The End of Men

@Sglass,

Quote:

Women are still consistently underpaid for the same job done by a man

slightly, and not for long. Men being willing to stay home with the kids as they are now fixes that problem because for awhile now it has been caused not by prejudice but rather because women who might likely have babies and stay home with them for awhile or forever are less valuable than men ( who it was assumed would not) are on the job market. Women have been properly valued and compensated for years.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Did you gloss this over? This is the point you need to grasp
No I did not gloss it over, and it is not an explanation. That would explain parity, it does not explain men rapidly falling behind.

Well, it doesn't fit your narrative, so I'm not surprised you reject it.

hawkeye10 wrote:

Aidan might have been speaking in jest, but porn and video games is a much more plausible explanation than yours is.

Meh. Once women will take significant share in both these industries, and the products are marketed more towards them, we'll see more girls doing this. I'm not really convinced about this. I think it's a bit of a stretch.

A
R
T

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@failures art,

Quote:

Well, it doesn't fit your narrative, so I'm not surprised you reject it.

explain...

if men and women are equally able but women were constrained by sexism so for a long time Women did not do as well...and you take away the sexism one would expect equality. That is not what has happened. So either men and women are not equal, or some constraint has been applied to men at the very same time that one was removed from women.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

So, why aren't men acting in a more rational way, and taking education more seriously, and putting more effort into it? Why are they failing to adapt to reality?that is the $1000 question, and we dont know the answer. Clearly they are not expecting to get farming jobs or good factory jobs, so it would seem that they are not oriented towards work and economic success at all.

Well, what's wrong with the answers you have gotten from me, and failures art, regarding that sense of entitlement, which men had, which they took for granted, and now it seems to be slipping away. And I am speaking of middle and upper middle class men here. I think social class is a factor. These groups never aimed for factory or farming jobs. It's not as though their job landscape has altered that radically. These groups went to college before, they've been going to college for a long time. So, why don't they work harder now when they get to college? Don't they realize they are no longer being automatically entitled to some of the perks and privileges that went with being the exclusive wage earner in the family? Don't they feel, or know, they have to work for status now, and keep up with the women?

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Black men get along because they can find enough women to **** that the single life is tolerable( a high percentage of of the men being in jail at any one time sure helps) , they are not about to go hat in hand to the women and suck up all the indignities the the women tend to throw their way trying to form relationships with women. I dont see any reason it will not go this way for men in general. Neither the men nor the women are willing to do what it would take to heal the rift, so it continues. We have seen more than enough insults from women towards men here at a2k in this thread to warrant concern that this is not just a black thing.

I think you are way off the mark with your understanding (or lack of it) of the poor Black community. Plenty of Black men and women have moved up to the middle and professional classes, thanks to education and drive. The women have had an easier time doing this than the men, for a lot of different reasons. But what you see in the very poor Black communities is almost a permanent underclass, trapped by drugs, poverty, crime, and high numbers of out of wedlock children (and it's those children that can hold the woman back in terms of her education).

If the poorer Black women can manage to move up, and get some community college education, they can and do work their way out of these very poor neighborhoods, and then their children have a better shot at life. Salvaging the poorer men has been more difficult. The women who are working days and going to community college at night, aren't going to marry an unemployed drug user who tends to go to jail every once in a while. That's why those men aren't getting married--and it's not because of the way the women treat them--the women don't want them as husbands. The women who are focused on moving up and out of those neighborhoods do get married, to someone who is functioning better in society.

None of what you are saying is true of the Black middle or professional classes, or even of much of the blue collar class--it mainly applies to the poorest class.
You really need to make social class distinctions, they are more important than
race, in terms of what we are talking about.There is no rift between Black men and women due to how the women treat the men. It's simply easier for the women to move up and, when they do, they want stable, wage-earning partners.
Education is the way out for the poorer Black men, but they are more easily trapped by those mean streets, and at a young age, and education becomes a low priority, and a vicious cycle continues. It's a tragic situation, but I would not blame it on the women. Lots of factors have contributed to this situation.

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@failures art,

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Meh. Once women will take significant share in both these industries,

I don't know what this means. What does 'Meh' mean? And what 'once women take significant share in both these industries' mean?
So you mean, once women become the major stockholders, CEO's and marketing directors of the companies that produce these games? Or once they become the majority consumer market for these games?
Because if you had a little girl, you'd know that there is and has been a definite product line marketed for girls right along with that marketed for boys. It just has never taken off in the same way . Why? Because girls don't buy into these games as much as boys do. Facebook is more a girl thing.

Quote:

and the products are marketed more towards them, we'll see more girls doing this.

As I said, there are and have been products marketed for girls and the market has never exploded the way it has for boys.
And porn isn't exactly a new industry. Why do you think it's not more marketed toward women? Because they're not as interested in it as men.
It might have something to do with the fact that men are more visually stimulated by and during sex and the sexual, whereas women are more tactually stimulated.
So, no - I don't think that's going to change for women that much due to it being available on the internet.

