Men Adrift
May 31, 2015 8:28 PM Subscribe
For those at the top, James Brown’s observation that it is a man’s, man’s, man’s world still holds true. Some 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs are male, as are 98% of the self-made billionaires on the Forbes rich list and 93% of the world’s heads of government. In popular films fewer than a third of the characters who speak are women, and more than three-quarters of the protagonists are men. Yet the fact that the highest rungs have male feet all over them is scant comfort for the men at the bottom.
When all boats are sinking, it matters less who is on each boat.
Overall, the combined economic output of the world continues to grow. But in many sectors, like manufacturing, the manual jobs have migrated away from the US, Canada & western europe. Oddly total US manufacturing output is higher than it's ever been, but it increasingly a highly automated process which requires high-skill workers and not the sort of undereducated men described in the beginning of this article. So while for many people the boat is sinking, in aggregate the world is still expanding.
I think the article is right on that in the US we have a couple of mostly overlapping different societies divided along economic lines. "Dividing" probably overstates it - there's a continuum but gender relations looks pretty starkly different at the extreme ends of the economic spectrum.
As usual the Economist does a good job of bringing in an international perspective to the issue showing elements from the US, the UK and Sweden.
posted by GuyZero at 8:56 PM on May 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
Overall, the combined economic output of the world continues to grow. But in many sectors, like manufacturing, the manual jobs have migrated away from the US, Canada & western europe. Oddly total US manufacturing output is higher than it's ever been, but it increasingly a highly automated process which requires high-skill workers and not the sort of undereducated men described in the beginning of this article. So while for many people the boat is sinking, in aggregate the world is still expanding.
I think the article is right on that in the US we have a couple of mostly overlapping different societies divided along economic lines. "Dividing" probably overstates it - there's a continuum but gender relations looks pretty starkly different at the extreme ends of the economic spectrum.
As usual the Economist does a good job of bringing in an international perspective to the issue showing elements from the US, the UK and Sweden.
posted by GuyZero at 8:56 PM on May 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
One of the smartest people I know asks why it is such a crisis for some men to be close to parity with women or even fall behind, when centuries of women being constrained is considered just normal.
Anything that results in major social change will be seen as a crisis, whether it's good change or bad. And when it's change that affects not a minority but a plurality or majority, then the feeling of crisis will be all the more. The people who get left behind by this sort of change often have a hard time adapting, because the system has evolved to allow them to prosper without having to put in the same effort as other groups, and they resent losing those benefits, which they see as natural or, as the article uses so often, "traditional". They have no experience in being adapative, because they've never needed to be, and in fact being adaptive has often been a good way to get one branded as an outcast or even lose that beneficial position.
posted by Palindromedary at 9:23 PM on May 31, 2015 [21 favorites]
Anything that results in major social change will be seen as a crisis, whether it's good change or bad. And when it's change that affects not a minority but a plurality or majority, then the feeling of crisis will be all the more. The people who get left behind by this sort of change often have a hard time adapting, because the system has evolved to allow them to prosper without having to put in the same effort as other groups, and they resent losing those benefits, which they see as natural or, as the article uses so often, "traditional". They have no experience in being adapative, because they've never needed to be, and in fact being adaptive has often been a good way to get one branded as an outcast or even lose that beneficial position.
posted by Palindromedary at 9:23 PM on May 31, 2015 [21 favorites]
Although there is no reason in theory why men could not become nurses or care-home assistants, few do. Most schools would love to have more male teachers to serve as role models for boys, but not many volunteer. And poorly educated men are often much worse at things such as showing up on time and being pleasant to customers (even if you don’t feel like it) than their female peers are. For the working class, the economy “has become more amenable to women than to men”, argues Ms Rosin.I know it's a constant refrain of mine, but man. This is a sterling example of the gender-essentialist systems that have traditionally imprisoned women and empowered men turning to ash in their mouths, so to speak. Just today, I watched a guy on the Internet mock someone I know for using the word "emotional labor"—he laughed at the idea that that was even a thing, let alone a thing with value.
Women have been expected to do those jobs for generations and then some, perched on the bottom of the spectrum, and what's changed isn't whether it is valued or not. (Industries like "computer programming" show us what it looks like when a woman-dominated field suddenly becomes prestigious: men swoop in to make it "real" and womens' participation is devalued.) What's changed now is that postwar boom in middle class "mens' work" is being ground to dust by the engines of profit. What's left is the valueless work they have always been told is inherently beneath them.
posted by verb at 9:26 PM on May 31, 2015 [134 favorites]
When all boats are sinking, it matters less who is on each boat.
The problem, as posited by the article, isn't so much soaring success for women, but rather increasingly desperate conditions for working class men without college degrees. It takes efforts to point out that in higher rungs of society (management and executive positions) most fields are still dominated by men, meaning that money and power is still concentrated in a patriarchal fashion. The lowest rungs of the ladder are also crowded with men, many of whom hit the prison industrial complex and effectively fall out of society. Women represent a struggling middle portion, increasingly primary earners in demanding service level jobs, while also still taking on the lion's share of the household chores, and increasingly heading single parent households. This relationship is examined in both America (specifically rural Louisiana) and Britain (a former northern Steel town).
It then takes some time looking at a society with ostensibly better gender equality, Sweden, but points out that anti-feminist and anti-immigrant political ideologies are being bolstered by men who are dissatisfied with changing societal norms.
This being the Economist, their conclusions are disappointing: Jobs that reward muscle alone are not coming back, so men will need to pump up their brains instead. Several countries are experimenting with ways to make school more stimulating for children in ways that boys will appreciate. The OECD suggests offering them books they might actually enjoy—about sports stars, perhaps, or dragons. Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, suggests giving boys gizmos to fiddle with and more breaks so they can run around outside and let off steam: all helpful, and all things that might be appreciated by girls, too. A greater appreciation of anti-boy bias among teachers would help, as well, as would more men teaching.
They lay out all of these structural beats, show how a flagging economy and a prison happy judicial system basically fuck over these men and destroy families in the process, leading to cyclical poverty, and then their solution is (essentially): learn to deal with it. I nearly forgot what I was reading there until the end.
posted by codacorolla at 9:27 PM on May 31, 2015 [48 favorites]
The problem, as posited by the article, isn't so much soaring success for women, but rather increasingly desperate conditions for working class men without college degrees. It takes efforts to point out that in higher rungs of society (management and executive positions) most fields are still dominated by men, meaning that money and power is still concentrated in a patriarchal fashion. The lowest rungs of the ladder are also crowded with men, many of whom hit the prison industrial complex and effectively fall out of society. Women represent a struggling middle portion, increasingly primary earners in demanding service level jobs, while also still taking on the lion's share of the household chores, and increasingly heading single parent households. This relationship is examined in both America (specifically rural Louisiana) and Britain (a former northern Steel town).
It then takes some time looking at a society with ostensibly better gender equality, Sweden, but points out that anti-feminist and anti-immigrant political ideologies are being bolstered by men who are dissatisfied with changing societal norms.
This being the Economist, their conclusions are disappointing: Jobs that reward muscle alone are not coming back, so men will need to pump up their brains instead. Several countries are experimenting with ways to make school more stimulating for children in ways that boys will appreciate. The OECD suggests offering them books they might actually enjoy—about sports stars, perhaps, or dragons. Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, suggests giving boys gizmos to fiddle with and more breaks so they can run around outside and let off steam: all helpful, and all things that might be appreciated by girls, too. A greater appreciation of anti-boy bias among teachers would help, as well, as would more men teaching.
They lay out all of these structural beats, show how a flagging economy and a prison happy judicial system basically fuck over these men and destroy families in the process, leading to cyclical poverty, and then their solution is (essentially): learn to deal with it. I nearly forgot what I was reading there until the end.
posted by codacorolla at 9:27 PM on May 31, 2015 [48 favorites]
In “The End of Men”, a good book with a somewhat excessive title, Hanna Rosin notes that of the 30 occupations expected to grow fastest in America in the coming years, women dominate 20, including nursing, accounting, child care and food preparation.
When I started my accounting degree in the early 2000s, accounting was still seen as a male profession, although it was becoming increasingly untrue. We were also told that we could expect to make $50k or so upon graduation. I have yet to be employed as an accountant for more than $16/hour. My current employer employs construction contractors who don't have Master's degrees. They are overwhelmingly from low-income backgrounds, and every single one is a man, and they all make more per hour than I do.
They are also all white. And when I look at this article, I wonder if their chosen American protagonists are white. One paragraph in the whole article talks about race as an issue. But I don't think the American workforce is at all hostile to lower-class white men, and to say that its hostility to lower-class black men is at all related to the increased numbers of women in the workforce is a "hey, look over there, it's the oldest trick in the book" kind of level of misdirection.
posted by Sequence at 9:34 PM on May 31, 2015 [34 favorites]
When I started my accounting degree in the early 2000s, accounting was still seen as a male profession, although it was becoming increasingly untrue. We were also told that we could expect to make $50k or so upon graduation. I have yet to be employed as an accountant for more than $16/hour. My current employer employs construction contractors who don't have Master's degrees. They are overwhelmingly from low-income backgrounds, and every single one is a man, and they all make more per hour than I do.
They are also all white. And when I look at this article, I wonder if their chosen American protagonists are white. One paragraph in the whole article talks about race as an issue. But I don't think the American workforce is at all hostile to lower-class white men, and to say that its hostility to lower-class black men is at all related to the increased numbers of women in the workforce is a "hey, look over there, it's the oldest trick in the book" kind of level of misdirection.
posted by Sequence at 9:34 PM on May 31, 2015 [34 favorites]
I think about the men in my family with little education who live in the Deep South. Many of them are dead already due to drugs and alcohol. Most of them spent substantial time in prison, which would be a great place to help them out by getting some kind of appropriate mental health care and job training. Too bad most of American prisons don't do that and by and large most men who enter prisons end up worse off coming out of them. I don't know about the American workforce being hostile to lower-class white men, but it sure is hostile to men of any race who have a history of prison time and mental health issues.
posted by melissam at 10:02 PM on May 31, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by melissam at 10:02 PM on May 31, 2015 [12 favorites]
"One of the smartest people I know asks why it is such a crisis for some men to be close to parity with women or even fall behind, when centuries of women being constrained is considered just normal."
