8 ms·

The End of Men

115 points by jtg 16y ago

hooande 16y ago
Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else: nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. The entire premise of this article is pretty weak, which isn't surprising for The Atlantic. While more women may be employed than men, the jobs they have are associated more with support than with production. As long as our economy doesn't become based on social work and child care, men don't have too much to worry about. In fact, it seems to hide the real problem of getting more women involved in math and science. Technical skills will be even more important 20 years from now, and women are sorely underrepresented in those fields. I think the society that has the most women involved in tech will be big winner in the long term.
foco24 16y ago
Women currently make up the majority of workers and college graduates because of corruption. Colleges decide admission and grant scholarships based on grades from high school that are 75%+ non math/science * and 90%+ taught by women, who like women more. They then graduate and go into jobs, like teachers or bureaucrats, where being a pedantic, to-the-letter PITA is good for your career. *Of the 25% that is "science", the bulk of it isn't really, it's just memorizing definitions. I remember in my 9th grade physics class we had to memorize that the definition of a "virtual image" was an image that appeared behind a mirror. They never went into any detail about the physics of lenses, they just found a science term and made everybody memorize it.
codingthewheel 16y ago
This article is okay, somewhat sexist. I'm surprised it passed the first round of editorial review. Imagine the uproar if a man published an article flirting with "the end of women" in a major publication. This is a feminist claptrap with a lot of anger behind it, and intended to push buttons. It amounts to "girls are better than boys HAHA!" I'm quite sure men will do just fine over the coming decades, thank you kindly, Ms. Hanna Rosin, and sorry to disappoint. :) In the meantime I'll make a note not to do any more reading over at the Atlantic. Sad for me; they were once a great rag. (edited for tone)
- amock 16y ago
  Or maybe you'll get downvoted for saying "I'm sure I'll get downvoted."
- ovi256 16y ago
  She seems to be having an agenda, feminist claptrap or not, but what about the simple facts that she cites ?
- rada 16y ago
  I am surprised you saw the article as angry. I've read it as being very sympathetic towards boys and men. I thought it factually presented the decline of male participation in college and at work as well as in family life and sounded an alarm at what's happening. All the anecdotes were along the lines of, what do we do to involve men more?
  - paylesworth 16y ago
    For example, try reading it with a woman's voice trying to encourage her dog. "Awww, look at the poor little puppy, errr man."
    - rada 16y ago
      You mean sort of like suffering from paranoid delusions, but on purpose? Are you saying that since the article isn't mean in and of itself, we should see what kind of imaginary voice we can assign to it so that it does begin to sound mean, and then we can rest in peace knowing that the universe is a lonely and hostile place bent on humiliating us? Knock yourself out dude :)
  - codingthewheel 16y ago
    Well here are a few of the things that bugged me: - The Title. "The End of Men". Sensationalistic. Aggressive. Inappropriate. Simply reverse the title: "The End of Women." OR: "The End of Blacks." Or: "The End Of Jews." This is not a worthy title, though I understand it's a catchy one. - "A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way and its vast cultural consequences." Vast is a weasel word. Used here, an attempt (in the "hook" paragraph, and just above the fold) to dramatize what's to follow, which is well-written but (let's face it) mostly devoid of hyperlinks or factual supporting evidence. Opinion piece stuff at best. - "Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing, and with shocking speed." There have been and are many matriarchal cultures around the world, many of them predating and enveloping the dominant male patriarchy she refers to. But what I object to here is the use of the word shocking. - "As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest." Bad rhetoric. Sophistry. You can't argue that men have forced women into a subservient role of child-rearing-and-raising while at the same time arguing that we as a society haven't leveraged the "talents" of the female half of the population. Bullshit. Back when it was tooth and nail, men fought and hunted, women gathered and took care of the kids. As our powers to control the world around us improved, so too improved the plight of women (and of men). Universally. Across the board. In a process that is still continuing to this day. - "With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success." Correlation does not imply causation, and it especially doesn't imply reverse-causation. This should simply read: "With few exceptions, the greater the country's economic success, the greater the power of women. And men. And children." I can take any two correlated statistics and assign bidirectional causation to them too, if I want. A and B are correlated? Well obviously B caused A. Or A caused B. Depending on whatever makes my article sound better. - "As they imagine the pride of watching a child grow and develop and succeed as an adult, it is more often a girl that they see in their mind’s eye." According to what official source? Stereotypes like this need to be backed up with hard numbers, and from better organizations than the OECD. - "Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination." A tired old chestnut. Most companies today are deathly afraid of being perceived as discriminatory. There may be an "old boys club" around the upper echelons of the corporate power structure, but it's not just women who are excluded. I'm excluded. And you're excluded. Far more important is the fact that women don't seem to be interested in certain occupations or positions at all. Take computer programming as one example. Well, whatever. I didn't intend to write a book on it. She came across (to me) as self-satisfied, smug, and sure, very "sympathetic" towards us broken and outdated Men 1.0 models. I read this type of material in the 60s, and in the 70s, and in the 80s, and in the 90s, and the "shocking" effects that are prognosticated never actually happen. So what's the point of this article? To take a recent employment statistic and weave it into a sermon of the marginalization of men. I found it tiresome, and there are feminists out there who actually have original thoughts (take Camille Paglia as an example).
