The interesting thing about writing on a blog with men is that the woman writing knows that some things that concern them are incomprehensible to her and that some things she will write about will be incomprehensible to them. I never feel so sensitive about that as when I want to write about “Women’s Issues”. However, this time I am not sure that what has grabbed my attention is strictly about women.
The New York Times Sunday Book Review is featuring The End of Men, by Hannah Rosin. Yes, I thought that might catch your attention.
Rosin’s point is that feminism won, more because of a service economy wherein women are at something of an advantage, even in the global economy. She presents some stunning statistics on the rise of women and seems to be quite happy about the end of men. What grabbed me was actually the tone and approach of the reviewer, Jennifer Homans, historian at NYU, who sensibly notes,
But this “rise,” which Rosin so cheerfully reports, is in fact a devastating social collapse. It starts with inequality and class division. As Rosin herself shows, men at “the top” of society are not “ending.” It is all happening to the lower and middle classes, because “the end of men” is the end of a manufacturing-based economy and the men who worked there, many of whom are now unemployed, depressed, increasingly dependent on the state and women to support them. We know the numbers, and they are bad: since 2000 the manufacturing economy has lost six million jobs, a third of its total work force — much of it male. In 1950, 1 in 20 men in their prime were not working; today the number is a terrifying 1 in 5.
There’s much more, of course. The new matriarchy is not good for women. We’ve labored that discussion here before. Most of talk about women becoming more like men, but feminism actually wants men to be more like women. Rosin is rejoicing in a feminization of society and wants her son to find his “inner secretary” so he can succeed in the world where the feminist vision has won. Homans , with whom one cannot always agree (she’s no conservative), graciously allows that it is a lot to ask of men that they must be more like women. Yet she doesn’t see the inevitable resistance of masculinity to feminism’s pressures. She merely predicts that changing economic conditions will renew the vigor of men. Yet it is something to see an academic woman admit that in the feminists’ apparent current success, maybe women will not, do not win.
Hmm. Maybe women in winning find that all of us lose. Let’s go with that and fight back.
September 16th, 2012 | 6:54 pm
I hate to ran on your feminist parade but women have been helped a lot by government entitlements. Its ironic that much of entitlement legislation is approved by male politicians.
September 16th, 2012 | 7:40 pm
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/08/14/hanna-rosins-wildly-misleading-ted-talk/
Maybe Hanna Rosin is a journalist who does not understand how to interpret social statistics.
September 16th, 2012 | 7:44 pm
Celebrating working class mens’ economic hurt and loss of status in our society would be fairly tasteless at the best of times. But it is compounded by the fact that much of mens’ current misfortune can be traced directly to the work of white middle class feminist elitists like Rosin.
Feminists have been busy tilting the playing field against men and boys for decades now in the name of fairness and equality. How ironic.
Affirmative action (white women are the biggest beneficiaries; female-only scholarships and educational program;, rejiggering the education system to suit female learning preferences, etc were specifically put in place and are still in place due to the shrill demands of women like Rosin.
Now that it appears men are on the losing end, all pretense of seeking fairness and equality disappear and the victory dance begins. And of course we are led to believe the only reason women are “beating” men is women’s inherent superiority (their work ethic, multitasking, communication skills, etc.). But when men were doing well, the only possible explanation was endemic sexism.
Rosin is bordering on abusive the way she humiliates her son and husband in front of her adoring female audience. What an evil wretch. The only good news is that she inadvertently highlights all that is wrong with feminism today.
September 16th, 2012 | 7:51 pm
On the money, Kate.
September 16th, 2012 | 9:45 pm
Rosin is bordering on abusive the way she humiliates her son and husband in front of her adoring female audience. What an evil wretch.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/slate_fare/2012/08/the_end_of_men_hanna_rosin_interviewed_by_her_husband_slate_editor_david_plotz_about_her_new_book_.html
The “husband” is a willing accomplice. No surprise there. Pity about the kid.
September 16th, 2012 | 10:07 pm
Yes, don’t you wonder why Rosin needs to see the world like that? I can’t decide if she is frightening or funny. But yes, I feel sorry for the men in her life.
AD, I hope she’s mistaken in the way she put her statistics together, but some of what she cites is true. (Were there only women in the audience?) College graduation rates, male employment hit by the recession in some fields, women in the workforce (though where in the workforce as evidence of dominance doesn’t bear scrutiny), by the numbers
I also think that entitlement funding is a main support of the new matriarchies, but find it a marvel that feminism approves the dependence. It does though, doesn’t it? Isn’t that part of the Democratic creed, that women should be able to stand alone, although with government funding if necessary? I wonder if Rosin looks at that in her book. Additionally, I wonder if I would take the time to read that book. I hope it is baloney, Homans makes it seem so, and if so, why bother?
September 17th, 2012 | 11:09 am
Yes, don’t you wonder why Rosin needs to see the world like that? I can’t decide if she is frightening or funny. But yes, I feel sorry for the men in her life.
She does not need to. She just does.
A while back there was an article in First Things or Touchstone which argued that the character Harold Skimpole of Bleak House was a common contemporary archtype, the sort of aged juvenile who fancies bread comes from the bread truck and not someone’s productive labor.
A critic of Rosin’s has noted the following: when her furnace breaks down or a pipe bursts in her basement, who is she going to call and who shows up at the door? No one who resembles her or the capon she married. It is a charmless habit of some of the professional-managerial bourgeoisie to speak as if their experience were universal and as if everyone else were just a pair of hands. That is at the bottom of this.