Because when men are broke and unhappy, they are far more likely to start committing crimes and/or taking out their unhappiness and rage on everyone else around them. Which the article mentions.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 PM on May 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
Because when men are broke and unhappy, they are far more likely to start committing crimes and/or taking out their unhappiness and rage on everyone else around them. Which the article mentions.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:41 PM on May 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
Seems to me the higher you look up the ladder, the more sociopathic the people you find there. Perhaps it's not so bad not being a billionaire.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:35 PM on May 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by five fresh fish at 11:35 PM on May 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
When all boats are sinking, it matters less who is on each boat.
I'm not sure I agree with this... when all boats are sinking, the temptation to step on the boats that the people you want to be don't care about, and stack them up under yours, has to be attractive. There's an old saying about bosses being mean to employees, and employees going home to be mean to their wives, and I think the implied hierarchy has traveled to a lot of workplaces.
The same with class and racial hierarchies - one of the explanations for how entrenched white/black racism is among poorer people is that it was literally used as a means to disempower them, giving them a scapegoat while convincing them to work against their own best interest by undermining the social support network. As near as I can tell, the Tea Party is evidence that it worked.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:55 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm not sure I agree with this... when all boats are sinking, the temptation to step on the boats that the people you want to be don't care about, and stack them up under yours, has to be attractive. There's an old saying about bosses being mean to employees, and employees going home to be mean to their wives, and I think the implied hierarchy has traveled to a lot of workplaces.
The same with class and racial hierarchies - one of the explanations for how entrenched white/black racism is among poorer people is that it was literally used as a means to disempower them, giving them a scapegoat while convincing them to work against their own best interest by undermining the social support network. As near as I can tell, the Tea Party is evidence that it worked.
posted by Deoridhe at 1:55 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
As I've said before, thinking that "Patriarchy" means "rule by men" is a mistake. The Patriarchs need a huge supply of disposable men for all sorts of reasons, and the fact that "male" is the key to all sorts of "easy settings" in life does not mean that there aren't other keys that are also withheld from many men.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:57 AM on June 1, 2015 [39 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:57 AM on June 1, 2015 [39 favorites]
I don't think any one man deserves to pay for Millenia of patriarchy. Nobody should be kept out of a job because of their gender. Some of these guys don't believe they can do nurturing work - that's not a surprise.
I was sitting on a tram this morning worrying over the inevitable loss of blue collar (mostly male) transport jobs as smart vehicles become a reality. What work will be available to them? And the only thing I could think of was more personal servant work. When low-skilled jobs are all handled by technology, what will low-skilled workers do?
It's not like our society can't afford to support everyone - but the rich get richer, and they will (in my completely uneducated opinion) create a new underclass, where the developed world - not just America - will pay people less than a living wage to do work that is unsatisfying - there will be butlers and footmen again for the ridiculously wealthy. And the rest of the poor, who can't afford to marry if the men can't get work, will they be a new criminal class with no Australia to send the bread thieves to?
This is not the fault of the men who are experiencing it. It might be the fault of some men, but this is certainly #notallmen.
posted by b33j at 3:22 AM on June 1, 2015 [6 favorites]
I was sitting on a tram this morning worrying over the inevitable loss of blue collar (mostly male) transport jobs as smart vehicles become a reality. What work will be available to them? And the only thing I could think of was more personal servant work. When low-skilled jobs are all handled by technology, what will low-skilled workers do?
It's not like our society can't afford to support everyone - but the rich get richer, and they will (in my completely uneducated opinion) create a new underclass, where the developed world - not just America - will pay people less than a living wage to do work that is unsatisfying - there will be butlers and footmen again for the ridiculously wealthy. And the rest of the poor, who can't afford to marry if the men can't get work, will they be a new criminal class with no Australia to send the bread thieves to?
This is not the fault of the men who are experiencing it. It might be the fault of some men, but this is certainly #notallmen.
posted by b33j at 3:22 AM on June 1, 2015 [6 favorites]
I don't think any one man deserves to pay for Millenia of patriarchy.
Well, no, but neither does any one woman, and, yet, here we are. One of the reasons "emotional labor" is "women's work" is that it's very labor -intensive and hard to industrialize. The pay gap keeps the cost of that work down (and reinforces the sexism, which maintains the pay gap), as opposed to the skilled and semi-skilled jobs that made the post-WWII boom for working class men which could be automated and are gone as a result.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:36 AM on June 1, 2015 [24 favorites]
Well, no, but neither does any one woman, and, yet, here we are. One of the reasons "emotional labor" is "women's work" is that it's very labor -intensive and hard to industrialize. The pay gap keeps the cost of that work down (and reinforces the sexism, which maintains the pay gap), as opposed to the skilled and semi-skilled jobs that made the post-WWII boom for working class men which could be automated and are gone as a result.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:36 AM on June 1, 2015 [24 favorites]
On the one hand i have enormous sympathy fot the people being screwed over by the modern service economy.
On the other, I can't help but feel, suck it up. You're not a 'traditional' man, you're old fashioned and out of touch. The values opined in this article are rubbish.
Also, gender stereotypes hurt everyone, which has been said by some feminists for years. None of this is new! Schools aren't designed for the 'average' boy. It used to not be there for the average girl at all. Maybe instead of longing for the good old days, join the campaign for basic income, and let go of this crappy macho posturing.
posted by Braeburn at 3:42 AM on June 1, 2015 [14 favorites]
On the other, I can't help but feel, suck it up. You're not a 'traditional' man, you're old fashioned and out of touch. The values opined in this article are rubbish.
Also, gender stereotypes hurt everyone, which has been said by some feminists for years. None of this is new! Schools aren't designed for the 'average' boy. It used to not be there for the average girl at all. Maybe instead of longing for the good old days, join the campaign for basic income, and let go of this crappy macho posturing.
posted by Braeburn at 3:42 AM on June 1, 2015 [14 favorites]
Well, no, but neither does any one woman
Absolutely not. I agree with you. And I extend it to an entire class of people, the poor, or the lower class, and what the fuck can we do to stop this, because with our post-industrialised society, what can we do to protect under educated citizens (and education is not the only answer here, because not everyone is capable of achieving a degree, and what life can someone have if tertiary education is not an option?) and my sentence just got lost. Anyway. This is bad, and it's going to get worse.
posted by b33j at 3:56 AM on June 1, 2015
Absolutely not. I agree with you. And I extend it to an entire class of people, the poor, or the lower class, and what the fuck can we do to stop this, because with our post-industrialised society, what can we do to protect under educated citizens (and education is not the only answer here, because not everyone is capable of achieving a degree, and what life can someone have if tertiary education is not an option?) and my sentence just got lost. Anyway. This is bad, and it's going to get worse.
posted by b33j at 3:56 AM on June 1, 2015
And before we jump up and down on (specifically underprivileged and undereducated of any gender) people, how were they meant to learn better? How were they meant to develop gender literacy when rich and successful men kept propagating gender stereotypes through media and employment opportunities? There are a lot of lovely, intelligent, educated people of both genders on metafilter who have explicitly appreciated the boy zone lessons - people who can barely read aren't going to be part of those discussions - are they supposed to work it out from scratch? You may as well say that some Quiverful girls were responsible in not bringing their abuser to justice, and none of us would think that, would we?
(I am female, feminist, and very very appreciative of the feminist lessons metafilter has given me).
posted by b33j at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2015 [20 favorites]
(I am female, feminist, and very very appreciative of the feminist lessons metafilter has given me).
posted by b33j at 4:03 AM on June 1, 2015 [20 favorites]
Although there is no reason in theory why men could not become nurses or care-home assistants, few do.
I'm sure it's true that men are less likely to seek out these jobs at all but I'd be surprised if the stereotypes don't now work against them in hiring for "caring" work. Am I wrong?
posted by atoxyl at 4:05 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm sure it's true that men are less likely to seek out these jobs at all but I'd be surprised if the stereotypes don't now work against them in hiring for "caring" work. Am I wrong?
posted by atoxyl at 4:05 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
In-work benefits have been very effective at increasing income from low-paid jobs in the UK:
This shows that, but for redistribution through taxes and benefits, the UK would have one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe. Thanks to the benefits system, child poverty comes down from 40 percent to 15 percent, putting it below the EU average. Flipchart Fairy Tales
So I think redistributive taxation can improve the lot of the lowest paid, in theory. However, we tend to focus on need (means testing) which helps children and carers most, and therefore helps men least.
A basic income, or moving away from greater support for families/carers to simply one based on income, would help men more - as would families staying together.
posted by alasdair at 5:00 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
This shows that, but for redistribution through taxes and benefits, the UK would have one of the highest child poverty rates in Europe. Thanks to the benefits system, child poverty comes down from 40 percent to 15 percent, putting it below the EU average. Flipchart Fairy Tales
So I think redistributive taxation can improve the lot of the lowest paid, in theory. However, we tend to focus on need (means testing) which helps children and carers most, and therefore helps men least.
A basic income, or moving away from greater support for families/carers to simply one based on income, would help men more - as would families staying together.
posted by alasdair at 5:00 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Seems to me the higher you look up the ladder, the more sociopathic the people you find there. Perhaps it's not so bad not being a billionaire.
My experience has been "ruthless" is a better descriptor of the business elite.
The huge reduction (by overseas competition then NAFTA) of higher than minimum wage paying manual labor jobs has had a huge affect on the non-college educated segment of the population over the last 25+ years. Not everybody can or wants to go to college. Those people need decent paying jobs too. And by decent paying I only mean $12+/hour.
Having lived in the mid-west and deep south, the devastation of all the closed factories on the landscape is apparent. I'm talking about the factories that employed a couple hundred people that used to dot the rural landscape, not the mega-factories employing thousands.
posted by LoveHam at 5:06 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
My experience has been "ruthless" is a better descriptor of the business elite.
The huge reduction (by overseas competition then NAFTA) of higher than minimum wage paying manual labor jobs has had a huge affect on the non-college educated segment of the population over the last 25+ years. Not everybody can or wants to go to college. Those people need decent paying jobs too. And by decent paying I only mean $12+/hour.
Having lived in the mid-west and deep south, the devastation of all the closed factories on the landscape is apparent. I'm talking about the factories that employed a couple hundred people that used to dot the rural landscape, not the mega-factories employing thousands.
posted by LoveHam at 5:06 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
Seems to me the higher you look up the ladder, the more sociopathic the people you find there.
My experience has been "ruthless" is a better descriptor of the business elite.
Potatyto, potahto.
Overall, the combined economic output of the world continues to grow.
Which matters not at all if it most of it is captured by a tiny elite.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 5:29 AM on June 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
My experience has been "ruthless" is a better descriptor of the business elite.
Potatyto, potahto.
Overall, the combined economic output of the world continues to grow.