zeynel1 16y ago
Is this a duplicate submission http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416811 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416811
nerme 16y ago
On the bright side, I don't think many people reading Hacker News fall in to the category of brutish, construction worker-type. :) I did work construction when I was younger, and I must say, I enjoyed it immensely. I always love to help out someone build a shed or throw up some drywall. It's just plain fun to build things with your hands, even if you're mainly doing the work with your finger-tips these days.
- doron 16y ago
  Not to say that physical work is always great, in fact many times it isn't, but i find the devaluation of it a little troubling, I did physical work on and off several years, there is immense value and satisfaction in building and creating with your hands.
  - r0s 16y ago
    Very much agree. I've really come to accept the best way for me to work is with my brain sitting at a desk. If I want to create with my hands the fight for free time becomes imperative. I've been working to find a sustainable lifestyle that has room for a little extra time off for years. Free time has the single biggest effect on quality of life in my opinion. Having time for physical work is great, but the beauty is free time can be used for anything.
lukev 16y ago
Who gives a crap? Even if there are measurable statistical differences in competence at various activities between the sexes (which is far from proven), the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large. In other words, treat people like the individuals and stop ANY form of discrimination based on irrelevant categories, sex-based or otherwise. Also, the article makes much of the fact that women are getting more education. But this is probably because it is both harder and less necessary for them to jump into the workforce straight out of high school, not because they're any better or more prone to academia. I have no hard data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that your average woman in her 20s is FAR more likely to be at least partially dependent on a husband or parents than a man of the same age.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  > the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large You might want to stop and think about how the world would have to look for the above statement not to be true. I don't think it's as strong as you think it is.
  - lukev 16y ago
    I didn't intend it to be a strong point. It's actually more of a truism. But you'd never know it from reading the subject article, so I felt it needed to be restated.
- Qz 16y ago
  > Even if there are measurable statistical differences in competence at various activities between the sexes (which is far from proven), the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large. This is has no bearing on the issue. Yes, two individuals are probably measurably more different than the average woman vs the average man, but the qualities of the individual tend to balance out to a middle point in the larger picture. While variation is high, there is a single locus. With gender, the average woman compared to the average men may be less different than any two random individuals, but there are nonetheless two loci for gender. > But this is probably because it is both harder and less necessary for them to jump into the workforce straight out of high school, not because they're any better or more prone to academia. I have no hard data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that your average woman in her 20s is FAR more likely to be at least partially dependent on a husband or parents than a man of the same age. And maybe Unicorns are making all the girls smarter, and flying spaghetti monsters are distracting all the men from studying and doing homework. I have no hard data to back that up. I'm just saying. Seriously though, if you don't have at least some kind of evidence to back up what you're saying, you're better off just not saying it. (p.s. the data says you're wrong.)
carpdiem 16y ago
I actually spent a bit yesterday writing a short response piece to this. Here's an excerpt: "The problem with "The End of Men" is that it isn't an isolated problem, putting males today and males tomorrow out of jobs. Instead, it's part of a larger pattern. That pattern is the replacement of human labor with automation." Check out the whole thing here: http://www.intellectualpornography.com/2010/06/one-oclock-daily-the-end-of-men-part-2.html http://www.intellectualpornography.com/2010/06/one-oclock-da...
thinkdifferent 16y ago
Well, for the academic insuccess of men I have an easy explanation: nurture. Look at any movie, telefilm, sit-com ecc where the main character is a youg boy. He's always a good-looking,athletic, funny,street-smart guy. And at school sucks. The smart guys are always nerds, losers. The girls are always pretty, shy, serious and very good at school. I think that for a school boy there is a lot of social pressure to be good in sports, get many girls and be the leader of your class. They can't afford to lose time studying. For the "good" girls there is social pressure to be more serious and academically good.
doron 16y ago
Choice Quote: "Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer"
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  All the more reason for men to work as hard as they can to introduce more women to the field of engineering. What could possibly be more engineer than replacing yourself?
- sutro 16y ago
  And the line between those two careers continues to blur.
- francoisdevlin 16y ago
  And both fields involve cleaning up other people's messes.
cageface 16y ago
It will be very interesting to see if the arc of human development begins with primitive matriarchal societies and ends with hi-tech matriarchal societies. It will also be interesting to see if history bears out the current theories that men skew to the extremes. In 20 years women may make up the majority of the white-collar workforce, but will they also dominate at the executive level?
