Special Comment: The End of Men
Jul. 1st, 2010 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptBig article, special comment.
The End of Men, the article carries as its headline. Mostly, we suspect, for shock value, as until parthenogenesis is achieved, men will still have some role to play in the propagation of the species. The article, however, is looking more at the choices parents make about having kids and the shifting society in the world around us, one that might be ordering itself such that women, with higher rates of graduation from university and skills in communication, patience, and awareness of others, are naturally better-suited to it. Big strong men who hunt and kill things and fight each other for scarce resources are finding their mammoth-hunting abilities and their normally bigger strength not being used quite as much these days. Blue collar jobs are vanishing at an alarming rate, making college the entryway to work and success, and women currently dominate college enrollment. Flex time and other adaptations of work allow for mothers to retain their work and adapt their schedules to work with child rearing, instead of having to abandon their career in favor of the kids. And for companies and organizations that want to maintain stability and growth and encourage cooperation and innovation among the whole workplace, rather than having one person with power and the rest be drones, women in management and the workforce help to keep an even keel.
And that creates problems. Men who have been brought up on the idea that they are the person who goes to work and provide for the family have been kicked in the nuts by the economy and then thrown out on their ass from their work while they’re still processing the pain. They’re now adrift and have to rely on their spouse, who may have work. Even men who are still employed may find that they’re not making the majority of the money in their household any more. They have become dispensable, in some ways, and vulnerable to being replaced. And rather than adapt, as feminism gave women the tools to adapt to the previous world, many men have closed ranks, trying to find refuge in ever-disappearing places where their masculinity is secure, where men are men. Feminism is the most prominent women’s advancement and equality philosophy, which lets it be easily malformed into an enemy, the thing responsible for the perceived de-masculization of these men, and then further strung out into the conspiracy to feminize boys and the idiots on the very end who think Objectify Chicks is a positive mantra instead of a relic.
Young men have it rough in these new times as well. The shift in female employment and the “traditional” (well, traditional now) place of women as teachers and librarians, the shifting family dynamic of women working, and the increased ability of women to hack it as single mothers means that young men may go through a significant part of their formative years without a major male role model that’s not on the television screen, presented to them in a way that’s not intended sell them something, or invested to some degree in a criminal element. Real Men use this product. Real Men treat their women like bitches and hoes. Real Men are superficial and lazy, yet violent at the drop of a hat or when their pride is injured. Real Men play football, and not that sissy soccer crap. Real Men shoot guns, smoke tobacco, and swive women wherever and whenever they can, because there are no such things as gay men or men that aren’t perpetually interested in sex in the Real Men community.
So, in this post-male society, wheat can be done to ensure both men and women come through this okay? Well, male adaptability is definitely needed. The machismo that says men don’t do X profession needs to get lost. The economic recession might be helping with that to some degree, but in the professional realms, well, the efforts underway to recruit men into professions they would normally not be in should continue, and possibly expand. Men as educators, librarians, and counselors, the three most likely spots where kids need to encounter men they can relate to, talk to, and trust. About everything, including the possibility that young men may be gay, or misgendered, or interested in kinky stuff, or furries, nerds, video game players, book readers, budding broadcasters or contemplating military service, just to name a few. To build a network like that, adult men have to be willing to admit to themselves and others what they’re interested in, find out each other’s skills, and be willing to pass the torch on to someone else if they’ve got the expertise.
Second, it’s time for us to give up the idea that Real Men are the heads of their hosueholds and any man whose wife or girlfriend makes more than she does is a sissy or somehow lesser. It’s time to embrace the end of men, at least in the sense that we are past the point where we have to hunt mammoth or starve, have twelve kids so two will survive to adulthood, and maintain absolute control over our households because G-d said so. It does mean a little more work, when the person(s) who are with you have the ability to leave you and re-establish themselves independently, instead of relying on you totally for income and the like once they’ve hitched their wagon to yours, or accepting that you might be the person who must rely on them. It can mean being a stay-at-home dad, with all the wonders (and hilarity) that ensues from this (and storytimes, too!).
I’m not panicked about the End of Men, and I think, that so long as we can work to help bring men who were used to the old paradigm into the new, and teach the young men about the virtues of the new, instead of clinging to the old because we think the new is too scary, then we should be fine.
Of course, if I’m missing the obvious, or there’s a big privilege show going on here that I’m not aware of, let me know.