Which matters not at all if it most of it is captured by a tiny elite.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 5:29 AM on June 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
On the other, I can't help but feel, suck it up.
We must all deal with harmful gender stereotypes and their related phenomena. It's all part of the same elephant.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:07 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
We must all deal with harmful gender stereotypes and their related phenomena. It's all part of the same elephant.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:07 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm sure it's true that men are less likely to seek out these jobs at all but I'd be surprised if the stereotypes don't now work against them in hiring for "caring" work. Am I wrong?
I don't have information on how it affects initial hiring, but there have been some studies floating around lately showing men in traditionally female fields do get promoted faster and to higher positions.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:19 AM on June 1, 2015 [14 favorites]
I don't have information on how it affects initial hiring, but there have been some studies floating around lately showing men in traditionally female fields do get promoted faster and to higher positions.
posted by Karmakaze at 6:19 AM on June 1, 2015 [14 favorites]
I don't have information on how it affects initial hiring, but there have been some studies floating around lately showing men in traditionally female fields do get promoted faster and to higher positions.Yup. It's called the "glass escalator," and most of the research about it has been about nursing. Male nurses get promoted up and over female nurses.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:56 AM on June 1, 2015 [11 favorites]
On the other, I can't help but feel, suck it up.
See also:
• Big boys don't cry.
• Be a man.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
See also:
• Big boys don't cry.
• Be a man.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
My dad is a nurse, and is always assumed to be in charge, even though he's a traveling nurse so he's not even technically an employee of the hospital. He'll just point the person to the charge nurse (who is almost always a woman).
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:12 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:12 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
> And before we jump up and down on (specifically underprivileged and undereducated of any gender) people, how were they meant to learn better? How were they meant to develop gender literacy when rich and successful men kept propagating gender stereotypes through media and employment opportunities? There are a lot of lovely, intelligent, educated people of both genders on metafilter who have explicitly appreciated the boy zone lessons - people who can barely read aren't going to be part of those discussions - are they supposed to work it out from scratch?
For the women, this wasn't exactly their idea of how life was supposed to go either. They were raised in the same society and many dreamed of the same 1950s-style household that the men do, where the man provides and the woman cares for the children.
But somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime, and that once you have a job, you should show up and be reliable in order to keep it.
posted by desuetude at 7:23 AM on June 1, 2015 [11 favorites]
For the women, this wasn't exactly their idea of how life was supposed to go either. They were raised in the same society and many dreamed of the same 1950s-style household that the men do, where the man provides and the woman cares for the children.
But somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime, and that once you have a job, you should show up and be reliable in order to keep it.
posted by desuetude at 7:23 AM on June 1, 2015 [11 favorites]
Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, suggests giving boys gizmos to fiddle with and more breaks so they can run around outside and let off steam
That's Christina Hoff Summers, the First Mom of Gamergate.
She apparently thinks boys cannot be taught discipline and self control, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible for lacking in them.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:40 AM on June 1, 2015 [18 favorites]
That's Christina Hoff Summers, the First Mom of Gamergate.
She apparently thinks boys cannot be taught discipline and self control, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible for lacking in them.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:40 AM on June 1, 2015 [18 favorites]
I've seen plenty of articles like these and plenty of articles about how "women are the majority of college students / med students/ whatever now, WHAT ABOUT THE MEN" and I wish they all came with a big frickin' sticker about the importance of contextualizing, because yes, both things seem hard to reconcile but both are true:
More women are excelling at "traditional" measures of academic success
-And yet , women are still paid less, promoted less, and REPRESENTED less in almost all powerful offices.
PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE SAME SYSTEM. It's not about "the war on boys" at school. It's not about those women taking all the service jobs. This is not about how women have somehow cornered the market on bachelor's degrees and nursing jobs, or how that is "female privilege" compared to the male privilege of having all the Fortune 500's and all the presidencies.
This system tells women to get a degree, but make sure you don't spend too much time at work so you can still have kids.
This system tells men that service jobs aren't "masculine" so they can continue to be filled with (lower paid) women.
This system rewards and promotes the idea that men are "naturally" good at math and science, and women are "naturally" good at language arts. Guess which subject is considered more prestigious. And guess how often women are STILL kept out of the prime positions in academia, writing prizes, etc. despite being "so good" at language. Those language skills are great for being secretaries, though.
I'm not saying some men don't have it hard. I'm saying the easy, shitty, clickbaity answer is "because feminism" or "because all the things mennnn like to do are gone now". The real answer is that the same system provides different sets of oppressions for ANYONE who is not a wealthyish white male. The real answer is to question why our notions of "masculinity" continue to set up so many boys to fail. The real answer is to make it not shameful to do well in school, or go into nursing, or stay home with your kids.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:46 AM on June 1, 2015 [35 favorites]
More women are excelling at "traditional" measures of academic success
-And yet , women are still paid less, promoted less, and REPRESENTED less in almost all powerful offices.
PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE SAME SYSTEM. It's not about "the war on boys" at school. It's not about those women taking all the service jobs. This is not about how women have somehow cornered the market on bachelor's degrees and nursing jobs, or how that is "female privilege" compared to the male privilege of having all the Fortune 500's and all the presidencies.
This system tells women to get a degree, but make sure you don't spend too much time at work so you can still have kids.
This system tells men that service jobs aren't "masculine" so they can continue to be filled with (lower paid) women.
This system rewards and promotes the idea that men are "naturally" good at math and science, and women are "naturally" good at language arts. Guess which subject is considered more prestigious. And guess how often women are STILL kept out of the prime positions in academia, writing prizes, etc. despite being "so good" at language. Those language skills are great for being secretaries, though.
I'm not saying some men don't have it hard. I'm saying the easy, shitty, clickbaity answer is "because feminism" or "because all the things mennnn like to do are gone now". The real answer is that the same system provides different sets of oppressions for ANYONE who is not a wealthyish white male. The real answer is to question why our notions of "masculinity" continue to set up so many boys to fail. The real answer is to make it not shameful to do well in school, or go into nursing, or stay home with your kids.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:46 AM on June 1, 2015 [35 favorites]
She apparently thinks boys cannot be taught discipline and self control, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible for lacking in them.
I think it's more that she argues that classrooms don't do a good job of engaging with many boys and that different methods could lead more academic and behavioral success.
you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime
The study, published on Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency, found that nearly half (49 percent) of African-American men and 40 percent of white men have been arrested by the age of 23, "which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities," according to a press release.
We already put a ton of boys in the criminal justice system before they are even done with school, often handicapping their ability to have legitimate success in the long term. So they turn to crime sometimes because it is the only job they can find. It isn't really that they just can't figure out that selling drugs is a bad idea compared to being a nurse... a job that requires intelligence, a ton of expensive, difficult schooling, and a criminal background check.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:03 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think it's more that she argues that classrooms don't do a good job of engaging with many boys and that different methods could lead more academic and behavioral success.
you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime
The study, published on Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency, found that nearly half (49 percent) of African-American men and 40 percent of white men have been arrested by the age of 23, "which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities," according to a press release.
We already put a ton of boys in the criminal justice system before they are even done with school, often handicapping their ability to have legitimate success in the long term. So they turn to crime sometimes because it is the only job they can find. It isn't really that they just can't figure out that selling drugs is a bad idea compared to being a nurse... a job that requires intelligence, a ton of expensive, difficult schooling, and a criminal background check.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:03 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Black girls get arrested and suspended from school at rates similar to black boys. Often, when the discussion of the school to prison pipeline starts, gender is blamed, when really racism is the cause. White boys are actually doing pretty well in that regard. Black children, boys and girls, are not.
posted by hydropsyche at 8:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 8:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [12 favorites]
That's Christina Hoff Summers, the First Mom of Gamergate.
Never mind Gamergate, "American Enterprise Institute" is reason enough for hesitation.
Never mind Gamergate, "American Enterprise Institute" is reason enough for hesitation.
AEI is the most prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatism, in both the domestic and international policy arenas.[9] Irving Kristol, widely considered a father of neoconservatism, was a senior fellow at AEI (arriving from the Congress for Cultural Freedom following the widespread revelation of the group's CIA funding)[10] and many prominent neoconservatives—including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Joshua Muravchik—spent the bulk of their careers at AEI.[5]posted by Rustic Etruscan at 8:15 AM on June 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
We're automating those service economy jobs like sales, clerks, etc. occupied by more women quite fast too. We need to shorten the work week so as to distribute work and income more equally, and spend less work hours on stupidity, like advertising, sales, etc.
All these sad case guys could "rise to the occasion" if given a job driving a delivery truck stocking vending machines, Cyber-McDonalds, etc. At least the machines could be designed to make up for their shortcomings. Yet, McDonalds, etc. won't hire them while they can get people who studied enough in school to be qualified to work an intellectually tougher job.
I've fine with going back to single sex education or whatever systemic measures best address the education issues, but the larger issue remains work not being distributed in a fair way.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
All these sad case guys could "rise to the occasion" if given a job driving a delivery truck stocking vending machines, Cyber-McDonalds, etc. At least the machines could be designed to make up for their shortcomings. Yet, McDonalds, etc. won't hire them while they can get people who studied enough in school to be qualified to work an intellectually tougher job.
I've fine with going back to single sex education or whatever systemic measures best address the education issues, but the larger issue remains work not being distributed in a fair way.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:16 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would have thought that the first advice to these guys would be "join the army", especially in the US where you still spend lots of money on Defense. Or is that precluded by having a criminal record?
posted by kisch mokusch at 8:22 AM on June 1, 2015
posted by kisch mokusch at 8:22 AM on June 1, 2015
On the other, I can't help but feel, suck it up.
This mirrors the conclusion of the Economist. Except they're saying it for economic reasons, you for social justice reasons.
In either case, no - the people who feel displaced, who feel devalued, aren't simply going to "suck it up." They're going to make trouble.
Even in Sweden - uber-socialist, uber-feminist Sweden - there is a feeling of displacement among males who aren't buying what the likes of Benny Andersson is selling; nearly one-quarter of all Swedish men support the far-right Sweden Democrats.
As the phenomenon explained in this piece continues - and as the reaction from parts of the social justice left is "suck it up" - that translates into more political support for right-wing ideologies. The Tea Party may be an aspect of that, but really, we haven't even seen the tip of this iceberg in America.
posted by kgasmart at 8:23 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
This mirrors the conclusion of the Economist. Except they're saying it for economic reasons, you for social justice reasons.