September 17th, 2012 | 2:47 pm
Comedian Mike Birbiglia says that men should be very grateful that we, on average, earn 30% more than women. He says if wage equality ever happens women will just start marrying each other.
September 17th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
Oh, hell, Owen, then there’s that,too. How many states allow that now?
September 17th, 2012 | 3:27 pm
AD, the word was specifically my choice. I think people who choose to smilingly enjoy things that are evidently hurtful to other people (men in this case) and society are bent. “She just does” think that way doesn’t cover it for me. It’s an arguable point, but I don’t really want to argue it.
That also speaks to the idea of self-centeredness that you raise. I’ll give her “fool” and not “frightening” but the numbers of intellectual fools these days is frightening.
September 17th, 2012 | 7:54 pm
Maybe the problem with Rosin’s analysis is that there aren’t any men to sample.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/manningup/
September 17th, 2012 | 9:29 pm
No, that is not the problem. Hymowitz’ tripe has been dealt with on other threads here.
September 18th, 2012 | 5:04 am
In June I wrote a different provocatively titled post and in it we discussed Hymnowitz. Art Deco doesn’t like the way she crunches her numbers, either. She does look at the statistics and come to a similarly dismal conclusion, but she doesn’t gloat over “the triumph of women” like Rosin does.
What struck me about the review was that the reviewer, Homans, did not embrace the triumphalism of Rosin, while maintaining a somewhat ambiguous stance on the apparent liberation of women. Here the consequences are a disaster, there, women’s gains, while good, are not likely to last.That could be bad editing for it could mean that feminists are not altogether happy about the world they have they have been trying to produce. Back to Charles Murray who said that education women of the “success class” (my term) go to work, but otherwise live according to more traditional family values, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Free love did not work out so well, for example, though certainly not all feminists were looking for that. In my day — long back, I admit it — it was a big question for women, should we ever marry and if we did should we insist on open marriage. What a mess. There was a lot of talk and those who followed through often found a lot of unhappiness. Call it the Germaine Greer/Erica Jong side of the movement, maybe. Don’t they mostly get over it?
The “who needs you” attitude of some feminists toward men does produce a lot of unhappiness. I don’t think anyone here disagrees with that. How much it has actually harmed society in a statistical way (a’ la Hymnowitz) is a good question, I think. It harms us. If people, women, too, on the Left are taking notice, then that’s good news, as it means improvement or progress against Progress and its unfortunate ends.
September 18th, 2012 | 8:48 am
Looks like Hymowitz touched a chord. Admittedly I didn’t read her book. But I think there’s a point of contact between what I think Hymowitz’s hypothesis is, and the predicament of single mothers having a hard time looking for good men. And it’s this: men come into the world uncivilized, and require a robust civilizing culture to make them good men. Women as a rule do not.
Because our society is configured around a Heideggerian celebration of self realization that echews instutions of masculine formation, that robust culture, as embodied by the Boy Scouts, a strong Catachetical Church Culture, masculine role models, is at best frayed, and probably better described as non-existent. Hence the apparent disparity between men and women in a knowledge economy.
We don’t have the institutions that once created good men, and so are lacking in good men. Welcome to the Seth Rogan generation.
September 18th, 2012 | 1:15 pm
Here is the clip of Rosin abusing her son for the benefit of her female audience:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/hanna-rosin-abusing-her-children-on-video/
September 18th, 2012 | 1:27 pm
Sorry, the clip of her abusing her son starts at 9:50. Thanks.
September 18th, 2012 | 5:27 pm
Looks like Hymowitz touched a chord.
If you are obnoxious enough, and can persuade some belly editor to put it between hard covers, you touch a chord. The woman is a lapsed english teacher whose social research in its first instance was based on reading laddie magazines. What she was doing was a completely unserious enterprise.
Maybe the problem with Rosin’s analysis is that there aren’t any men to sample.
Of course, tens of millions of males in this country hold down regular jobs at every level of the economy and hold the vast majority of jobs which have vigorous operational measures of competence. Millions marry and have children each year. You talk like that and you forfeit the privilege of anything you say being taken seriously.
September 19th, 2012 | 12:33 pm
@Jim, who cares? She is a proffesional feminist. Which means she has to make money and appeal to her “red meat” or perhaps “tofu-vegan” audience. Her son doesn’t care because all of copyright is just words(or immages or song?)…If the mother makes “bank” playing the game, it is all good. In fact the son could be someone confused about the intellectual property dynamics of why folks are paying for this and consider it a good or service. (a la Art Deco, maybe) The “death” of manufacturing is basically about not making things. Making things involves patent, or some sort of process or mechanics, starting and ending with a tangible good. If some woman finds a way to make money being a feminist, then why not encourage it? being the butt of a joke for money, seems ok in reliance upon the rather worn but somewhat true: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” In fact some portion of the service economy seems hell bent on testing all the aspects of this common sense proposition.
Hum…”I’ll give her “fool” and not “frightening” but the numbers of intellectual fools these days is frightening.” What, “intellectual fools”? is that code for aggregate demand in the copyright feminism “industrial” complex?
September 19th, 2012 | 4:53 pm
@Jim, who cares? She is a proffesional [sic.] feminist.
It is a reasonable inference that she and whatshisname are making a hash of rearing their children. Pity for the kids (and anyone who has to deal with their daughter later in life). It is certainly worth someone’s cares.
November 24th, 2012 | 10:51 am
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