Colin McEnroe Show: The End Of Men?
For the first time in U.S. history, women are dominating the workforce.
Published: Jun 30, 2010
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Jamie Berger
Photo:Chion Wolf
Elizabeth Kiefer
Photo:Chion Wolf
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Colin McEnroe Show: The End Of Men?
Heading into this show, I confess to being a little confused. Maybe a title like "the end of men" is just too big or too unlikely to wrap my mind around.
I also confess to being pulled in two directions at once. As the father of a 20-year-old son, I agree with Atlantic magazine's Hanna Rosin that there's a shift in education and employment that seems to favor skills that come more naturally to women. I'm freaked out by the triumphalism in her tone, but I do agree that parts of the current "he-cession" are more structural than passing.
But there's a kind of reductionism here. Men are this way. Women are that way. This is the kind of talk that caused huge swatches of thinkers, especially feminist thinkers, to write off Freud.
I look at how much my own life and my approach to my job has changed in a couple of years, and I wonder how hard-wired, as man, I am to be any certain way.
You can join the conversation. Do you think we are witness to the end of men? Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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Men have to step up and think about ways to retool themselves.
-Elizabeth Kiefer
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Comments
E-mail from Jim
I have to admit when I first heard the title of the article, I found it to be rather inflammatory and my knee-jerk reaction to it was, "Good! Let the damned women open their OWN freaking jars and squash their OWN freaking bugs!"
Then, I came to the realization that the title was a marketing ploy.
As the grandfather of three girls, I am glad to see that the education pendulum is swinging more in their favor that it has in years past. However, as that pendulum move to the full extent of arc, it is having a detrimental effect on the boys and young men in our educational institutions.
For years, I have seen so many aspects of our society catering to the women and seemingly ignoring the men. For example, when was the last time you ever heard of a MEN'S health center? WOMEN'S heath centers are popping up all over the place.
At first, I thought of this trend as a way that society was making up for the years abuse and neglect of women.
However, I look forward to the future time when the pendulum completes its swing, and drifts more to the center, which would be beneficial to all of us, male and female.
E-mail from James
Until women are occupying 65% of Fortune 500 Board positions, place a dent in the skilled trades (which their current number are minute), dominate the House and Senate and have more than half of the professional fields I don't see how the author made her case. Just because women may receive three of five four year degrees hardly adds to the end of men.
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