In either case, no - the people who feel displaced, who feel devalued, aren't simply going to "suck it up." They're going to make trouble.
Even in Sweden - uber-socialist, uber-feminist Sweden - there is a feeling of displacement among males who aren't buying what the likes of Benny Andersson is selling; nearly one-quarter of all Swedish men support the far-right Sweden Democrats.
As the phenomenon explained in this piece continues - and as the reaction from parts of the social justice left is "suck it up" - that translates into more political support for right-wing ideologies. The Tea Party may be an aspect of that, but really, we haven't even seen the tip of this iceberg in America.
posted by kgasmart at 8:23 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
Black girls get arrested and suspended from school at rates similar to black boys. Often, when the discussion of the school to prison pipeline starts, gender is blamed, when really racism is the cause. White boys are actually doing pretty well in that regard. Black children, boys and girls, are not.
I would say it is both a racial and a gender issue and an intersectional issue. Boys account for 71% of the suspensions. Regardless, the main changes I would want to see there are less zero tolerance in schools, less police in schools, a justice system focused on rehabilitation, and end to stigma against people who have committed crime, more well paying jobs or guaranteed basic income...basically a lot of stuff that is never gonna happen. Kind of depressing.
I would have thought that the first advice to these guys would be "join the army", especially in the US where you still spend lots of money on Defense. Or is that precluded by having a criminal record?
A lot of people do that, but it's just not a life for everybody for a lot of reasons.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:29 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would say it is both a racial and a gender issue and an intersectional issue. Boys account for 71% of the suspensions. Regardless, the main changes I would want to see there are less zero tolerance in schools, less police in schools, a justice system focused on rehabilitation, and end to stigma against people who have committed crime, more well paying jobs or guaranteed basic income...basically a lot of stuff that is never gonna happen. Kind of depressing.
I would have thought that the first advice to these guys would be "join the army", especially in the US where you still spend lots of money on Defense. Or is that precluded by having a criminal record?
A lot of people do that, but it's just not a life for everybody for a lot of reasons.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:29 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money ...
Yes, they sure did, and I'm proud of them and inspired by them, but it wasn't right or fair that they had to do that, that they had and still have incredible barriers to a living wage. It doesn't mean that because one group of people have been trampled, and yes, oppressed, that it's right to do it to another group.
As a community, as humane citizens, we need to find ways for everyone to live productive, self-sufficient lives, don't you think?
In unrelated news, Johnny Depp broke Australia's sensible quarantine laws (we don't have rabies!) by smuggling his two pet dogs into the country (about 15 miles from my house). When caught, he fixed the problem by sending them home, on a private jet. It only cost him half a million dollars. Now that's obscene. And that's what I'm talking about - not taking money or opportunities from women, but a redistribution of wealth (fine, call me a communist) so that ordinary people, women and men both, can live good, honest, decent lives.
posted by b33j at 8:44 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yes, they sure did, and I'm proud of them and inspired by them, but it wasn't right or fair that they had to do that, that they had and still have incredible barriers to a living wage. It doesn't mean that because one group of people have been trampled, and yes, oppressed, that it's right to do it to another group.
As a community, as humane citizens, we need to find ways for everyone to live productive, self-sufficient lives, don't you think?
In unrelated news, Johnny Depp broke Australia's sensible quarantine laws (we don't have rabies!) by smuggling his two pet dogs into the country (about 15 miles from my house). When caught, he fixed the problem by sending them home, on a private jet. It only cost him half a million dollars. Now that's obscene. And that's what I'm talking about - not taking money or opportunities from women, but a redistribution of wealth (fine, call me a communist) so that ordinary people, women and men both, can live good, honest, decent lives.
posted by b33j at 8:44 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
The real answer is to make it not shameful to do well in school, or go into nursing, or stay home with your kids.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:46 AM on June 1
I often daydream about what it would be like for the kids in American schools to see achievement as cool or at least positive. Maybe I've watched too much anime.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:44 AM on June 1, 2015
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:46 AM on June 1
I often daydream about what it would be like for the kids in American schools to see achievement as cool or at least positive. Maybe I've watched too much anime.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:44 AM on June 1, 2015
A lot of people do that, but it's just not a life for everybody for a lot of reasons.
From a practical standpoint, what are the other options? The ever-cheapening of human labour and the seemingly unabated demise of manufacturing in many Western countries (you should see it here in Oz, there is pretty much no manufacturing left!) will continue to leave an empty space which was once readily filled by people who are 'better with their hands.' And while you can lament the failings of the education system, the fact is that the education system has always failed these people. There were always (and will always be) boys who dropped out of school as soon as the minimum tenure was up. Which was fine, because school is not for everybody for a lot of reasons either. But the hundreds of different jobs that used to absorb these people no longer exist. So there needs to be a practical solution, not just an ideological one.
I strongly doubt the solution lies in the schooling system. I think that the US (and other western countries) may need to protect some industries not for the usual ideological reasons you see espoused from Union leaders, but because it it may in fact cost the State less to do so than to bear the economic burden incurred by these individuals in terms of crime, welfare and the prison system.
posted by kisch mokusch at 9:14 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
From a practical standpoint, what are the other options? The ever-cheapening of human labour and the seemingly unabated demise of manufacturing in many Western countries (you should see it here in Oz, there is pretty much no manufacturing left!) will continue to leave an empty space which was once readily filled by people who are 'better with their hands.' And while you can lament the failings of the education system, the fact is that the education system has always failed these people. There were always (and will always be) boys who dropped out of school as soon as the minimum tenure was up. Which was fine, because school is not for everybody for a lot of reasons either. But the hundreds of different jobs that used to absorb these people no longer exist. So there needs to be a practical solution, not just an ideological one.
I strongly doubt the solution lies in the schooling system. I think that the US (and other western countries) may need to protect some industries not for the usual ideological reasons you see espoused from Union leaders, but because it it may in fact cost the State less to do so than to bear the economic burden incurred by these individuals in terms of crime, welfare and the prison system.
posted by kisch mokusch at 9:14 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
As a working class white person who does working class jobs, one thing I would like to say is that there seems to be this idea, which has come around recently, that men should not complain about doing hard and shitty work. The phrase "man up" is used now, thrown at people who complain about how hard and difficult the work is. I can only imagine how much more awful it is for women in the same situation, hearing that sort of phraseology tossed around.
posted by marienbad at 9:15 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by marienbad at 9:15 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money ...
Yes, they sure did, and I'm proud of them and inspired by them, but it wasn't right or fair that they had to do that, that they had and still have incredible barriers to a living wage. It doesn't mean that because one group of people have been trampled, and yes, oppressed, that it's right to do it to another group.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. It's not right to trample on anyone. I read a lot of 'well feminism et al is creating the trampling' as it being a newly create thing. It's not though. It's more like things that have generally protected certain segments of men from experiencing the trampling that is already occurring to others are disappearing or being dismantled. Welcome to crowd.
The arguments need to be from a basis of all being in it together, fighting the powers and structures that be or else it just falls into anti-women, anti-feminist BS.
This is where the ''suck it up" sentiment comes from, or at least for me it does. It's not 'ha ha now you get to experience it too sucker.' It's hey, welcome to crowd, you have to do what you have to do to survive and then if you care figure out how to work at changing it for everyone cause it's not us (women) at the root of the problem.
posted by Jalliah at 9:25 AM on June 1, 2015 [8 favorites]
Yes, they sure did, and I'm proud of them and inspired by them, but it wasn't right or fair that they had to do that, that they had and still have incredible barriers to a living wage. It doesn't mean that because one group of people have been trampled, and yes, oppressed, that it's right to do it to another group.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. It's not right to trample on anyone. I read a lot of 'well feminism et al is creating the trampling' as it being a newly create thing. It's not though. It's more like things that have generally protected certain segments of men from experiencing the trampling that is already occurring to others are disappearing or being dismantled. Welcome to crowd.
The arguments need to be from a basis of all being in it together, fighting the powers and structures that be or else it just falls into anti-women, anti-feminist BS.
This is where the ''suck it up" sentiment comes from, or at least for me it does. It's not 'ha ha now you get to experience it too sucker.' It's hey, welcome to crowd, you have to do what you have to do to survive and then if you care figure out how to work at changing it for everyone cause it's not us (women) at the root of the problem.
posted by Jalliah at 9:25 AM on June 1, 2015 [8 favorites]
I don't have information on how it affects initial hiring, but there have been some studies floating around lately showing men in traditionally female fields do get promoted faster and to higher positions.
Yup. It's called the "glass escalator," and most of the research about it has been about nursing. Male nurses get promoted up and over female nurses.
Yep, this recent NYTimes article talks about the pay gap in nursing.
Still, I don't think there's a contradiction between those facts and the idea that the men featured in this article don't have the skills, and aren't in a position to realistically acquire the skills, to benefit from the favoritism to men in nursing. I am not sure what the dynamics are in the lower-skilled "caring" professions, but I could see employers being more reluctant to hire a man (especially a man with any kind of criminal record) for a job in a daycare facility or as a home health aide. In those kinds of jobs assumptions that women are naturally better "nurturers" could work against men. With actual RN or NP level nursing that is probably less the case because the job requires technical training and education.
posted by Asparagus at 9:44 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yup. It's called the "glass escalator," and most of the research about it has been about nursing. Male nurses get promoted up and over female nurses.
Yep, this recent NYTimes article talks about the pay gap in nursing.
Still, I don't think there's a contradiction between those facts and the idea that the men featured in this article don't have the skills, and aren't in a position to realistically acquire the skills, to benefit from the favoritism to men in nursing. I am not sure what the dynamics are in the lower-skilled "caring" professions, but I could see employers being more reluctant to hire a man (especially a man with any kind of criminal record) for a job in a daycare facility or as a home health aide. In those kinds of jobs assumptions that women are naturally better "nurturers" could work against men. With actual RN or NP level nursing that is probably less the case because the job requires technical training and education.
posted by Asparagus at 9:44 AM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yup. It's called the "glass escalator," and most of the research about it has been about nursing. Male nurses get promoted up and over female nurses.
Perhaps not incidental that, with the much-bandied-about impending shortages of medical professionals, nursing seems to be in the midst of a transition from being considered "caring work" to being considered "knowledge work." Bit of a similar story as what happened with computers - "oh it's actually a very important technical profession you say? We'll be handling that from here."
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on June 1, 2015 [11 favorites]
Perhaps not incidental that, with the much-bandied-about impending shortages of medical professionals, nursing seems to be in the midst of a transition from being considered "caring work" to being considered "knowledge work." Bit of a similar story as what happened with computers - "oh it's actually a very important technical profession you say? We'll be handling that from here."
