The End of Men?

David Brooks, conservative columnist at The New York Times, praises Hanna Rosin’s new book. The End of Men? Hardly. Brooks and Rosin’s selective exclusion of obvious data is suspicious, and risks encouraging those who say we live in a gender blind society. Some say women are doing fine, it is boys who need help, so we can abandon efforts to help women succeed.

Looking first at the data cited by Brooks or Rosin: “Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.” Those jobs are in service sectors and health care, and are not generally high paying. Men “stink” at communicating “smoothly”? That would explain why men constitute 83% of Congress and 77% of state legislatures – the later percentage having stayed flat for the past dozen years. Women are “pioneering” hook up culture? Even a cursory look at popular culture strongly suggests that men still regard women as sex objects and that young women still regard sex primarily as a vehicle to please men.

Looking at some key data from my recent book Upside Down: The Paradoxes of Gender in the New Century (www.upsidedownbook.NET), shows that that since the dawn of the new century women’s progress has stalled. Women’s median income as percentage of men’s? Flat The pay gap between men and women with four-year degrees? Increased. Women’s percentage of directors of large corporations and of partners in large law firms? Flat. The extent of occupational gender segregation in various professions dominated by one gender? Unchanged. Women’s representation in statewide elective offices and as mayors of large and medium sized cities? Down.

Are women more adaptable than men? Perhaps, but as the subordinate gender in a patriarchal world, of course they have to be to make any progress at all. But a wealth of data shows that women in developed nations are less happy than they were forty years ago, both absolutely and compared to men. We need to change that.