- hugh3 16y ago
  What makes you think that human development started with primitive matriarchal societies? There are anthropological studies of thousands of stone age tribes, very few are matriarchal. Wikipedia goes even further than my hedged and uninformed "very few" statement and says: There are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] although there are a number of attested matrilinear, matrilocal and avunculocal societies, especially among indigenous peoples of Asia and Africa,[9] such as those of the Basques, Minangkabau, Mosuo, Berbers or Tuareg. Strongly matrilocal societies sometimes are referred to as matrifocal, and there is some debate concerning the terminological delineation between matrifocality and matriarchy. which is no doubt enough to keep anyone occupied for hours, but anyway, I see no evidence that early societies were matriarchal.
Groxx 16y ago
What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply hostile to males in return for all the past hostility to females? edit: apparently axle replied while I had my lament on the state of scholarships. Summarized: out of literally thousands available after pre-filtered (however poorly), I had to toss out all but a dozen or two because I'm white and male.
- axle 16y ago
  The problem is really that you likely have not been anything else apart from a male WASP. See, there is no institution working against you. These things you are complaining about not getting are not the main product, they are shortcuts. A scholarship is not the normal way of studying, it's a shortcut way, for people who have something working against them. A woman (and a black guy) have institutions against them. They go somewhere, and they are instantly assumed to be less competent. That's why these things are given to them - to help out the weak, not to push YOU down. Those things are legs-up to equalise the playing field - you, as a WASP already are at the starting line, asking to get those things is to get another 10 yards. And no, it's not a socio-economic program. If you took a white bum and a black bum, and you cleaned them up and dressed them nice and sent them to interview, the white will likely get more jobs than the black guy. There is an inherent issue that non-WASPs have to deal with. A poor black kid from a farm and a poor white kid from a farm don't have the same chances of succeeding in life. The white kid is neutral (everything is always open to him), but the black kid has things working against him right from the start. It's going to be difficult for you to understand because you have never BEEN a woman in a managerial position. You have never BEEN a black guy applying for jobs. Let's do this test: Imagine I say you'll get ALL the perks that black people get from the government, do you think you will have a better life being black?
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    They go somewhere, and they are instantly assumed to be less competent. That's a correct assumption for many groups (e.g., college students) due to the effects of affirmative action. By lowering the standards/imposing quotas for group X, that group will probably not meet the higher standards of everyone else. Thus, everyone will have to assume that members of X are less competent. Oh, to answer your question: if I could become black, I would.
acangiano 16y ago
> What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? Alternative theory: Society is failing our boys.
- rubashov 16y ago
  Alternative theory: "modern, postindustrial society" means dysfunctional economy. > Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else--nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. We're living in a country where almost all the projected growth professions produce no capital or exports. This is really all about a shitty job market, heavy on consumption and health care, not some boys vs girls thread.
  - chipsy 16y ago
    See also: everyone who's written about how continued GDP growth in industrial countries is both pointless in terms of improving quality of life, and a bad idea environmentally. For example, commercialized child care and food service are a huge distortion of traditional household duties.
    - seanc 16y ago
      Links please? I have not read these studies and would like to.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  I'd argue not failing but carefully emasculating. Old-fashioned masculinity has been systematically devalued, and many of its' traits demonized.
  - jtbigwoo 16y ago
    Speaking from my experience, men are responsible for their own emasculation. I know plenty of good guys who'd make great nurses, physical therapists, or home health aids. These are jobs that require a fair amount of physical strength and stamina in addition to individual initiative and focus. (That's what men are supposed to be good at, right?) Unfortunately, they're also jobs that are stereotypically female and somehow that makes them off limits. Instead, they take two paths: 1. spend thousands to train for a declining industry (there are two underemployed airline mechanics on my block) 2. expect that good paying semi-skilled jobs should be widely available for every high school graduate. One other odd fact: In my neighborhood, this problem really only affects white men. There are quite a few black male medical assistants and nurses and almost no white ones.
hugh3 16y ago
For a fun exercise, try replacing "men" with "black people" and "women" with "white people" throughout this article, and speculate on whether The Atlantic would have published it. "What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to white people?" "White people live longer than black people. They do better in this economy. More of ’em graduate from college. They go into space and do everything black people do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way—these white people are going to leave us black people in the dust." "Researchers have suggested any number of solutions. A movement is growing for more all-black schools and classes, and for respecting the individual learning styles of black people. Some people think that black people should be able to walk around in class, or take more time on tests, or have tests and books that cater to their interests."
- pohl 16y ago