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on June 1, 2015 [11 favorites]
I strongly doubt the solution lies in the schooling system. I think that the US (and other western countries) may need to protect some industries not for the usual ideological reasons you see espoused from Union leaders, but because it it may in fact cost the State less to do so than to bear the economic burden incurred by these individuals in terms of crime, welfare and the prison system.
Some of this slack is already taken up by Social Security Disability benefits (source: here), at least in the US. It's a small sum relative to full time pay, but you don't have to work for it, and it may keep some people out of trouble who might otherwise become idle criminal troublemakers.
posted by theorique at 9:54 AM on June 1, 2015
Some of this slack is already taken up by Social Security Disability benefits (source: here), at least in the US. It's a small sum relative to full time pay, but you don't have to work for it, and it may keep some people out of trouble who might otherwise become idle criminal troublemakers.
posted by theorique at 9:54 AM on June 1, 2015
It's hey, welcome to crowd, you have to do what you have to do to survive and then if you care figure out how to work at changing it for everyone cause it's not us (women) at the root of the problem.
We've traced the call: the bootstraps are coming from the other side of the aisle
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:55 AM on June 1, 2015
We've traced the call: the bootstraps are coming from the other side of the aisle
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:55 AM on June 1, 2015
Like, "women", as a huge category, are people, and therefore part of society. It's not just a men or women thing. This is all part of the same project.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:57 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:57 AM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Have people been blaming women in this thread? If so, stop it cause that's dumb.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:07 AM on June 1, 2015
posted by Drinky Die at 10:07 AM on June 1, 2015
Have people been blaming women in this thread? If so, stop it cause that's dumb.
I haven't seen anyone in the thread blaming women. A lot of people have been piling-on as if someone had, though. It's sort of been an "awwww, poor men, sucks to be you" affair.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:16 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
I haven't seen anyone in the thread blaming women. A lot of people have been piling-on as if someone had, though. It's sort of been an "awwww, poor men, sucks to be you" affair.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:16 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
To clarify. I didn't mean to suggest that people in this thread were blaming women. It was just a comment about how I see the whole suggestion of people talking about 'sucking it up' and where it comes from in my experience. I was referencing what I've read a lot elsewhere when this sort of discussion happens.
Apologies if it wasn't so clear.
posted by Jalliah at 10:37 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Apologies if it wasn't so clear.
posted by Jalliah at 10:37 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
It seems obvious to me that if automation puts a large fraction of the workforce permanently out of work, criminal behavior is going to ramp up in some corresponding fashion. And at some point, certain kinds of crime are going to be de-stigmatized. I don't get why this isn't already a major concern.
posted by newdaddy at 10:42 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by newdaddy at 10:42 AM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
She apparently thinks boys cannot be taught discipline and self control, and therefore shouldn't be held responsible for lacking in them.Classrooms don't do a good job of engaging with children, period. The stuff that people complain about as being unfriendly to boys (excessive discipline, required conformity) have a problem since well before this "war on boys" meme started. Try reading any memoir about public schooling from the 1950's, or 1930's, or 1890's...I think it's more that she argues that classrooms don't do a good job of engaging with many boys and that different methods could lead more academic and behavioral success.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:47 AM on June 1, 2015 [7 favorites]
Much of our culture evolved in times of adversity. When the biggest challenges come from securing food, surviving natural disasters like weather and plagues, and protecting yourself from your neighboring tribes/clans/empires, cultural values arise that demand that everyone pull together to keep the group afloat. People who contribute to survival are valued. Those who don't are punished.
The relative weights of those contributions probably evolved, literally, where cultures that had "priorities" that resulted in good survivability outcompeted cultures that did not. For a (totally made up) example, we see that both raising children and fighting external foes are both "traditional" values of many cultures. Women can serve just fine in combat, but the culture that kept sending women into battle eventually got swamped demographically by the culture that deployed cultural pressures to keep the women at home raising children.
This is not to say that these values are morally OK. They may not even be necessary, the process of evolution is blind, it does not only produce results that are necessary or even actually have anything to do with a particular problem or challenge. Cultures evolve in ways that use people in different ways, we are all used by our cultures. We cooperate with "the system" because we are rewarded for cooperation, and punished for non-conformity.
The mistake that people so often make is that they seek to follow tradition, rather than seeking to achieve the ends that the tradition evolved to serve, and are often blind to those ends, and cannot adapt when the conditions change.
Right now we are in a time of plenty, our technology has reduced the need for human labor to such an extent that we have these problems now with unemployment. Our cultural values tell us to punish the unemployed, as if their lack of labor is actually carrying some opportunity cost to the group, and as if their existence is costing the group resources that would be better invested elsewhere. Neither of these things is true right now.
Lots of the MRA/War on Boys stuff is basically saying, "Hey we liked it back when we had a simple deal with society, where we would go work in the factory, or in the fields, or down in the mines, and in exchange we would get a wife, family, social prestige, and eventually a few years of retirement." That deal is no longer on the table. It's hard to blame the people who enjoyed that deal for being upset that it's gone. It seemed like a pretty good deal for them for a long time.
Of course, while that deal was available, basically every non-white, non-male person in this country was getting a much worse deal.
Adding to this problem is that it's clear that a very small number of people are benefitting from the system right now, at the expense of a great number. These two factors combined, lots of idle people who are basically being discarded by the system, and people at the top benefitting richly, are discrediting the system.
posted by rustcrumb at 11:07 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
The relative weights of those contributions probably evolved, literally, where cultures that had "priorities" that resulted in good survivability outcompeted cultures that did not. For a (totally made up) example, we see that both raising children and fighting external foes are both "traditional" values of many cultures. Women can serve just fine in combat, but the culture that kept sending women into battle eventually got swamped demographically by the culture that deployed cultural pressures to keep the women at home raising children.
This is not to say that these values are morally OK. They may not even be necessary, the process of evolution is blind, it does not only produce results that are necessary or even actually have anything to do with a particular problem or challenge. Cultures evolve in ways that use people in different ways, we are all used by our cultures. We cooperate with "the system" because we are rewarded for cooperation, and punished for non-conformity.
The mistake that people so often make is that they seek to follow tradition, rather than seeking to achieve the ends that the tradition evolved to serve, and are often blind to those ends, and cannot adapt when the conditions change.
Right now we are in a time of plenty, our technology has reduced the need for human labor to such an extent that we have these problems now with unemployment. Our cultural values tell us to punish the unemployed, as if their lack of labor is actually carrying some opportunity cost to the group, and as if their existence is costing the group resources that would be better invested elsewhere. Neither of these things is true right now.
Lots of the MRA/War on Boys stuff is basically saying, "Hey we liked it back when we had a simple deal with society, where we would go work in the factory, or in the fields, or down in the mines, and in exchange we would get a wife, family, social prestige, and eventually a few years of retirement." That deal is no longer on the table. It's hard to blame the people who enjoyed that deal for being upset that it's gone. It seemed like a pretty good deal for them for a long time.
Of course, while that deal was available, basically every non-white, non-male person in this country was getting a much worse deal.
Adding to this problem is that it's clear that a very small number of people are benefitting from the system right now, at the expense of a great number. These two factors combined, lots of idle people who are basically being discarded by the system, and people at the top benefitting richly, are discrediting the system.
posted by rustcrumb at 11:07 AM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
This is not a good article to look at a real problem. I mean, look at the comments above. Conservatives have monopolized the discussion, and liberals are largely unwilling to even have the discussion. But this phenomenon is a known issue for anyone working in employment services, social services and education. When the answer coming from all people with political leverage is that these men are contemptible dinosaurs, it doesn't help anyone.
I spent about a decade teaching literacy and basic skills in an economically beleaguered Ontario community. The client base skewed toward men in two segments. The first segment consisted of older men who were left with nothing when factories closed and many common trades were corporatized (such as the decline of local auto repair businesses in favour of franchises). The second were younger men who dropped out of school and often hit conflict with the law, mental health issues, addiction issues, and one unrecognized element for men, injury/disability issues. Lower income men do dangerous work: the kind of work that causes things like brain injuries, back injuries and other issues that are under-supported even when recognized, and often occupy an ambiguous place where they can't get benefits, but can't work either.
Looking at this as a bunch of men with entitlement issues is bad. Looking at this as something that challenges the idea that sexism is pervasive is also bad. This is not the fault of women, but it is also largely not the fault of the men being affected. It's the fault of declining social mobility engineered by structural patriarchy and classism. Men are expected to either join a technician/executive class, or work in the shit. Men who join the former are lauded, and society is set up to support them. It's why we have widespread panic about a lack of STEM education (the funnel to the technical/executive class) which is coincidentally the last area where men and women perform to a comparable degree. Education outside those fields is under attack--they're dominated (in terms of grades and student populations, but not faculty--yet) by women after all, and structural patriarchy is all about denigrating those fields as a consequence. These movements are patriarchal, and represent a gendered attack on education and employment. Meanwhile, boys and men really are lagging behind in schools, above and beyond correction for past biases. Beyond a few lame suggestions, nobody seems to want to confront the notion that maybe boys and men are increasingly aware that if they can't perform in a way that guarantees entrance into the technical elite, anything they do will be lumped in with the set of professions that the same elite wants to grind into nothing, partly to keep a poor disposable workforce, and partly to catch along with rising women, which the education system is changing to re-suppress. When we talk about how many CEOs and technical professionals are male, this means nothing for the majority of men who don't belong to those groups. And it is very difficult to explain that this isn't because of "reverse sexism," but because structural patriarchy has never been about the interests of all men, but by using gender to enforce class distinctions.
When we have discussions that aren't aware of class entangled with other issues, or refuses too talk about class using the same sophistication we use for liberal gender discourse or conservative economic discourse, of course we're going to collapse things into those fields. This leads to bad things like the article, which creepily links everything to marriage and sexual entitlement, or a tendency to lecture unemployed men about gender theory with casual classism that doesn't look good. And of course with nobody speaking to these men in any fashion they can empathize with, it's easy to sell them casual sexism. Meanwhile, government policy about unemployment is universally a blame-the-victim affair when it comes to dealing with individuals, and social services is a profession largely practiced by women, so we have a setup where women are forced to implement policies influenced by rich men (who want a powerless, low wage labour force to do the worst jobs) to tell poor men it's their fault. Meanwhile, those same women are being subjected to downward wage pressure with every dirty trick in the book, and there's an ideological drive to declare their educations worthless and/or smother them in debt.