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I'm not really convinced about this. I think it's a bit of a stretch.

I don't. I can tell you almost immediately upon meeting a guy between the ages of 20 and 35 if he grew up playing games by the way his eyes focus (or don't) during conversation or any other activity that requires concentration.

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@aidan,

Quote:

I don't. I can tell you almost immediately upon meeting a guy between the ages of 20 and 35 if he grew up playing games by the way his eyes focus (or don't) during conversation or any other activity that requires concentration

I was under the impression that technology induced short attention span is an equal gender affliction. Have you knowledge to the contrary?

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@hawkeye10,

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I dont have a stat handy, but what I have seen indicates that it is only the wealthy boys who are still doing OK, the middle class boys are in near as bad shape as the lower class boys. when it comes to men, a lot of the middle class men are still sitting around the house on long term unemployment benefits. They are unlikely to ever find work again, and at some point the checks will stop coming. This situation is unresolved.

Look, we are in a terrible recession, and that has hit men particularly hard in terms of job losses. But all middle class men are not sitting home on unemployment. And plenty of women have also lost their jobs. You are being overly dramatic.

failures art already pointed out to you that college campuses are filled with men--middle class men. They are still going to college. Why are you ignoring that fact?

If people are in fields where jobs are unlikely to return in large numbers, they need to go back to school, or get some specific training, so they can do something else, in an area where the job outlook seems good. That's how rational people, of either gender, act if they want to survive. Lots of people who have lost jobs in the past few years have started their own business, or found that they really enjoy doing a different type of work. You need some ingenuity, flexibility, and ambition to turn your life around. It takes work. And women who have lost jobs have to do it too. But, the problems with the current economy are really unrelated to the topic of men not keeping up with women. I think middle class men are holding their own. The country is just going through a difficult time.

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Unless I state something as my view dont assume that it is. It might be, but it might also be that I am presenting an argument that has not been considered yet so that we as a group have the best chance at arriving at the truth.

Everyone else here states their own opinion, and there is no reason you should not make clear what your views are--and take responsibility for them

There is no "truth" regarding this topic. In 100 years from now the position of men might be as good as it ever was. The topic involves long term effects, so only time will tell.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

technology induced short attention span is an equal gender affliction

well logic tells me that those who are exposed to the stimulus more often will develop more of the symptomatic results (inability to concentrate/shorter attention spans) than those who are exposed to the stimulus less often.
And when you put that increased exposure alongside a predisposed male tendency for shorter attention span and less ability to focus for long periods of time at the precise time you'd be expecting this to developmentally occur even under optimal conditions for developing focus and attention - the odds aint in their favor.

And my own experience and observation have borne that out.

And I have to say that I don't see a lot of 20 and 30 something year old girls walking around with itchy thumbs and jumpy eyes.

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@hawkeye10,

You think that most men will be staying at home with the children?

Most families are living on two paychecks.

There still is a real wage gap Hawkeye, and not just because the women took time off to raise the children. Women did, and do, get paid less for doing the same job as the man in many cases. And it was due to discrimination.

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@firefly,

Quote:

You think that most men will be staying at home with the children?

No, but so far as the job market goes if it gets to anywhere close to 50/50 women will no longer be worth less on the job market because of the family thing.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

if you think of yourself as a man but you don't know what man is because concepts of masculinity have been under a great amount of change and attack from the feminists, then it is very difficult to be a confident, self-sufficient man.

Well, there's your problem. Stop thinking of yourself as a man, and start thinking of yourself as a person.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Quote:

Well, there's your problem. Stop thinking of yourself as a man, and start thinking of yourself as a person

No way, I like the masculine/feminine dance way too much to become an it. BORING

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@firefly,

Quote:

There still is a real wage gap Hawkeye, and not just because the women took time off to raise the children. Women did, and do, get paid less for doing the same job as the man in many cases. And it was due to discrimination.

are you sure about that, perhaps it has been too long since you tried something other than the Feminist talking points for reading material.

Quote:

In other words, for most careers the company studied, PayScale found that the pay gap is largely the result of outside factors. Within a specific job, before controlling for outside factors the typical female worker earns pay that is only 90 percent of the typical male worker’s pay; after controlling for these variables, she earns 94 percent of the typical male worker’s pay. For jobs paying below $100,000, the gap narrows further.

The implication is that in most jobs where a wage gap exists, it is probably not due to overt discrimination, with bosses deciding, Mad-Men-style, that women should receive unequal pay for equal work. Rather, in most jobs, the different career choices that men and women make — or perhaps the different career opportunities men and women have available to them — account for big differences in pay, says Al Lee, PayScale’s director of quantitative analysis

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/the-gender-pay-gap-persists-especially-for-the-rich/

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@hawkeye10,

I didn't say abandon your sexuality; I said stop depending on it as your primary identity.