  That exercise may be fun, but aren't gender differences in cognition pretty well established? OK, maybe the experiences of Erik Von Markovik (et. al.) are not exactly rigorous, but then there's Helen Fischer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ewvCNguug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ewvCNguug
  - sabat 16y ago
    Maybe, but they're often wildly overstated. There are many more exceptions and variations than those who would generalize will admit. This is anecdotal, but I'm an example of what I'm talking about: higher verbal scores than math, as right-brained as I am left-brained -- and I'm male.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Some of them are often wildly overstated, others are kept hidden. In polite society you can only mention a difference between male and female cognition if it either (a) advantages females or (b) it is strictly neutral. See also: Larry Summers. Also there's some evidence of differences in cognition between different races; you definitely can't mention these in polite society so I'm not going to. See also: The Bell Curve, and that chick at Harvard Law who got reprimanded by the Dean for something she said in a private email. Of course all these actual cognitive differences don't really matter since intragroup variability vastly swamps intergroup variability. The only interesting and significant differences between male and female minds are not in the way they solve abstract problems but in ... pretty much all the other stuff (emotional makeup, desires, responses to events, sociability, et cetera).
sbt 16y ago
being a white male sometimes feels like the entire fucking universe is suffering from some sort of inferiority complex.
- erlanger 16y ago
  It's also excellent. I regret that our privilege necessarily implies disadvantage for everyone else, but we have it far easier than most. It seems that no amount of anti-discriminatory measures can erase this admittedly positive prejudice.
  - Qz 16y ago
    I'm not sure that 'having it far easier than most' somehow equates to 'excellent' for anyone other than Bill and Ted.
- ontheroad 16y ago
  that's funny, because it seems to me like the entirety of white males have some sort of superiority complex.
  - WiseWeasel 16y ago
    As a human, it seems to me like other humans, especially those who identify as part of a group, have some sort of superiority complex.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      I'm so glad I'm better than those identifying-as-part-of-a-group people!
      - Groxx 16y ago
        Hear hear, fellow-group-person!
      - WiseWeasel 16y ago
FlorinAndrei 16y ago
Well, the modern society is less like the savanna, which was the environment that shaped men throughout the evolutionary history of our species, and more like the cave, which was the environment that shaped women. Less physical confrontation, more squabbling. Less concrete, immediate dangers, more abstract worries. Less ass-kicking, more cooperation. Heck, even spatial abilities are so last-century, now that everyone has a GPS. So then you get things like men's constantly decreasing fertility, for decades now. Decreasing testosterone levels, again trending downwards for many years now. I'm not saying this is either good or bad, I'm just saying this is an environment which creates different evolutionary pressures, and our species is responding to it. I'm not sure I can imagine the destination, though.
- gambling8nt 16y ago
  Half a century--two human generations--is not nearly enough time for evolutionary pressures to have the sort of effect you are talking about. Least of all in a society of abundance in which the majority of members reproduce. Instead, I'd suggest you look at the various changing environmental factors for an explanation of these phenomena: BPA in plastics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A), the growing use of soy in human diets (with its attendant phyto-estrogens), and the growing quantities of synthetic human estrogen in the environment (already known to have effects on fish, see for instance http://www.seattlepi.com/local/124939_estrogen04.html http://www.seattlepi.com/local/124939_estrogen04.html).
  - FlorinAndrei 16y ago
    Sure, phyto- and xeno-estrogens are strong suspects in this case. But here's another data point: Measure the testosterone level in your bloodstream. Then for a few weeks start doing heavy squats (weight lifting) every other day, go car racing, skydiving, etc. Now measure T again. See the difference? There are all sorts of things like that. The bottom line is, the more secure the environment, the less the need for men to be "men". Also, I was not implying that the new evolutionary pressures have already made changes, I was just saying the changes are being made now - but how long before they will become visible, I have no idea. Probably not tomorrow.
raintrees 16y ago
Single page: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of...
numeromancer 16y ago
This article is doublepluspink. Right honey? GTG girls, Big Sis is on the screen, and it's time for the two-minute bitch.
tjmaxal 16y ago
This article just makes me want to scream Correlation is not Causation!
0ffworlder 16y ago
So what is the point of this article? Wymin will or have already taken over and men are either puppies or thugs. End result: a whole bunch of feminists running the matriarchy of the USA and possibly south Korea, they decide men are beneath them and become lesbians. Then the USA either starts a war and drafts some of the wymin and recovers or stagnates and turns into a failed socialist state, like Canada.
gyardley 16y ago
I can't help but think that the trends in this article are only medium-term cultural changes that'll be countered by demography in a century. Fertility rates for highly-educated women in first-world countries have fallen to too low a level for this to be a permanent societal change.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
wicknicks 16y ago
The End of the World
r0s 16y ago
The article touches on relationship desire among professional women a bit. I know a few recent nursing school graduates, they tell me the running joke in the medical profession is that all the successful women are merely hunting for a successful mate(with a doctor being the brass ring). Career as means to long term relationship might seem misogynistic, but there's also the common male stereotype of men chasing money primarily to attract women. I'm not presenting real evidence here, maybe a survey of professional women and their relationship goals would be enlightening.