The End of Men, the article carries as its headline. Mostly, we suspect, for shock value, as until parthenogenesis is achieved, men will still have some role to play in the propagation of the species. The article, however, is looking more at the choices parents make about having kids and the shifting society in the world around us, one that might be ordering itself such that women, with higher rates of graduation from university and skills in communication, patience, and awareness of others, are naturally better-suited to it. Big strong men who hunt and kill things and fight each other for scarce resources are finding their mammoth-hunting abilities and their normally bigger strength not being used quite as much these days. Blue collar jobs are vanishing at an alarming rate, making college the entryway to work and success, and women currently dominate college enrollment. Flex time and other adaptations of work allow for mothers to retain their work and adapt their schedules to work with child rearing, instead of having to abandon their career in favor of the kids. And for companies and organizations that want to maintain stability and growth and encourage cooperation and innovation among the whole workplace, rather than having one person with power and the rest be drones, women in management and the workforce help to keep an even keel.
And that creates problems. Men who have been brought up on the idea that they are the person who goes to work and provide for the family have been kicked in the nuts by the economy and then thrown out on their ass from their work while they’re still processing the pain. They’re now adrift and have to rely on their spouse, who may have work. Even men who are still employed may find that they’re not making the majority of the money in their household any more. They have become dispensable, in some ways, and vulnerable to being replaced. And rather than adapt, as feminism gave women the tools to adapt to the previous world, many men have closed ranks, trying to find refuge in ever-disappearing places where their masculinity is secure, where men are men. Feminism is the most prominent women’s advancement and equality philosophy, which lets it be easily malformed into an enemy, the thing responsible for the perceived de-masculization of these men, and then further strung out into the conspiracy to feminize boys and the idiots on the very end who think Objectify Chicks is a positive mantra instead of a relic.
Young men have it rough in these new times as well. The shift in female employment and the “traditional” (well, traditional now) place of women as teachers and librarians, the shifting family dynamic of women working, and the increased ability of women to hack it as single mothers means that young men may go through a significant part of their formative years without a major male role model that’s not on the television screen, presented to them in a way that’s not intended sell them something, or invested to some degree in a criminal element. Real Men use this product. Real Men treat their women like bitches and hoes. Real Men are superficial and lazy, yet violent at the drop of a hat or when their pride is injured. Real Men play football, and not that sissy soccer crap. Real Men shoot guns, smoke tobacco, and swive women wherever and whenever they can, because there are no such things as gay men or men that aren’t perpetually interested in sex in the Real Men community.
So, in this post-male society, wheat can be done to ensure both men and women come through this okay? Well, male adaptability is definitely needed. The machismo that says men don’t do X profession needs to get lost. The economic recession might be helping with that to some degree, but in the professional realms, well, the efforts underway to recruit men into professions they would normally not be in should continue, and possibly expand. Men as educators, librarians, and counselors, the three most likely spots where kids need to encounter men they can relate to, talk to, and trust. About everything, including the possibility that young men may be gay, or misgendered, or interested in kinky stuff, or furries, nerds, video game players, book readers, budding broadcasters or contemplating military service, just to name a few. To build a network like that, adult men have to be willing to admit to themselves and others what they’re interested in, find out each other’s skills, and be willing to pass the torch on to someone else if they’ve got the expertise.
Second, it’s time for us to give up the idea that Real Men are the heads of their hosueholds and any man whose wife or girlfriend makes more than she does is a sissy or somehow lesser. It’s time to embrace the end of men, at least in the sense that we are past the point where we have to hunt mammoth or starve, have twelve kids so two will survive to adulthood, and maintain absolute control over our households because G-d said so. It does mean a little more work, when the person(s) who are with you have the ability to leave you and re-establish themselves independently, instead of relying on you totally for income and the like once they’ve hitched their wagon to yours, or accepting that you might be the person who must rely on them. It can mean being a stay-at-home dad, with all the wonders (and hilarity) that ensues from this (and storytimes, too!).
I’m not panicked about the End of Men, and I think, that so long as we can work to help bring men who were used to the old paradigm into the new, and teach the young men about the virtues of the new, instead of clinging to the old because we think the new is too scary, then we should be fine.
Of course, if I’m missing the obvious, or there’s a big privilege show going on here that I’m not aware of, let me know.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 12:19 pm (UTC)(That means women should be out there being active, too, even if their jobs don't require it. There's lots of research on the physical and emotional disadvantages of being sedentary.)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-01 02:38 pm (UTC)