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comment analysis

today Wednesday 19 September 2012

Why men fail

Continued from page 12

ADAPTABILITY IS KEY

Over the years, many of us have embraced a certain theory to explain

mens economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards traits that, for neurological and cultural reasons, women are more likely to possess. To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks. But, in her fascinating new book,

The End Of Men, Hanna Rosin posits a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.

Young women today have abandoned both feminist and prefeminist preconcep tions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits their vision and their movement.

This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there is big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They are going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.
IMMUNE TO NEW OPTIONS

Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 per cent of the median male income. Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new campus hook-up culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hook-up culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give them the freedom to focus on their professional lives. Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender war or that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She is just saying women are adapting to todays economy more flexibly and resiliently than men. There is a lot of evidence to support her case.
OLD RULES LIMIT VISION

A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small business during the last recession. In finance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are more likely to see theirs decline. There is even evidence that women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by 25 per cent after a marital breakup. Forty years ago, men and women adhered to certain ideologies, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Ms Rosin argues, are more like clean slates, having abandoned both feminist and pre-feminist preconceptions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits their vision and their movement. If she is right, then men will have to be less like Achilles, imposing their will on the world, and more like Odysseus, the crafty, many-sided sojourner. They will have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.
THE NEW YORK TIMES