We subscribe to The Atlantic, but since most of our copies head straight to Mike’s gym bag for reading while exercising, I generally only see them months later. So the first I heard of Hanna Rosin’s recent controversial article ”The End of Men” was through Twitter. More specifically through tweets mentioning “the sin of America” and “the destruction of our country” which generally were a reply to or a retweet of @pastermark (Mark Driscoll). So with my interest peaked and my guard raised, I had to find out what all the neo-reformed guys in my twitter list were heralding as the harbinger of destruction for our country. Not surprisingly the answer was women.
Read the article. It’s a fascinating report on the state of gender in America. Most specifically it cites the statistics showing that by far more women than men are receiving higher education degrees these days and that women are now the majority in the workplace and in managerial positions. I’ll admit, I am not a fan of Hanna Rosin nor her approach to writing about gender issues (her piece on breastfeeding seriously pissed me off). And this article is as equally annoying as it is fascinating – most fascinating of course being who is responding to it and who is most offended by it.
The article basically tries to explain why women dominate schools and the workforce these days (numerically at least, men still earn more and hold the top positions of power). She explores why men are more likely to be out of jobs, unmotivated to get higher education, and unwilling to adapt to the current age. She writes –
What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as a drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more- nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of the natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperatives but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history? What if that era has now come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women? … The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true.
When the world no longer defines success according to certain supposedly male characteristics, then those men no longer dominate. Women have opportunities to achieve that were denied us before and we are ready and willing to take advantage of them while the men mope about the changed world. And moping they are. Predictably, the loudest outcry about these statistics is coming from the strict hierarchicalists within Christianity. Those that believe women should be at home in the kitchen while men prove their headship by providing are naturally upset that that women now comprise a majority (albeit slight) in the workforce. As Al Mohler writes regarding the importance of this article –
God intended for men to have a role as workers, reflecting God’s own image in their vocation. The most important issue here is not the gains made by women, but the displacement of men. This has undeniable consequences for these men and for everyone who loves and depends on them.
The failure of boys to strive for educational attainment is a sign of looming disaster. Almost anyone who works with youth and young adults will tell you that, as a rule, boys are simply not growing up as fast as girls. This means that their transition to manhood is stunted, delayed, and often incomplete. Meanwhile, the women are moving on.
What does it mean for large sectors of our society to become virtual matriarchies? How do we prepare the church to deal with such a world while maintaining biblical models of manhood and womanhood?
The elites are awakening to the fact that these vast changes point to a very different future. Christians had better know that matters far more important than economics are at stake. These trends represent nothing less than a collapse of male responsibility, leadership, and expectations. The real issue here is not the end of men, but the disappearance of manhood.
According to those who uphold the so-called ideas of biblical manhood and womanhood this trend spells disaster. Matriarchy! The end of manhood! The fearmongering has begun. Not only can they blame women for original sin, the demise of the church, but now the complete destruction of our culture. And in part they are right. The idea of manhood as defined by strength, aggression, and dominance that they have constructed and sold as the universal way God created all men to be is under attack. For a time in history that definition of a man (which played into men’s selfish desires of what they wanted to do anyway) prevailed, generally at the expense of women, racial minorities, the disabled, and men who did not fit those molds. But culture has changed and those traits assumed to define manhood are no longer most suitable for success in our society. In fact aggression, rugged individualism, and testosterone driven egotism won’t get you very far these days (except in the church).
Rosin rightly points out that perhaps the gender stereotypes that we once viewed as universal are in truth merely cultural. If we keep defining men according to what put them on top in ages past, there is going to come a point where men are going to fail (which according to the article is happening now). Men don’t have to fail for women to succeed, but they will if they keep being fed lies about what it means to be a man. There are two ways we can respond what this article reveals. We can value the character traits that work in a postindustrial age – which are neither masculine nor feminine – and encourage people to develop those skills (social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus according to Rosen). Or we can keep banging the drum that our cultural stereotypes are universal and in fact God-given and freak-out about the end of the world.
In my opinion these proponents of biblical manhood and womanhood are sailing a sinking ship (and aren’t that biblical either). They are so afraid of their cultural assumptions being challenged that they’ve lost sight that those assumptions are in fact cultural. While others will read this article and celebrate that women now have opportunities and then work hard at helping men and boys overcome years of false programming regarding what they were told a man had to be, some will continue to live in fear of the idea that God values and gifts women as well as men. That truth is finally being seen in society in major ways. The question remains if Christians find ways to help both men and women succeed, or will the church continue to fail men in its attempts to keep women down?