(I remember meeting with my old boss, who described a meeting with agencies where they talked about how to push people toward volunteer positions because there aren't any jobs so they can keep their benefits, while simultaneously pretending that there are jobs, and that they should keep looking, because that's what the government wants. This is the shit that's actually happening.)
So what to do? I don't know. But acknowledging that there's a real problem should not implicitly challenge feminism, but support it.
posted by mobunited at 11:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [32 favorites]
I spent about a decade teaching literacy and basic skills in an economically beleaguered Ontario community. The client base skewed toward men in two segments. The first segment consisted of older men who were left with nothing when factories closed and many common trades were corporatized (such as the decline of local auto repair businesses in favour of franchises). The second were younger men who dropped out of school and often hit conflict with the law, mental health issues, addiction issues, and one unrecognized element for men, injury/disability issues. Lower income men do dangerous work: the kind of work that causes things like brain injuries, back injuries and other issues that are under-supported even when recognized, and often occupy an ambiguous place where they can't get benefits, but can't work either.
Looking at this as a bunch of men with entitlement issues is bad. Looking at this as something that challenges the idea that sexism is pervasive is also bad. This is not the fault of women, but it is also largely not the fault of the men being affected. It's the fault of declining social mobility engineered by structural patriarchy and classism. Men are expected to either join a technician/executive class, or work in the shit. Men who join the former are lauded, and society is set up to support them. It's why we have widespread panic about a lack of STEM education (the funnel to the technical/executive class) which is coincidentally the last area where men and women perform to a comparable degree. Education outside those fields is under attack--they're dominated (in terms of grades and student populations, but not faculty--yet) by women after all, and structural patriarchy is all about denigrating those fields as a consequence. These movements are patriarchal, and represent a gendered attack on education and employment. Meanwhile, boys and men really are lagging behind in schools, above and beyond correction for past biases. Beyond a few lame suggestions, nobody seems to want to confront the notion that maybe boys and men are increasingly aware that if they can't perform in a way that guarantees entrance into the technical elite, anything they do will be lumped in with the set of professions that the same elite wants to grind into nothing, partly to keep a poor disposable workforce, and partly to catch along with rising women, which the education system is changing to re-suppress. When we talk about how many CEOs and technical professionals are male, this means nothing for the majority of men who don't belong to those groups. And it is very difficult to explain that this isn't because of "reverse sexism," but because structural patriarchy has never been about the interests of all men, but by using gender to enforce class distinctions.
When we have discussions that aren't aware of class entangled with other issues, or refuses too talk about class using the same sophistication we use for liberal gender discourse or conservative economic discourse, of course we're going to collapse things into those fields. This leads to bad things like the article, which creepily links everything to marriage and sexual entitlement, or a tendency to lecture unemployed men about gender theory with casual classism that doesn't look good. And of course with nobody speaking to these men in any fashion they can empathize with, it's easy to sell them casual sexism. Meanwhile, government policy about unemployment is universally a blame-the-victim affair when it comes to dealing with individuals, and social services is a profession largely practiced by women, so we have a setup where women are forced to implement policies influenced by rich men (who want a powerless, low wage labour force to do the worst jobs) to tell poor men it's their fault. Meanwhile, those same women are being subjected to downward wage pressure with every dirty trick in the book, and there's an ideological drive to declare their educations worthless and/or smother them in debt.
(I remember meeting with my old boss, who described a meeting with agencies where they talked about how to push people toward volunteer positions because there aren't any jobs so they can keep their benefits, while simultaneously pretending that there are jobs, and that they should keep looking, because that's what the government wants. This is the shit that's actually happening.)
So what to do? I don't know. But acknowledging that there's a real problem should not implicitly challenge feminism, but support it.
posted by mobunited at 11:09 AM on June 1, 2015 [32 favorites]
"Looking at this as a bunch of men with entitlement issues is bad."
I agree wholeheartedly; I'd lay the blame squarely at the feet of modern tech-fueled capitalism and its obsession with routing around 'inefficiency,' aka 'humans.' The system that we have is steadily, relentlessly squeezing people out of the system because that means better numbers. At the same time, our culture is (generally) opposed to the idea that people should get any kind of living or support simply for being human… so we engage in an extended performative theater called "There will be jobs for everyone." The change that needs to happen is a decoupling of 'survival' from 'paid labor', or the system will eventually collapse as automation and assistive agents eat away at their own foundation.
But — and this is a big but — in the meantime one of the consequences is that emotional labor like 'being friendly and kind and helpful to customers' has not yet been automated, because it is definitionally a task that requires more human-ness than we've been able to fake up with Siris and Google Nows and self-checkout systems. And so they continue to grow while other sectors shrink, and Sauron's Eye turns on the women. Why are their jobs growing? people ask. Why are women making out like bandits while men suffer from these changes?
"So what to do? I don't know. But acknowledging that there's a real problem should not implicitly challenge feminism, but support it."
Yeah, but regardless of whether the causative factors are gendered, for better our worse our culture has already started turning it into a gendered question. The Economist specifically discussed that part of it, and it's one of the angles that a lot of modern MRA/antifeminist reactionaries use to accuse women of being The Ones With All The Power, etc etc. It may not be the whole issue, but it definitely is part of the mix.
posted by verb at 11:22 AM on June 1, 2015 [8 favorites]
I agree wholeheartedly; I'd lay the blame squarely at the feet of modern tech-fueled capitalism and its obsession with routing around 'inefficiency,' aka 'humans.' The system that we have is steadily, relentlessly squeezing people out of the system because that means better numbers. At the same time, our culture is (generally) opposed to the idea that people should get any kind of living or support simply for being human… so we engage in an extended performative theater called "There will be jobs for everyone." The change that needs to happen is a decoupling of 'survival' from 'paid labor', or the system will eventually collapse as automation and assistive agents eat away at their own foundation.
But — and this is a big but — in the meantime one of the consequences is that emotional labor like 'being friendly and kind and helpful to customers' has not yet been automated, because it is definitionally a task that requires more human-ness than we've been able to fake up with Siris and Google Nows and self-checkout systems. And so they continue to grow while other sectors shrink, and Sauron's Eye turns on the women. Why are their jobs growing? people ask. Why are women making out like bandits while men suffer from these changes?
"So what to do? I don't know. But acknowledging that there's a real problem should not implicitly challenge feminism, but support it."
Yeah, but regardless of whether the causative factors are gendered, for better our worse our culture has already started turning it into a gendered question. The Economist specifically discussed that part of it, and it's one of the angles that a lot of modern MRA/antifeminist reactionaries use to accuse women of being The Ones With All The Power, etc etc. It may not be the whole issue, but it definitely is part of the mix.
posted by verb at 11:22 AM on June 1, 2015 [8 favorites]
Letting Christina Hoff Summers be the primary person to frame this issue is not a good idea. I do think the issue of - well, how do we find the ex-working-class male a new positive role in society - is an important one.
posted by atoxyl at 11:32 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 11:32 AM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
Atoxyl, exactly. Maybe one way to look at things is like, cultural upheaval is disruptive and maybe sometimes dangerous. The loss of social status of huge numbers of white men is a cultural upheaval. The fact that non-white, non-male people have gotten less of a good deal from society for just as long, is terrible, it's a really bad set of circumstances about which we should all rightly be outraged. But, it is not, sadly, actually a sudden change in circumstances for those people.
So we have some cognitive dissonance, which is like, how do we deal with the fallout of the loss of status that this large group is experiencing, but do so in a way which is fair to everyone instead of simply say demoting other groups out of their own professions to make way for this group which is experiencing basically a cultural temper-tantrum.
How we deal with the upheaval is still open for debate. I mean so far it seems like mostly nothing is being done. So it's a blank canvas. Whatever does get done, its going to have to account for a group that has recently lost a lot of status. If things shake out that status is gained by some other groups besides white men, you are going to need to prepare for the fact that reactionary politicians are going to be making hay with that. Even though the one thing (gain in status for non white men) probably did not cause the other (loss in status for white men). And even though it's not actually possible that we can go back to a world where all the labor of all those white men could actually be consumed by the economy.
posted by rustcrumb at 11:56 AM on June 1, 2015
So we have some cognitive dissonance, which is like, how do we deal with the fallout of the loss of status that this large group is experiencing, but do so in a way which is fair to everyone instead of simply say demoting other groups out of their own professions to make way for this group which is experiencing basically a cultural temper-tantrum.
How we deal with the upheaval is still open for debate. I mean so far it seems like mostly nothing is being done. So it's a blank canvas. Whatever does get done, its going to have to account for a group that has recently lost a lot of status. If things shake out that status is gained by some other groups besides white men, you are going to need to prepare for the fact that reactionary politicians are going to be making hay with that. Even though the one thing (gain in status for non white men) probably did not cause the other (loss in status for white men). And even though it's not actually possible that we can go back to a world where all the labor of all those white men could actually be consumed by the economy.
posted by rustcrumb at 11:56 AM on June 1, 2015
Classrooms don't do a good job of engaging with children, period.
No, not period. They are currently doing better at getting girls to college and better at getting white people to college.
I don't know why exactly and find the explanations I have seen so far lacking, but it's a thing. I think the problem might be coming from somewhere besides the school though.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:04 PM on June 1, 2015
No, not period. They are currently doing better at getting girls to college and better at getting white people to college.
I don't know why exactly and find the explanations I have seen so far lacking, but it's a thing. I think the problem might be coming from somewhere besides the school though.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:04 PM on June 1, 2015
As I've said before, thinking that "Patriarchy" means "rule by men" is a mistake. The Patriarchs need a huge supply of disposable men for all sorts of reasons, and the fact that "male" is the key to all sorts of "easy settings" in life does not mean that there aren't other keys that are also withheld from many men.
...so it does mean rule by men. Just #notrulebyallmen.
Lots of the MRA/War on Boys stuff is basically saying, "Hey we liked it back when we had a simple deal with society, where we would go work in the factory, or in the fields, or down in the mines, and in exchange we would get a wife, family, social prestige, and eventually a few years of retirement." That deal is no longer on the table. It's hard to blame the people who enjoyed that deal for being upset that it's gone.
Pretty easy to be upset with someone annoyed at the loss of a deal that treated women as a reward for work rather than real human beings actually.
posted by Dysk at 12:06 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
...so it does mean rule by men. Just #notrulebyallmen.