115 points by jtg 16y ago

Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else: nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. The entire premise of this article is pretty weak, which isn't surprising for The Atlantic. While more women may be employed than men, the jobs they have are associated more with support than with production. As long as our economy doesn't become based on social work and child care, men don't have too much to worry about. In fact, it seems to hide the real problem of getting more women involved in math and science. Technical skills will be even more important 20 years from now, and women are sorely underrepresented in those fields. I think the society that has the most women involved in tech will be big winner in the long term.

foco24 16y ago

Women currently make up the majority of workers and college graduates because of corruption. Colleges decide admission and grant scholarships based on grades from high school that are 75%+ non math/science * and 90%+ taught by women, who like women more. They then graduate and go into jobs, like teachers or bureaucrats, where being a pedantic, to-the-letter PITA is good for your career. *Of the 25% that is "science", the bulk of it isn't really, it's just memorizing definitions. I remember in my 9th grade physics class we had to memorize that the definition of a "virtual image" was an image that appeared behind a mirror. They never went into any detail about the physics of lenses, they just found a science term and made everybody memorize it.

codingthewheel 16y ago

This article is okay, somewhat sexist. I'm surprised it passed the first round of editorial review. Imagine the uproar if a man published an article flirting with "the end of women" in a major publication. This is a feminist claptrap with a lot of anger behind it, and intended to push buttons. It amounts to "girls are better than boys HAHA!" I'm quite sure men will do just fine over the coming decades, thank you kindly, Ms. Hanna Rosin, and sorry to disappoint. :) In the meantime I'll make a note not to do any more reading over at the Atlantic. Sad for me; they were once a great rag. (edited for tone)

amock 16y ago
Or maybe you'll get downvoted for saying "I'm sure I'll get downvoted."
ovi256 16y ago
She seems to be having an agenda, feminist claptrap or not, but what about the simple facts that she cites ?
rada 16y ago
I am surprised you saw the article as angry. I've read it as being very sympathetic towards boys and men. I thought it factually presented the decline of male participation in college and at work as well as in family life and sounded an alarm at what's happening. All the anecdotes were along the lines of, what do we do to involve men more?
- paylesworth 16y ago
  For example, try reading it with a woman's voice trying to encourage her dog. "Awww, look at the poor little puppy, errr man."
  - rada 16y ago
    You mean sort of like suffering from paranoid delusions, but on purpose? Are you saying that since the article isn't mean in and of itself, we should see what kind of imaginary voice we can assign to it so that it does begin to sound mean, and then we can rest in peace knowing that the universe is a lonely and hostile place bent on humiliating us? Knock yourself out dude :)
- codingthewheel 16y ago
  Well here are a few of the things that bugged me: - The Title. "The End of Men". Sensationalistic. Aggressive. Inappropriate. Simply reverse the title: "The End of Women." OR: "The End of Blacks." Or: "The End Of Jews." This is not a worthy title, though I understand it's a catchy one. - "A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way and its vast cultural consequences." Vast is a weasel word. Used here, an attempt (in the "hook" paragraph, and just above the fold) to dramatize what's to follow, which is well-written but (let's face it) mostly devoid of hyperlinks or factual supporting evidence. Opinion piece stuff at best. - "Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing, and with shocking speed." There have been and are many matriarchal cultures around the world, many of them predating and enveloping the dominant male patriarchy she refers to. But what I object to here is the use of the word shocking. - "As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest." Bad rhetoric. Sophistry. You can't argue that men have forced women into a subservient role of child-rearing-and-raising while at the same time arguing that we as a society haven't leveraged the "talents" of the female half of the population. Bullshit. Back when it was tooth and nail, men fought and hunted, women gathered and took care of the kids. As our powers to control the world around us improved, so too improved the plight of women (and of men). Universally. Across the board. In a process that is still continuing to this day. - "With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success." Correlation does not imply causation, and it especially doesn't imply reverse-causation. This should simply read: "With few exceptions, the greater the country's economic success, the greater the power of women. And men. And children." I can take any two correlated statistics and assign bidirectional causation to them too, if I want. A and B are correlated? Well obviously B caused A. Or A caused B. Depending on whatever makes my article sound better. - "As they imagine the pride of watching a child grow and develop and succeed as an adult, it is more often a girl that they see in their mind’s eye." According to what official source? Stereotypes like this need to be backed up with hard numbers, and from better organizations than the OECD. - "Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination." A tired old chestnut. Most companies today are deathly afraid of being perceived as discriminatory. There may be an "old boys club" around the upper echelons of the corporate power structure, but it's not just women who are excluded. I'm excluded. And you're excluded. Far more important is the fact that women don't seem to be interested in certain occupations or positions at all. Take computer programming as one example. Well, whatever. I didn't intend to write a book on it. She came across (to me) as self-satisfied, smug, and sure, very "sympathetic" towards us broken and outdated Men 1.0 models. I read this type of material in the 60s, and in the 70s, and in the 80s, and in the 90s, and the "shocking" effects that are prognosticated never actually happen. So what's the point of this article? To take a recent employment statistic and weave it into a sermon of the marginalization of men. I found it tiresome, and there are feminists out there who actually have original thoughts (take Camille Paglia as an example).

