Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences
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. Many of the new jobs, says Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress, “replace the things that women used to do in the home for free.” None is especially high-paying. But the steady accumulation of these jobs adds up to an economy that, for the working class, has become more amenable to women than to men.
The list of growing jobs is heavy on nurturing professions, in which women, ironically, seem to benefit from old stereotypes and habits. Theoretically, there is no reason men should not be qualified. But they have proved remarkably unable to adapt. Over the course of the past century, feminism has pushed women to do things once considered against their nature—first enter the workforce as singles, then continue to work while married, then work even with small children at home. Many professions that started out as the province of men are now filled mostly with women—secretary and teacher come to mind. Yet I’m not aware of any that have gone the opposite way. Nursing schools have tried hard to recruit men in the past few years, with minimal success. Teaching schools, eager to recruit male role models, are having a similarly hard time. The range of acceptable masculine roles has changed comparatively little, and has perhaps even narrowed as men have shied away from some careers women have entered. As Jessica Grose wrote in Slate, men seem “fixed in cultural aspic.” And with each passing day, they lag further behind.
That would have some really unfortunate implications, given that modern, postindustrial America isn't really any good at producing anything, and is largely in an ongoing state of overall economic decline.Ugh, that's such total nonsense. America isn't even "postindustrial" in any sense except that our industries are highly automated and don't require a lot of people. This stupid notion that we don't "make stuff" is a misunderstanding caused by the fact that most of the stuff we made is made with industrial robots, and the fact that most of the consumer goods we buy are made in china, and before that Japan.
Sure. We all have our thing. Do you have a son? Shepherd a son through the modern elementary educational system and my guess is you'll feel a lot more sympathy for the kid and care a little bit less about whose specific fault it is. If you are over 30 it is surprising how much grade school has changed since you went through it.Do you have a daughter? I mean, it's not all peaches and cream I don't think. I mean I don't have any kids, but my understanding is that most parents worry about their kids.
It seems that the top 20 jobs for American males basically boils down to transporting, guarding, stocking, cleaning and managing things that other people have made.
Ooops, sorry. Damn. Really?No. Not really.
Yes. Really.
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He’d just signed up for food stamps, which is just about the only social-welfare program a man can easily access.
What the hell does that even mean?
posted by griphus at 2:27 PM on June 10, 2010 [29 favorites]