5 ms·

The End of Men

7 points by philk 16y ago

gaius 16y ago
The article is flawed because we aren't in a "post-industrial economy", whatever that is. Despite all the opportunities, and the affirmative action (my university had more engineering scholarships specifically for women than there were women on my course!) the industrial economy still and for the forseeable future requires men to run it. I look around the engineering office I work in now and we are perhaps 5% female. I'm in my 30s and it won't be an issue yet, but if things continue as they are then the world is going to get a nasty surprise when all us obsolete dinosaur male engineers retire and there's no-one to do any engineerin'... Lawyers, real estate agents, social workers (women mentioned in the article) exist in an economic bubble that relies utterly on workers that make stuff. The article goes on to mention the working class but there, you still need men. We all know of feminists talking about "firefighter" and "chairperson" but no-one seems to mind the term "garbageman". Cherrypicking a subset of the most desirable jobs is not a sustainable situation going forwards. How many lawyers do we really need?
- GFischer 16y ago
  I visited the BMW plant in Munich a number of years ago. They boasted at the time that they were an equal-opportunity employer, and that they had as many women employed as they had men. Yet, most of the engineers and maintenance were men, while women were mostly administrative staff and Q.A. (all the quality people were women, and they even explained that decision in that they have much higher attention to detail).
jleyank 16y ago
Should be a pretty amazing time for dating services that work trans-ocean. Asia's self-selecting for males and the west is self-selecting for females... Gonna be some interesting, umm, cruise ships!
- GFischer 16y ago
  You have a point, in that these trends are not worldwide (and that there's a much bigger inverse trend in Asia)
zeynel1 16y ago
I wrote about the "end of men" about 4 years ago. http://1women1.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-writing-this-for-your-review.html http://1women1.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-writing-this-for-yo... We are now at the inflection point and from now on it is downhill for men.
run4yourlives 16y ago
The article contradicts itself with it's own information: Men enjoy winning and competition to a much greater degree than women do. So long as this economy is capitalist, that alone will ensure that the best men are always at the top. The problem is that men are also more likely to be at the bottom, and this is more evident during economic downturns. It's a given that women, occupying the middle in greater numbers will come out ahead overall, but that's hardly the death of men. What it is though is more of a return to "normal", where a few alpha males dominate the females - who basically do everything else - and the remaining males occupy outcast roles.
- gaius 16y ago
  Well, yes, this is the dirty little secret of feminism. Feminists are outraged that there are so few female CEOs, but not that there are so few female refuse workers. It's about cherrypicking the "best" jobs, not about equality at all.

7 points by philk 16y ago

gaius 16y ago

The article is flawed because we aren't in a "post-industrial economy", whatever that is. Despite all the opportunities, and the affirmative action (my university had more engineering scholarships specifically for women than there were women on my course!) the industrial economy still and for the forseeable future requires men to run it. I look around the engineering office I work in now and we are perhaps 5% female. I'm in my 30s and it won't be an issue yet, but if things continue as they are then the world is going to get a nasty surprise when all us obsolete dinosaur male engineers retire and there's no-one to do any engineerin'... Lawyers, real estate agents, social workers (women mentioned in the article) exist in an economic bubble that relies utterly on workers that make stuff. The article goes on to mention the working class but there, you still need men. We all know of feminists talking about "firefighter" and "chairperson" but no-one seems to mind the term "garbageman". Cherrypicking a subset of the most desirable jobs is not a sustainable situation going forwards. How many lawyers do we really need?

GFischer 16y ago
I visited the BMW plant in Munich a number of years ago. They boasted at the time that they were an equal-opportunity employer, and that they had as many women employed as they had men. Yet, most of the engineers and maintenance were men, while women were mostly administrative staff and Q.A. (all the quality people were women, and they even explained that decision in that they have much higher attention to detail).

jleyank 16y ago

Should be a pretty amazing time for dating services that work trans-ocean. Asia's self-selecting for males and the west is self-selecting for females... Gonna be some interesting, umm, cruise ships!

GFischer 16y ago
You have a point, in that these trends are not worldwide (and that there's a much bigger inverse trend in Asia)

zeynel1 16y ago

I wrote about the "end of men" about 4 years ago. http://1women1.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-writing-this-for-your-review.html http://1women1.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-am-writing-this-for-yo... We are now at the inflection point and from now on it is downhill for men.

run4yourlives 16y ago

The article contradicts itself with it's own information: Men enjoy winning and competition to a much greater degree than women do. So long as this economy is capitalist, that alone will ensure that the best men are always at the top. The problem is that men are also more likely to be at the bottom, and this is more evident during economic downturns. It's a given that women, occupying the middle in greater numbers will come out ahead overall, but that's hardly the death of men. What it is though is more of a return to "normal", where a few alpha males dominate the females - who basically do everything else - and the remaining males occupy outcast roles.

gaius 16y ago
Well, yes, this is the dirty little secret of feminism. Feminists are outraged that there are so few female CEOs, but not that there are so few female refuse workers. It's about cherrypicking the "best" jobs, not about equality at all.