zeynel1 16y ago

Is this a duplicate submission http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416811 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1416811

nerme 16y ago

On the bright side, I don't think many people reading Hacker News fall in to the category of brutish, construction worker-type. :) I did work construction when I was younger, and I must say, I enjoyed it immensely. I always love to help out someone build a shed or throw up some drywall. It's just plain fun to build things with your hands, even if you're mainly doing the work with your finger-tips these days.

doron 16y ago
Not to say that physical work is always great, in fact many times it isn't, but i find the devaluation of it a little troubling, I did physical work on and off several years, there is immense value and satisfaction in building and creating with your hands.
- r0s 16y ago
  Very much agree. I've really come to accept the best way for me to work is with my brain sitting at a desk. If I want to create with my hands the fight for free time becomes imperative. I've been working to find a sustainable lifestyle that has room for a little extra time off for years. Free time has the single biggest effect on quality of life in my opinion. Having time for physical work is great, but the beauty is free time can be used for anything.

lukev 16y ago

Who gives a crap? Even if there are measurable statistical differences in competence at various activities between the sexes (which is far from proven), the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large. In other words, treat people like the individuals and stop ANY form of discrimination based on irrelevant categories, sex-based or otherwise. Also, the article makes much of the fact that women are getting more education. But this is probably because it is both harder and less necessary for them to jump into the workforce straight out of high school, not because they're any better or more prone to academia. I have no hard data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that your average woman in her 20s is FAR more likely to be at least partially dependent on a husband or parents than a man of the same age.

Eliezer 16y ago
> the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large You might want to stop and think about how the world would have to look for the above statement not to be true. I don't think it's as strong as you think it is.
- lukev 16y ago
  I didn't intend it to be a strong point. It's actually more of a truism. But you'd never know it from reading the subject article, so I felt it needed to be restated.
Qz 16y ago
> Even if there are measurable statistical differences in competence at various activities between the sexes (which is far from proven), the average variation between two individuals is far, far more than the average variation between the sexes at large. This is has no bearing on the issue. Yes, two individuals are probably measurably more different than the average woman vs the average man, but the qualities of the individual tend to balance out to a middle point in the larger picture. While variation is high, there is a single locus. With gender, the average woman compared to the average men may be less different than any two random individuals, but there are nonetheless two loci for gender. > But this is probably because it is both harder and less necessary for them to jump into the workforce straight out of high school, not because they're any better or more prone to academia. I have no hard data to back this up, but I strongly suspect that your average woman in her 20s is FAR more likely to be at least partially dependent on a husband or parents than a man of the same age. And maybe Unicorns are making all the girls smarter, and flying spaghetti monsters are distracting all the men from studying and doing homework. I have no hard data to back that up. I'm just saying. Seriously though, if you don't have at least some kind of evidence to back up what you're saying, you're better off just not saying it. (p.s. the data says you're wrong.)

carpdiem 16y ago

I actually spent a bit yesterday writing a short response piece to this. Here's an excerpt: "The problem with "The End of Men" is that it isn't an isolated problem, putting males today and males tomorrow out of jobs. Instead, it's part of a larger pattern. That pattern is the replacement of human labor with automation." Check out the whole thing here: http://www.intellectualpornography.com/2010/06/one-oclock-daily-the-end-of-men-part-2.html http://www.intellectualpornography.com/2010/06/one-oclock-da...

thinkdifferent 16y ago

Well, for the academic insuccess of men I have an easy explanation: nurture. Look at any movie, telefilm, sit-com ecc where the main character is a youg boy. He's always a good-looking,athletic, funny,street-smart guy. And at school sucks. The smart guys are always nerds, losers. The girls are always pretty, shy, serious and very good at school. I think that for a school boy there is a lot of social pressure to be good in sports, get many girls and be the leader of your class. They can't afford to lose time studying. For the "good" girls there is social pressure to be more serious and academically good.

doron 16y ago

Choice Quote: "Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer"

sliverstorm 16y ago
All the more reason for men to work as hard as they can to introduce more women to the field of engineering. What could possibly be more engineer than replacing yourself?
sutro 16y ago
And the line between those two careers continues to blur.
francoisdevlin 16y ago
And both fields involve cleaning up other people's messes.

cageface 16y ago

It will be very interesting to see if the arc of human development begins with primitive matriarchal societies and ends with hi-tech matriarchal societies. It will also be interesting to see if history bears out the current theories that men skew to the extremes. In 20 years women may make up the majority of the white-collar workforce, but will they also dominate at the executive level?

hugh3 16y ago
What makes you think that human development started with primitive matriarchal societies? There are anthropological studies of thousands of stone age tribes, very few are matriarchal. Wikipedia goes even further than my hedged and uninformed "very few" statement and says: There are no known societies that are unambiguously matriarchal,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8] although there are a number of attested matrilinear, matrilocal and avunculocal societies, especially among indigenous peoples of Asia and Africa,[9] such as those of the Basques, Minangkabau, Mosuo, Berbers or Tuareg. Strongly matrilocal societies sometimes are referred to as matrifocal, and there is some debate concerning the terminological delineation between matrifocality and matriarchy. which is no doubt enough to keep anyone occupied for hours, but anyway, I see no evidence that early societies were matriarchal.

