The End of Men

Men are on the way out.

The Atlantic has declared that women are taking over everything. Yes, this month's issue officially declares “the end of men”. The telltale signs are all here. More people ask for girls than boys when choosing the sex of their yet-to-be-conceived child. Thirteen of the fifteen fastest growing job categories are dominated by women. Managerial positions are occupied by women more than half (51.4%) of the time. Women earn 60% of all bachelors degrees. Men have failed to adapt to today's harsh economy.

Anyone else seeing the flaws in this “end of men” argument? And why does this sound so familiar? Seems like we've seen enough of the men-getting-the-short-end-of-the-money/career/education-stick argument to last us the rest of our lives. But before taking my place atop my soapbox, a brief disclaimer: talking about women in a positive way is just fine. Please do that, writers. But let's not frame it as a male downfall. Time to poke some holes in these arguments.

First off, let's take a closer look at the content of this story, starting with that management statistic. Fifty one percent of management jobs are held by women? A veritable takeover! How fascinating that women make up... oh... 51% of the population! How about those 13 fast-growing jobs the article talks about? It gives us four examples of the lower-paid, “nurturing” professions women have been stereotyped into working for the past few decades: nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. The article also mentions that 1 in 5 men lost their jobs due to the recession, mostly because their jobs were more project-oriented and less service-oriented. To me, this sounds like no one is a winner. Women may work more, but they are stuck in dead-end jobs to support their families, while men have taken a self-esteem hit because they are unable to work. While we're rethinking our existing paradigms, maybe it's time to admit that in a time when jobs are scarce, tech schools (which more men attend) may be a more secure path than a liberal arts education. Women get 60% of college degrees but still occupy lower-paying and lower-ranking positions; most higher management- or CEO-type positions still go to men. We have yet to change our perceptions, rendering these statistics utterly worthless.

Let me quote some statistics of my own, Atlantic magazine, and then you can tell me whether you still think men are horribly downtrodden. Currently, females hold about 17% of congressional positions; the 17 female of 100 total senators and the 74 women in the 435-member house are both all-time highs. Your own article tells us that between women and men 25-34 with no higher education, there is still a nearly $7,000 per year wage gap. One in four women will be sexually assaulted. Twice as many women as men will be affected by depression in their lifetimes. Need I go on?

This article would have been much more interesting and relevant if it had discussed gender stereotypes instead of claiming that women were taking over the world. Women in well-to-do countries are gaining ground in the traditionally male arena; men, however, are having more difficulty embracing their femininity. Why is that? Could it be because we consistently favor the masculine over the feminine? Oh yes, regular readers have heard this before. If we give permission for women to be more like men, we must also allow men to act more like women. Society must begin to value characteristics traditionally thought of as feminine.

I would love to see women get the equal pay, equal representation, and equal protections I discussed earlier. I would love to see men as stay-at-home parents, or at least valued for their nurturing qualities in addition to their careers. I would love to see men wearing nail polish, crying when they needed to, or commenting on how cute kids are without being seen as abnormal. Most importantly, I would love for any barriers to be removed so that everyone of any gender can fully realize themselves.

Creating a “battle of the sexes” helps no one. Quit sensationalizing things to try to sell magazines. I long for the day we can celebrate women's achievements without falsely accusing them of taking too much.

Play Like a Girl

Anyone remember that old insult heard on the playground when boys weren't too hot at sports? “You play like a girl.” No wonder so many women feel incapable of athleticism from a very young age. This is annoying in and of itself, and could certainly (and perhaps one day will) constitute its own entry. But today I want to write about the other use of this epithet: music.

My male partner loves Sleater-Kinney. He was watching a video of theirs and happened to read the comment section. There were lots of folks who said they were “pretty good for girls”. This angered my partner, who rightly believed that Sleater-Kinney is just plain good. The gender issue annoyed him even more after reading a story about a woman in an orchestra who became the lead trombonist only after the organization switched to blind auditions. The conductor was flabbergasted that a female was the best trombone player and treated her badly. But in the end, he chose her for the position without realizing she was a woman. So I decided to hold my own "auditions", popular music-style.

My extremely unscientific, simply-to-satisfy-my-own-curiosity, will-never-and-should-never-be-published-anywhere-but-on-a-blog “study” went like this: Participants (AKA my open-minded friends) listened to ten different musical samples, all about thirty seconds long. Five of the artists were men, five were women. If multiple musicians were involved, all people within the sample were the same gender, so as not to confuse things. No vocals appeared at all. Participants were asked to guess the gender of the musicians based only on the instrumental performance and overall sound.

I hypothesized that people would get an average of five correct; this turned out to be a very bad hypothesis. One lucky participant got six right (and he admitted to blindly guessing), but the average fell between three and four. One participant only guessed two correctly. I am pleased that so many folks got these so wrong, because my point has been proven: people simply don't know what gender a recorded musician is unless they sing- and sometimes not even then.

What else did I glean from this “study”? People seemed the most sure of a musician's gender when they were incorrect. One person wrote “definitely a dude” when referring to a guitar solo by Mary Timony. The all-male Fugazi sounded like women to all but one participant. And most importantly, only one person thought that Sleater-Kinney sounded female. Most folks were strongly convinced that they were men. So it turns out that Sleater-Kinney sound exactly the same as any male musicians would. Big surprise.

The moral of the story? Everyone plays like a girl.