Lots of the MRA/War on Boys stuff is basically saying, "Hey we liked it back when we had a simple deal with society, where we would go work in the factory, or in the fields, or down in the mines, and in exchange we would get a wife, family, social prestige, and eventually a few years of retirement." That deal is no longer on the table. It's hard to blame the people who enjoyed that deal for being upset that it's gone.
Pretty easy to be upset with someone annoyed at the loss of a deal that treated women as a reward for work rather than real human beings actually.
posted by Dysk at 12:06 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Dysk: the situation is of some terrible person who wins the lottery, and then a meteor lands on their house. We can understand both that this person is bad, that their good fortune is undeserved, AND that they will be upset over its loss.
posted by rustcrumb at 12:12 PM on June 1, 2015
posted by rustcrumb at 12:12 PM on June 1, 2015
...so it does mean rule by men. Just #notrulebyallmen.
Yes.
All not-men are not the patriarchy but not all men are the patriarchy.
I don't think I can type propositional logic symbols into this text box and I'd probably get them wrong anyhow.
Anyway, I think a zero-sum worldview is partly what fuels some of the MRA beliefs that the success of non-white men is at the expense of white men. Some of it is just that people are irrational.
posted by GuyZero at 12:15 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes.
All not-men are not the patriarchy but not all men are the patriarchy.
I don't think I can type propositional logic symbols into this text box and I'd probably get them wrong anyhow.
Anyway, I think a zero-sum worldview is partly what fuels some of the MRA beliefs that the success of non-white men is at the expense of white men. Some of it is just that people are irrational.
posted by GuyZero at 12:15 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Dysk: the situation is of some terrible person who wins the lottery, and then a meteor lands on their house. We can understand both that this person is bad, that their good fortune is undeserved, AND that they will be upset over its loss.
Unless the lottery prize in question is another human being, then that's not really equivalent on any level. The issue wasn't the loss of a deal of an easy life for factory work. The deal I was responding to was an easy life and a wife in return for factory work. Sorry, no sympathy for you not getting women as property anymore.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Unless the lottery prize in question is another human being, then that's not really equivalent on any level. The issue wasn't the loss of a deal of an easy life for factory work. The deal I was responding to was an easy life and a wife in return for factory work. Sorry, no sympathy for you not getting women as property anymore.
posted by Dysk at 12:20 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
All not-men are not the patriarchy but not all men are the patriarchy.
...and the patriarchy is all men (as in comprised entirely of men). It very much is rule by men, even if not all men benefit from it
posted by Dysk at 12:23 PM on June 1, 2015
...and the patriarchy is all men (as in comprised entirely of men). It very much is rule by men, even if not all men benefit from it
posted by Dysk at 12:23 PM on June 1, 2015
The relative weights of those contributions probably evolved, literally, where cultures that had "priorities" that resulted in good survivability outcompeted cultures that did not. For a (totally made up) example, we see that both raising children and fighting external foes are both "traditional" values of many cultures. Women can serve just fine in combat, but the culture that kept sending women into battle eventually got swamped demographically by the culture that deployed cultural pressures to keep the women at home raising children.
I mean this cultural darwinist (?) stuff seems like a just-so oversimplification at best, unless you have research to back it up - though I do buy that patriarchy is pretty effective at producing lots of children.
My point is just that what's happened to working class men a.) ties into fundamental class issues and compounds race issues, b.) is a "decision point" for gender issues and c.) has ramifications that are toxic to everybody else.
posted by atoxyl at 12:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I mean this cultural darwinist (?) stuff seems like a just-so oversimplification at best, unless you have research to back it up - though I do buy that patriarchy is pretty effective at producing lots of children.
My point is just that what's happened to working class men a.) ties into fundamental class issues and compounds race issues, b.) is a "decision point" for gender issues and c.) has ramifications that are toxic to everybody else.
posted by atoxyl at 12:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Why are women making out like bandits while men suffer from these changes?
I know this quote is describing a mass media, regressive reaction, but nevertheless it should be said that women aren't really "making out like bandits" because the jobs and educations they're entering are under particular assault. The academic fields in which they especially excel are routinely denigrated, student debt loads are increasing, and the jobs where they are especially represented are getting cut/defunded/reworked as non-professional fields.
The deal I was responding to was an easy life and a wife in return for factory work. Sorry, no sympathy for you not getting women as property anymore.
The article talks about how lots of men are unhappy and frames it in this really gross way, but skirts around the fact that maybe they're unhappy because they can't afford a decent place to live, decent food to eat, or the ability to take a break after falling off a roof and fucking up their backs. Because this article is from the Economist, it's not going to talk about labour alienation or discomfort from a sense of wholesale exploitation. A response that takes right wing sources at their word for what men in poverty want and then condemns them for it isn't going to help.
posted by mobunited at 12:35 PM on June 1, 2015 [10 favorites]
I know this quote is describing a mass media, regressive reaction, but nevertheless it should be said that women aren't really "making out like bandits" because the jobs and educations they're entering are under particular assault. The academic fields in which they especially excel are routinely denigrated, student debt loads are increasing, and the jobs where they are especially represented are getting cut/defunded/reworked as non-professional fields.
The deal I was responding to was an easy life and a wife in return for factory work. Sorry, no sympathy for you not getting women as property anymore.
The article talks about how lots of men are unhappy and frames it in this really gross way, but skirts around the fact that maybe they're unhappy because they can't afford a decent place to live, decent food to eat, or the ability to take a break after falling off a roof and fucking up their backs. Because this article is from the Economist, it's not going to talk about labour alienation or discomfort from a sense of wholesale exploitation. A response that takes right wing sources at their word for what men in poverty want and then condemns them for it isn't going to help.
posted by mobunited at 12:35 PM on June 1, 2015 [10 favorites]
The Economist argues that in the absence of available wives, Immortan Joe needs to make it easier for Nux to find job satisfaction through a clear path to Valhalla, all shiny and chrome.
posted by mobunited at 12:46 PM on June 1, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by mobunited at 12:46 PM on June 1, 2015 [16 favorites]
Atoxyl, "cultural darwinism" is a pretty loaded term. It's often used to justify actions by one culture against another. E.g. "well our culture is doing great, and yours over there is doing badly, therefore it’s OK for us to invade and enslave you because you have an inferior culture and will benefit from our superior culture in the long run.”
This is not at all what I am trying to say. The set of values that a culture has does not actually morally justify anything. But I think that cultures do evolve sets of values. Is this controversial? Do I have to find some research papers that prove to you that values are transmitted from one person to another in a group, they do not all just arise ex nihilo in every individual? Also let me head off at the pass, the suggestion that this is some kind of evolutionary psychology justification for why people behave the way they do. I'm not saying that human beings evolved in some way, therefore we should model our behaviors to conform with those ancient supposed roles. This is the furthest thing from what I am trying to say. If anything, I think people should be more questioning of their traditions. A lot of successful progressive causes are the result of rolling back old cultural dogmas that are simply no longer relevant, if indeed they ever were.
Dysk, I think we are having a bit of confusion between sympathy, "feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune", with empathy, "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Should we be sympathetic to the miserable standard of living that all lower class people experience, the unnecessary suffering caused by scarcity-mindset austerity policies? Absolutely we should. I mean, more than sympathy, these problems deserve immediate action, which is why I donate to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Am I, or should anyone be, sympathetic to the loss of undeserved status that white men are experiencing? No, of course not. Should we empathize that loss of status can make people feel some strong feels? One would be a fool not to.
posted by rustcrumb at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is not at all what I am trying to say. The set of values that a culture has does not actually morally justify anything. But I think that cultures do evolve sets of values. Is this controversial? Do I have to find some research papers that prove to you that values are transmitted from one person to another in a group, they do not all just arise ex nihilo in every individual? Also let me head off at the pass, the suggestion that this is some kind of evolutionary psychology justification for why people behave the way they do. I'm not saying that human beings evolved in some way, therefore we should model our behaviors to conform with those ancient supposed roles. This is the furthest thing from what I am trying to say. If anything, I think people should be more questioning of their traditions. A lot of successful progressive causes are the result of rolling back old cultural dogmas that are simply no longer relevant, if indeed they ever were.
Dysk, I think we are having a bit of confusion between sympathy, "feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune", with empathy, "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Should we be sympathetic to the miserable standard of living that all lower class people experience, the unnecessary suffering caused by scarcity-mindset austerity policies? Absolutely we should. I mean, more than sympathy, these problems deserve immediate action, which is why I donate to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Am I, or should anyone be, sympathetic to the loss of undeserved status that white men are experiencing? No, of course not. Should we empathize that loss of status can make people feel some strong feels? One would be a fool not to.
posted by rustcrumb at 12:54 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Don't forget Charles Murray! It also cites noted white supremacist Charles Murray. Really, it would be hard to assemble a better parade of right wing trolls/ "experts."
There's just something perverse about any analysis that sees this as working-class men vs. working-class women, rather than about the all-out assault on working-class people across the board.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
There's just something perverse about any analysis that sees this as working-class men vs. working-class women, rather than about the all-out assault on working-class people across the board.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]
This is not at all what I am trying to say. The set of values that a culture has does not actually morally justify anything. But I think that cultures do evolve sets of values. Is this controversial?
I know you're not appealing to cultural evolution for contemporary moral justification. You just gave a fairly particular narrative of How Things Got This Way and I'm just asking do you really know that it's supported by relevant historical and anthropological study?
posted by atoxyl at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2015
I know you're not appealing to cultural evolution for contemporary moral justification. You just gave a fairly particular narrative of How Things Got This Way and I'm just asking do you really know that it's supported by relevant historical and anthropological study?
posted by atoxyl at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2015
Dysk, I think we are having a bit of confusion between sympathy, "feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune", with empathy
No, you seem to be reading much more broadly than I wrote: "Pretty easy to be upset with someone annoyed at the loss of a deal that treated women as a reward for work rather than real human beings" in response to someone claiming that it was in fact hard to be upset at that prospect. The rest of the deal - a good (ish) and uncomplicated life for straight-forward hard graft, that's a different matter, and is unsurprisingly not where my objection lies.
posted by Dysk at 1:24 PM on June 1, 2015
No, you seem to be reading much more broadly than I wrote: "Pretty easy to be upset with someone annoyed at the loss of a deal that treated women as a reward for work rather than real human beings" in response to someone claiming that it was in fact hard to be upset at that prospect. The rest of the deal - a good (ish) and uncomplicated life for straight-forward hard graft, that's a different matter, and is unsurprisingly not where my objection lies.
posted by Dysk at 1:24 PM on June 1, 2015
I think the "crabs in a bucket" metaphor is apt here. It doesn't matter which crabs are standing on which other crabs to get to the top. Maybe the girl crabs are climbing a little higher than the boy crabs at the moment, unlike in the past. Who gives a fuck? We're still in this goddamn bucket. We need to band together to tump this fucker over and start taking down the people who put us there.
posted by emjaybee at 1:36 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 1:36 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]
One of the big issues here is the broader distribution of cognitive abilities (IQ, etc) for men. You have more abundant men at each extreme, so that while there are a greater proportion of male geniuses relative to females, you also have a greater proportion of men with various cognitive dysfunctions, mental illness, antisocial behaviors, and so forth. (That is, the mean is the same but the standard deviation is greater.)