Groxx 16y ago

What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply hostile to males in return for all the past hostility to females? edit: apparently axle replied while I had my lament on the state of scholarships. Summarized: out of literally thousands available after pre-filtered (however poorly), I had to toss out all but a dozen or two because I'm white and male.

axle 16y ago
The problem is really that you likely have not been anything else apart from a male WASP. See, there is no institution working against you. These things you are complaining about not getting are not the main product, they are shortcuts. A scholarship is not the normal way of studying, it's a shortcut way, for people who have something working against them. A woman (and a black guy) have institutions against them. They go somewhere, and they are instantly assumed to be less competent. That's why these things are given to them - to help out the weak, not to push YOU down. Those things are legs-up to equalise the playing field - you, as a WASP already are at the starting line, asking to get those things is to get another 10 yards. And no, it's not a socio-economic program. If you took a white bum and a black bum, and you cleaned them up and dressed them nice and sent them to interview, the white will likely get more jobs than the black guy. There is an inherent issue that non-WASPs have to deal with. A poor black kid from a farm and a poor white kid from a farm don't have the same chances of succeeding in life. The white kid is neutral (everything is always open to him), but the black kid has things working against him right from the start. It's going to be difficult for you to understand because you have never BEEN a woman in a managerial position. You have never BEEN a black guy applying for jobs. Let's do this test: Imagine I say you'll get ALL the perks that black people get from the government, do you think you will have a better life being black?
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  They go somewhere, and they are instantly assumed to be less competent. That's a correct assumption for many groups (e.g., college students) due to the effects of affirmative action. By lowering the standards/imposing quotas for group X, that group will probably not meet the higher standards of everyone else. Thus, everyone will have to assume that members of X are less competent. Oh, to answer your question: if I could become black, I would.

acangiano 16y ago

> What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? Alternative theory: Society is failing our boys.

rubashov 16y ago
Alternative theory: "modern, postindustrial society" means dysfunctional economy. > Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else--nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. We're living in a country where almost all the projected growth professions produce no capital or exports. This is really all about a shitty job market, heavy on consumption and health care, not some boys vs girls thread.
- chipsy 16y ago
  See also: everyone who's written about how continued GDP growth in industrial countries is both pointless in terms of improving quality of life, and a bad idea environmentally. For example, commercialized child care and food service are a huge distortion of traditional household duties.
  - seanc 16y ago
    Links please? I have not read these studies and would like to.
sliverstorm 16y ago
I'd argue not failing but carefully emasculating. Old-fashioned masculinity has been systematically devalued, and many of its' traits demonized.
- jtbigwoo 16y ago
  Speaking from my experience, men are responsible for their own emasculation. I know plenty of good guys who'd make great nurses, physical therapists, or home health aids. These are jobs that require a fair amount of physical strength and stamina in addition to individual initiative and focus. (That's what men are supposed to be good at, right?) Unfortunately, they're also jobs that are stereotypically female and somehow that makes them off limits. Instead, they take two paths: 1. spend thousands to train for a declining industry (there are two underemployed airline mechanics on my block) 2. expect that good paying semi-skilled jobs should be widely available for every high school graduate. One other odd fact: In my neighborhood, this problem really only affects white men. There are quite a few black male medical assistants and nurses and almost no white ones.

hugh3 16y ago

For a fun exercise, try replacing "men" with "black people" and "women" with "white people" throughout this article, and speculate on whether The Atlantic would have published it. "What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to white people?" "White people live longer than black people. They do better in this economy. More of ’em graduate from college. They go into space and do everything black people do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way—these white people are going to leave us black people in the dust." "Researchers have suggested any number of solutions. A movement is growing for more all-black schools and classes, and for respecting the individual learning styles of black people. Some people think that black people should be able to walk around in class, or take more time on tests, or have tests and books that cater to their interests."

