The End of Men: and the Rise of Women
by Hanna Rosin
Isbn 978-1594488047
Riverhead 320p
Of the many benefits of eBooks, perhaps the greatest is that
I was able to avoid walking around with a book whose bright yellow cover
proclaims the title The End of Men. Despite
the publisher’s PR campaign, Hanna Rosin is hardly the first person to observe
that traditional gender roles and cultural assumptions about gender are
changing as fast as rumors about the next iPhone. She is, however, the first to write a book that
is both well researched and well written.
The book is packed with statistics that will make any Y
chromosome carrier stand up and notice.
She explores trends in employment (of the 15 jobs of the future, men
dominate in only two), education (women have surpassed me in college graduate
rates and post-graduate degrees earned) and even reproduction (surrogacy is way
bigger than a couple of sitcoms about gay couples.) In the workplace, the schoolroom and even the
most primal of human endeavors, reproduction, women are leaving men in the dust
or finding us just plain superfluous.
Rosin is hardly the caricature of the angry bra-burning
feminist that so terrifies the “traditionalist” wing of American
nut-baggery. She is a mom (the book is
dedicated, with an apology for the title, to her son) and a wife. She is not an angry anything really. Rosin comes across in her prose as what she
is; a gifted writer who has noticed a trend in our culture, researched it and
written a very readable book. It is her
precision in thought and non-anxious tone that appealed to me as a reader. Rosin is not particularly celebrating the
demise of men or celebrating the rise of women over men. Instead, she paints a picture of excited
anticipation of what this change in cultural gender roles and norms might mean.
Rather than spending time mourning the corpse of the dead
and dying old-style “dude,” Rosin explores questions about what this new future
means for us today. How do you raise
boys who are able to live culturally in this in-between time and yet ready to
embrace this new world? How do you raise
girls prepared to take on this more central and powerful role in the world when
the corner office is still just too far off and the glass ceiling just too low
for so many of them? These are big
questions for a culture that has been so defined by variants on the macho
persona for manhood.
As a man, I have no trouble with the demise of the Mad Men,
ass-slapping, martini drinking, bringing home the bacon, man of the house model
of manhood. Well, I would like to keep
the martinis as a souvenir perhaps. The
idea that this cultural construction of what it means to “be a man” is fading
into history is, in my humble opinion, a good thing. I see this as less the end of manhood and
more the beginning of men’s liberation.
If a man feels called to be a stay at home parent that should not be a
culturally unusual thing. If a man feels
called to put his career on the backburner as his spouse’s career takes off,
that should be a sign that he is a loving spouse and not a wimp. The best thing that has happened to men in
history may be the end of men dominating history.
The End of Men is a worthwhile read and Hanna Rosin is to be
congratulated for tackling a politically and socially awkward topic with a well
written and thoughtfully constructed book.
She sold me. Three cheers for
manhood 2.0!