In the past, the men on the left hand side of the bell curve had an abundance of relatively simple labor jobs that could help socialize and tame them. With greater mechanization and automation, a lot of things that would have been done manually 50 years ago are not done by people any more. This leads to a greater and greater percentage of the population who are increasingly unemployable. The best ways for societies to deal with this non-productive component of the population will be a big question of the 21st century.
posted by theorique at 1:43 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
In the past, the men on the left hand side of the bell curve had an abundance of relatively simple labor jobs that could help socialize and tame them. With greater mechanization and automation, a lot of things that would have been done manually 50 years ago are not done by people any more. This leads to a greater and greater percentage of the population who are increasingly unemployable. The best ways for societies to deal with this non-productive component of the population will be a big question of the 21st century.
posted by theorique at 1:43 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
In the past, the men on the left hand side of the bell curve had an abundance of relatively simple labor jobs that could help socialize and tame them. With greater mechanization and automation, a lot of things that would have been done manually 50 years ago are not done by people any more. This leads to a greater and greater percentage of the population who are increasingly unemployable. The best ways for societies to deal with this non-productive component of the population will be a big question of the 21st century.
I'm not sure we're talking about the far left side of the curve here though, or at least not exclusively. It would be interesting to look at what kinds of employment have been available to people with mild-to-moderate intellectual disability before, during, and after industrialization. But at this point many kinds of work that were mainstays for men at or just left of the middle (both in potential and cultivated ability) have been eaten away as well.
posted by atoxyl at 2:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure we're talking about the far left side of the curve here though, or at least not exclusively. It would be interesting to look at what kinds of employment have been available to people with mild-to-moderate intellectual disability before, during, and after industrialization. But at this point many kinds of work that were mainstays for men at or just left of the middle (both in potential and cultivated ability) have been eaten away as well.
posted by atoxyl at 2:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I don't want to start a whole debate over what the IQ distribution is and what it means but it is true that significant intellectual disability is more common in males, largely due to X-linked disorders. I'm sure these trends are all bad for those who are just on the edge of being able to manage independent living and employment, but that's only part of the problem.
The susceptibility of men to certain mental illnesses is probably a contributor to the externalities that result when they are left with little to do but, e.g. drink.
posted by atoxyl at 2:56 PM on June 1, 2015
The susceptibility of men to certain mental illnesses is probably a contributor to the externalities that result when they are left with little to do but, e.g. drink.
posted by atoxyl at 2:56 PM on June 1, 2015
But somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime, and that once you have a job, you should show up and be reliable in order to keep it.
Oh look, it's the "model minority" argument.
I'm not really surprised by the way some of the comments here seem to hedge or qualify sympathy for the plight of blue collar men. I'm sure I can imagine how it (the "plight") might be used to flatten or minimize worthy anti-sexist goals, but it still sucks to do preemptive counter-minimization.
posted by batfish at 4:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Oh look, it's the "model minority" argument.
I'm not really surprised by the way some of the comments here seem to hedge or qualify sympathy for the plight of blue collar men. I'm sure I can imagine how it (the "plight") might be used to flatten or minimize worthy anti-sexist goals, but it still sucks to do preemptive counter-minimization.
posted by batfish at 4:27 PM on June 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
This article uses, as its knowledge experts, a serious contingent of right wing, women hating, culture decrying, lunatics which have contributed nothing but hot air and dissonance to the universe at large. Just sayin.
posted by dejah420 at 5:23 PM on June 1, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by dejah420 at 5:23 PM on June 1, 2015 [9 favorites]
Mod note: Couple of comments deleted. Meta-discussion (about "what MetaFilter is like" or about moderation) doesn't belong on the blue. It's fine to talk about the source articles and authors.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:30 PM on June 1, 2015
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:30 PM on June 1, 2015
As a working class white person who does working class jobs, one thing I would like to say is that there seems to be this idea, which has come around recently, that men should not complain about doing hard and shitty work. The phrase "man up" is used now, thrown at people who complain about how hard and difficult the work is. I can only imagine how much more awful it is for women in the same situation, hearing that sort of phraseology tossed around.
This sentiment is hardly recent. While I wasn't around 100 or 200 years ago, I would be very surprised if this sentiment wasn't a lot stronger in those days. For example, back when the original NYC skyscrapers were being constructed, safety equipment was far less developed and regulations far less strict. For a lot of men, being too concerned with safety was a matter of pride, ego, and masculinity. The creation of the Panama Canal was another famous example of a "tough" construction project, where thousands of workers died.
More recent health and safety regulation has improved these situations (although as the Qatar World Cup situation shows, this has not been universally adopted).
posted by theorique at 6:16 AM on June 2, 2015
This sentiment is hardly recent. While I wasn't around 100 or 200 years ago, I would be very surprised if this sentiment wasn't a lot stronger in those days. For example, back when the original NYC skyscrapers were being constructed, safety equipment was far less developed and regulations far less strict. For a lot of men, being too concerned with safety was a matter of pride, ego, and masculinity. The creation of the Panama Canal was another famous example of a "tough" construction project, where thousands of workers died.
More recent health and safety regulation has improved these situations (although as the Qatar World Cup situation shows, this has not been universally adopted).
posted by theorique at 6:16 AM on June 2, 2015
One of the smartest people I know asks why it is such a crisis for some men to be close to parity with women or even fall behind, when centuries of women being constrained is considered just normal.
It's just basic "last place aversion." If the low station of women is the only thing keeping you from last place, you're not going to be too happy when male parity with women consigns you to the bottom of the barrel.
posted by jonp72 at 7:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's just basic "last place aversion." If the low station of women is the only thing keeping you from last place, you're not going to be too happy when male parity with women consigns you to the bottom of the barrel.
posted by jonp72 at 7:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
> Oh look, it's the "model minority" argument.
51% is not a minority.
posted by desuetude at 7:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
51% is not a minority.
posted by desuetude at 7:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
51% is not a minority.
I don't understand this. Are you saying 51% makes the logic of bootstrapping valid? What about blue collar women who do fall through the cracks? Do you presumptively attribute that to criminality and indolence? After all, it didn't happen to other women in similar situations.
posted by batfish at 8:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't understand this. Are you saying 51% makes the logic of bootstrapping valid? What about blue collar women who do fall through the cracks? Do you presumptively attribute that to criminality and indolence? After all, it didn't happen to other women in similar situations.
posted by batfish at 8:53 AM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
batfish, I'm saying that I'm not making a "model minority" argument. And I'm not presumptively attributing criminality and indolence to anyone, I don't even know where you got that. My point is that everyone in these communities, men and women, are dealt a hand of poverty, lack of education, lack of skilled-job training, unstable or dwindling economy, conservative views of men's vs women's roles in society, and the rest of it.
posted by desuetude at 11:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by desuetude at 11:43 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm saying that I'm not making a "model minority" argument. And I'm not presumptively attributing criminality and indolence to anyone, I don't even know where you got that.
Here's your first comment:
But somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime, and that once you have a job, you should show up and be reliable in order to keep it.
I read this as claiming that low SES women have survived by "recalibrating" against a background of, let's say, society-level collapsed opportunity to join the middle class (the "hand everyone is dealt"), and, on the whole, low SES women have done a better job of so "recalibrating" than low SES men. If that's not what you intended, or if you now want to walk it back, fine, but it's a straightforward reading of what you said, and, anyway, I actually agree with you that far. But then you unpack the "recalibration and dealing" in terms of learning or adopting the precepts that, e.g., "crime doesn't pay," and "you need to show up for work." You just say that, unambiguously, right there in your comment. So, if you say that you're not drawing a contrast with low SES men there, it's pretty unclear what you could be talking about, but, even so, for "show up for work" and "crime doesn't pay" to be part of the explanation for successfully "dealing," they have to be in contrast with somebody who fails to do/observe those things. They just have to be contrastive to be meaningful. Otherwise you might as well say that low SES women "managed to recalibrate and deal" by eating food and wearing clothes outdoors.
I'm really stretching my imagination to think of things you might be saying here that aren't what it looks like you're saying, so if you want to expand on your first comment, I'd love to hear it.
posted by batfish at 1:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here's your first comment:
But somehow the underprivileged, undereducated women managed to recalibrate and deal with the fact that if there mouths to feed, you need to figure out how to bring some money in, and that legit employment is more stable than a life of crime, and that once you have a job, you should show up and be reliable in order to keep it.
I read this as claiming that low SES women have survived by "recalibrating" against a background of, let's say, society-level collapsed opportunity to join the middle class (the "hand everyone is dealt"), and, on the whole, low SES women have done a better job of so "recalibrating" than low SES men. If that's not what you intended, or if you now want to walk it back, fine, but it's a straightforward reading of what you said, and, anyway, I actually agree with you that far. But then you unpack the "recalibration and dealing" in terms of learning or adopting the precepts that, e.g., "crime doesn't pay," and "you need to show up for work." You just say that, unambiguously, right there in your comment. So, if you say that you're not drawing a contrast with low SES men there, it's pretty unclear what you could be talking about, but, even so, for "show up for work" and "crime doesn't pay" to be part of the explanation for successfully "dealing," they have to be in contrast with somebody who fails to do/observe those things. They just have to be contrastive to be meaningful. Otherwise you might as well say that low SES women "managed to recalibrate and deal" by eating food and wearing clothes outdoors.
I'm really stretching my imagination to think of things you might be saying here that aren't what it looks like you're saying, so if you want to expand on your first comment, I'd love to hear it.
posted by batfish at 1:50 PM on June 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
One of the smartest people I know asks why it is such a crisis for some men to be close to parity with women or even fall behind, when centuries of women being constrained is considered just normal. I'm inclined to agree with her, with the caveat that a lot of this looks like manifestations of overall inequality. When all boats are sinking, it matters less who is on each boat.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:44 PM on May 31, 2015 [18 favorites]