The End Of Men

[Madeline]

Fascinating article. Please read the whole thing; most important points emerge on the last page.

The End of Men - Magazine - The Atlantic

 

[uscitizen]

Damn I was born too early. It would not be so bad having a wife support me.

 

[eagleseven]

If blacks and women are performing poorly in school, we need to have affirmative action, special programs to help them, and entire departments dedicated to them, because it is not their fault!

If men are performing poorly in school, it is a sign of their inferiority as a gender and thus spells their eternal doom?

---

I detect misandrist double-standards.

 

[JW Frogen]

My penis has an affirmative action program.

Who would not want to graduate with a PHD from Frogen pleasure-unity-versity?

 

[JW Frogen]

I have a gender studies program with my tongue too.

 

[editec]

Generalizations alert!

A smaller percentage of men are psychologically prepared to fit into the corporate world than women.

Corporations mostly want compliant personalities, and women, by dint of the fact that they tend to be more social and more cooperative, tend do better in positions where subservience is expected from the employee.

The nature of our society is changing.

WE give a lot of lip service to the rugged individual, but the fact is that we don't want those people working for us.

 

[Madeline]

I don't think any of you are being totally fair to the author. She observes some startling sociological trends and what conclusions she draws she deals with most compassionately IMO. Did you read the whole article?

Let's just select out one factoid. If parents who can select the sex of child prefer girls by 75%, aren't we going to end up with too few boys eventually?

 

[eagleseven]

Let's just select out one factoid. If parents who can select the sex of child prefer girls by 75%, aren't we going to end up with few too boys eventually?

Nah. We can just import China's 30 million excess men. They've been selecting for boys over the past forty years the old-fashioned way: infanticide.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Wifeless future for China's men

---

Besides, Chinese men tend to perform better in American schools than both American men and women. Perhaps post-industrial society isn't suited to Americans at all?

 

[Tech_Esq]

I don't think any of you are being totally fair to the author. She observes some startling sociological trends and what conclusions she draws she deals with most compassionately IMO. Did you read the whole article?

Let's just select out one factoid. If parents who can select the sex of child prefer girls by 75%, aren't we going to end up with few too boys eventually?

How can 75% prefer girls and I've never heard anyone say that. Suspect.

I can tell you that having raised both, anyone that prefers girls to raise is an idiot.

 

[Tech_Esq]

As far as the article is concerned, its basic facts are correct. I'm with Edi on a lot of the conclusions and generalizations drawn.

Part of the problem (maybe even most of the problem) has to do with the way teachers are now teaching prior to college. In order to "fix" the perceived societal ill of an overly patriarchal society, the "new" education pedagogy has teachers check themselves to ensure that they call on girls before boys and create an atmosphere accepting and non-threatening to girls. Sometimes this calls for emasculating boys or drugging them and labeling "boy behavior" ADD or ADHD. But, it's all for the greater good, right?

The final conclusion you put so much stock in reads like the author has included us in some sort of fantasy of hers combined with the echo of a common complaint of women nowadays that there aren't any "real men" around. (This after the predominant strain of women's voices over the last 3 decades have screamed that men were not sensitive enough, didn't care enough about everyone elses feelings and weren't in touch with their own. So, they get some modicum of what they were screaming about and now they don't like it). Shocker!

Yes, it needs to change. We can start with elementary school teachers and work from there.

 

[Madeline]

I'd say the feminist view of nirvhana we envisioned in the 1960's and 1970's was a genderless society; people would just gravitate towards whatever they liked and there'd be no judgments about what was appropriate for either sex. The article makes me question if that is, in fact, what we're getting or if there might actually be patterns of behavior hard-wired by gender, at least for some people.

 

[William Joyce]

Part of the problem (maybe even most of the problem) has to do with the way teachers are now teaching prior to college. In order to "fix" the perceived societal ill of an overly patriarchal society, the "new" education pedagogy has teachers check themselves to ensure that they call on girls before boys and create an atmosphere accepting and non-threatening to girls. Sometimes this calls for emasculating boys or drugging them and labeling "boy behavior" ADD or ADHD.

Ayup.

We essentially live in a society that doesn't want free, independent males because they're just going to upset the nice little feudal arrangement in place currently. Men are just fine in the service of the MACHINE. God forbid they ask if they can drive it.

 

[William Joyce]

Generalizations alert!

A smaller percentage of men are psychologically prepared to fit into the corporate world than women.

Corporations mostly want compliant personalities, and women, by dint of the fact that they tend to be more social and more cooperative, tend do better in positions where subservience is expected from the employee.

The nature of our society is changing.

WE give a lot of lip service to the rugged individual, but the fact is that we don't want those people working for us.

Ayup again...

LAW FIRMS are a good example of an environment that prizes female behavior... sit and bill all day long, obey the partner totally, never leave your desk or wander, make sure everything is nice and neat and clean.

The actual MAN who says, "wait, what the fuck, what if I left my cubicle?" doesn't get good reviews.

 

[dilloduck]

I'd say the feminist view of nirvhana we envisioned in the 1960's and 1970's was a genderless society; people would just gravitate towards whatever they liked and there'd be no judgments about what was appropriate for either sex. The article makes me question if that is, in fact, what we're getting or if there might actually be patterns of behavior hard-wired by gender, at least for some people.

Possible patterns of hard wiring by gender ? Say it ain't so.