pohl 16y ago
That exercise may be fun, but aren't gender differences in cognition pretty well established? OK, maybe the experiences of Erik Von Markovik (et. al.) are not exactly rigorous, but then there's Helen Fischer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ewvCNguug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ewvCNguug
- sabat 16y ago
  Maybe, but they're often wildly overstated. There are many more exceptions and variations than those who would generalize will admit. This is anecdotal, but I'm an example of what I'm talking about: higher verbal scores than math, as right-brained as I am left-brained -- and I'm male.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Some of them are often wildly overstated, others are kept hidden. In polite society you can only mention a difference between male and female cognition if it either (a) advantages females or (b) it is strictly neutral. See also: Larry Summers. Also there's some evidence of differences in cognition between different races; you definitely can't mention these in polite society so I'm not going to. See also: The Bell Curve, and that chick at Harvard Law who got reprimanded by the Dean for something she said in a private email. Of course all these actual cognitive differences don't really matter since intragroup variability vastly swamps intergroup variability. The only interesting and significant differences between male and female minds are not in the way they solve abstract problems but in ... pretty much all the other stuff (emotional makeup, desires, responses to events, sociability, et cetera).

sbt 16y ago

being a white male sometimes feels like the entire fucking universe is suffering from some sort of inferiority complex.

erlanger 16y ago
It's also excellent. I regret that our privilege necessarily implies disadvantage for everyone else, but we have it far easier than most. It seems that no amount of anti-discriminatory measures can erase this admittedly positive prejudice.
- Qz 16y ago
  I'm not sure that 'having it far easier than most' somehow equates to 'excellent' for anyone other than Bill and Ted.
ontheroad 16y ago
that's funny, because it seems to me like the entirety of white males have some sort of superiority complex.
- WiseWeasel 16y ago
  As a human, it seems to me like other humans, especially those who identify as part of a group, have some sort of superiority complex.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I'm so glad I'm better than those identifying-as-part-of-a-group people!
    - Groxx 16y ago
      Hear hear, fellow-group-person!
    - WiseWeasel 16y ago

FlorinAndrei 16y ago

Well, the modern society is less like the savanna, which was the environment that shaped men throughout the evolutionary history of our species, and more like the cave, which was the environment that shaped women. Less physical confrontation, more squabbling. Less concrete, immediate dangers, more abstract worries. Less ass-kicking, more cooperation. Heck, even spatial abilities are so last-century, now that everyone has a GPS. So then you get things like men's constantly decreasing fertility, for decades now. Decreasing testosterone levels, again trending downwards for many years now. I'm not saying this is either good or bad, I'm just saying this is an environment which creates different evolutionary pressures, and our species is responding to it. I'm not sure I can imagine the destination, though.

gambling8nt 16y ago
Half a century--two human generations--is not nearly enough time for evolutionary pressures to have the sort of effect you are talking about. Least of all in a society of abundance in which the majority of members reproduce. Instead, I'd suggest you look at the various changing environmental factors for an explanation of these phenomena: BPA in plastics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A), the growing use of soy in human diets (with its attendant phyto-estrogens), and the growing quantities of synthetic human estrogen in the environment (already known to have effects on fish, see for instance http://www.seattlepi.com/local/124939_estrogen04.html http://www.seattlepi.com/local/124939_estrogen04.html).
- FlorinAndrei 16y ago
  Sure, phyto- and xeno-estrogens are strong suspects in this case. But here's another data point: Measure the testosterone level in your bloodstream. Then for a few weeks start doing heavy squats (weight lifting) every other day, go car racing, skydiving, etc. Now measure T again. See the difference? There are all sorts of things like that. The bottom line is, the more secure the environment, the less the need for men to be "men". Also, I was not implying that the new evolutionary pressures have already made changes, I was just saying the changes are being made now - but how long before they will become visible, I have no idea. Probably not tomorrow.

raintrees 16y ago

Single page: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of...

numeromancer 16y ago

This article is doublepluspink. Right honey? GTG girls, Big Sis is on the screen, and it's time for the two-minute bitch.

tjmaxal 16y ago

This article just makes me want to scream Correlation is not Causation!

0ffworlder 16y ago

So what is the point of this article? Wymin will or have already taken over and men are either puppies or thugs. End result: a whole bunch of feminists running the matriarchy of the USA and possibly south Korea, they decide men are beneath them and become lesbians. Then the USA either starts a war and drafts some of the wymin and recovers or stagnates and turns into a failed socialist state, like Canada.

gyardley 16y ago

I can't help but think that the trends in this article are only medium-term cultural changes that'll be countered by demography in a century. Fertility rates for highly-educated women in first-world countries have fallen to too low a level for this to be a permanent societal change.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

wicknicks 16y ago

The End of the World

r0s 16y ago

The article touches on relationship desire among professional women a bit. I know a few recent nursing school graduates, they tell me the running joke in the medical profession is that all the successful women are merely hunting for a successful mate(with a doctor being the brass ring). Career as means to long term relationship might seem misogynistic, but there's also the common male stereotype of men chasing money primarily to attract women. I'm not presenting real evidence here, maybe a survey of professional women and their relationship goals would be enlightening.