thinking, their strengths, their victimization). My son’s experience as an anthropology major was almost a joke —lots of “gender” studies that meant, essentially, the study and celebration of women. Men generally do not come across well in these courses. It’s not enough to build up women, we must tear down men.
I also have a daughter and like it when she is encouraged and supported, but often wondered about the treatment of our sons. Our society seems to take these wild swings when it tries to correct past injustice and this creates new problems.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:08 am
But, please, persist in your desires. Your world remains unaffected by this. If it was otherwise you would rage, as I do, against the slow, torturous deterioration of American masculinity.
JustinR,
I don’t understand how you presume to know my “desires”—since I hardly staked out a position—and since you don’t know me, you have no idea how my “world” is affected by what the original post describes. If you are implying that yes, indeed, the system should be “rigged” in favor of men, because it is better to err on the side of “disenfranchising” women, since that will keep them home caring for babies, I disagree. I think nobody should be disenfranchised.
January 17th, 2013 | 10:22 am
There is a deep cultural problem here, with no adequate fix. That won’t stop me from pretending there is, so here goes: once the video game industry figures out how to suck girls into wasting their lives, as well, the numbers will head back towards parity.
January 17th, 2013 | 12:19 pm
David,
I apologize for that attack. Upon rereading it, my words were more personal than I intended.
What I should have said, more eloquently, is that when you work with and in communities where males (primarily ethnic minority) are being systemically emasculated and subsequently becoming non-factors in the educational system (60% of all AA males in the city I live/work in drop out of high school) and therefore non-factors in the above-ground/legitimate job market which leads to lives of dependence, illegality, prison and forsaking of responsibilities (as the popular culture (which is also the culture that establishes legal norms) would define them, then you should be more concerned. Perhaps you are as concerned as I am, but the tenor/tone of your response appeared to convey a, “well, things are finally balancing out”, approach.
I agree with you that nobody should (emphasis here) be disenfranchised, but someone will and as long as it is men, don’t expect them to stick around in marriages where there is little (biologically) keeping them there. That is not how the world works and it will remain that way until HE returns with all power.
January 17th, 2013 | 1:51 pm
What was the percentage of female graduates at the high school who “lettered” in a varsity sport? Received athletic scholarships? What were the genders of the class officers?
If it’s true that girls excel at “order and compliance” and boys “are dominant, physical, aggressive beings,” surely that gives boys certain advantages, just not with regard to the honor roll.
January 17th, 2013 | 3:17 pm
@RS In my past 10 years of teaching my school has never had a male student council president. Of course, this is once again anecdotal.
I think the problem can also be seen in the rates of boys being diagnosed with ADD.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:17 pm
Diificulties with males in the work force include their routine inabikity to show up on time after their heavy frat-night-like experiences long after college, their inability to keep a sexual notion off their tongue, and their routine problem with taking responsibility.
Also, behaving like beer-drinking, girl-chasing, gym rats through their education did nothing for their competence in their fields.
Quite frankly, because of this, most people will hire a pregnant woman over a single male. I would.
Teach your “aggressive males” to keep a civil tongue in their heads and avoid rude sexual comments, learn some discipline, and prioritize work and education over sports, beer-drinking, and getting laid and maybe we’d have something to discuss about society’s “problems” with men.
The problem is men. Not society. Suggesting otherwise continues a conservative whine about how tough males have it. Such a theme is nonsense.
January 17th, 2013 | 9:57 pm
One other point:
Society’s at fault for male academic failure? Really?
I guess accountability and personal responsibility for failure is something conservativea only desire for women and minorities. But men, well, society hasn’t helped them enough.
To that I say as a calculus loving, piano-playing overeducated man:
Man up, dudes, take responsibility, and stop whining.
January 18th, 2013 | 10:25 am
Dan C The problem is men. Not society.
The problem is both. Boys become men in a society. In particular, they become men in a society that exalts for rude sexual comments, … sports, beer-drinking, and getting laid, and propagates all sorts of myths about the consequences of these activities.
I guess accountability and personal responsibility for failure is something conservativea only desire for women and minorities.
Odd. When Rick Santorum, Bill Cosby, and other social conservatives point out that society’s disparagement of stable, married families has a very negative influence women, minorities, children, what-have-you, are you among those criticizing Santorum and Cosby, or are you just not listening?
(I say this as a calculus teaching, piano playing, overeducated man.)
January 18th, 2013 | 1:14 pm
Dan C,
I am not calculus loving (personally, I don’t care to make predictions about objects in spatial motion, though when I read Plato I realize that nothing is harder than predicting the courses men travel), nor piano playing (though from ages 5-12 I took lessons, I don’t own a piano (neither would my home have space for one)), nor overeducated (I possess exactly the appropriate amount of education necessary for my task (living a life in pursuit of Christ) with the opportunity and skills to sit and learn at the feet of the masters), but I am a man.
Specifically, I am a man living a life among the very men you describe. Sports-loving, un-mannered, work-averse would all be accurate terms for many of them. However, those characteristics are symptomatic and not in and of themselves the root cause.
The breakdown in family structures, the changing nature of education and the ways in which we educate, the rise of sports culture, the relegating of men to secondary roles instead of primary roles in the creation and sustaining of new life, all these things are more root.
I can’t tell you the number of times that my students, especially the women, have told me that fathers are just a delivery vehicle for sperm. Most can’t fathom “father” as an active verb because all they know is “mother”, because that is all they’ve ever seen.
January 19th, 2013 | 1:19 am
Mike Melendez
January 16th, 2013 | 7:24 pm
I don’t know how this anecdotal observation applies, but when I graduated high school (1967), the majority of the honor roll was female as well.
[When I graduated, the top third of the class was male. Ok, yes, there were only three in the class.]
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