Even babies are male or female; it's not as if it's something that you've achieved.

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@aidan,

RE: Video games. I'm not surprised so many games have failed to capture female minds--they are often created by men. I'm saying that once women start becoming a greater force in the creation and genesis of games, you'll see a larger female market. This I see as inevitable (the becoming a part of the creation) because women are expanding into tech jobs like computer programming and entertainment).

RE: Porn. Similar to the above. Porn isn't new, but women producing porn (not just starring in it), is something that is much newer. You don't think there is a market? Millions of Danielle Steele novels sold suggest otherwise in my opinion. Porn as an industry has been mostly produced by and for men. I'm simply saying that if the who in production changes, the market will expand to a wider audience. I'm not convinced that this is solely a male fixation. Additionally, as an anecdote, I know many women who love porn, and for no different of reason than any man.

Your reasoning for why girls/women are disinterested in video games and porn sound very similar to the arguments of old as to why girls/women would not be interested or successful in technology or engineering jobs.

A
R
T

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
Well, there's your problem. Stop thinking of yourself as a man, and start thinking of yourself as a person
No way, I like the masculine/feminine dance way too much to become an it. BORING

funny he didn't say it he said person, same problem with the rest of the world all this, i'm a canadian, i'm an american, i'm from some other country bullshit, we're all human beings and we're all in this together

1 Reply

@djjd62,

Quote:

funny he didn't say it he said person, same problem with the rest of the world all this, i'm a canadian, i'm an american, i'm from some other country bullshit, we're all human beings and we're all in this together

that sounds suspiciously like the feminist nonsense we had to listen to for years about how men and women are just the same. No we are not, and we should not pretend that this fantasy is real. We need to cooperate, we need to compliment each other, but trying to blend together and become one big undistinguished blob is exactly the wrong thing to do.

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@hawkeye10,

whatever, it just reminds me of all the knuckle dragging jocks from high school

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

@firefly,
Quote:
You think that most men will be staying at home with the children?

Hawkeye
No, but so far as the job market goes if it gets to anywhere close to 50/50 women will no longer be worth less on the job market because of the family thing.

Your reasoning is a little faulty. If even half the men stay home with the children (which I'm not sure I can see happening), that will still leave 50% of the women losing years of experience on the job while they stay at home. Those women might always earn less if they can't make up their loss of seniority.

I don't think things will go that way. I think that in many areas both men and women will start working flex time rather than the fixed hours type of schedule we have now. Then each of them can work out their own schedule, and they can split the child care duties. I think mothers like the idea of flex time schedules.

Actually, I'm not sure that many men would want to stay at home. Instead, I think we'll see a much bigger push to finally create affordable day care. And with more of the day care on-site at the workplace.

I like the idea of ditching notions of "masculine" and "feminine" and just considering ourselves as "people" or as "male and female people". We'll still be men and women, with all our distinct attributes, but we can get rid of the stereotyped gender roles that are implied with "masculine and feminine". They really are too restrictive. There are definite differences between men and women, apart from those stereotyped roles. There is a difference between male and female people as oppossed to masculine and feminine gender roles.

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@hawkeye10,

As usual, Hawkeye, you overly simplify issues by glossing over or ignoring the larger picture.

Quote:

Time
Tuesday, Apr. 20, 2010
Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men?
By Laura Fitzpatrick

Last year's tax returns may already be signed, sealed and delivered, but April 20 is the day the average American woman will finally finish earning her 2009 salary — at least, the one she would have received if she were a man. That's because U.S. women still earned only 77 cents on the male dollar in 2008, according to the latest census statistics. (That number drops to 68% for African-American women and 58% for Latinas.) To highlight the need for change, since 1996 the National Committee on Pay Equity, an advocacy-group umbrella organization, has marked April 20 as Equal Pay Day. There are some signs of progress: the first bill Barack Obama signed into law as President targeted the U.S. pay gap, and the Senate is considering a bill that is meant to address underlying discrimination. But the question remains: Why has it taken so long? Nearly half a century after it became illegal to pay women less on the basis of their sex, why do American women still earn less than men?

The answer depends on whom you ask — and so does the size of the gap. Some say 77% is overly grim. One reason: it doesn't account for individual differences between workers. Once you control for factors like education and experience, notes Francine Blau — who, along with fellow Cornell economist Lawrence Kahn, published a study on the 1998 wage gap — women's earnings rise to 81% of men's. Factor in occupation, industry and whether they belong to a union, and they jump to 91%. That's partly because women tend to cluster in lower-paying fields. The most-educated swath of women, for example, gravitates toward the teaching and nursing fields. Men with comparable education become business executives, scientists, doctors and lawyers — jobs that pay significantly more. (Read about a new wave of women in Europe's boardrooms.)

Still, workers don't choose their industry in a vacuum. "Why do you think [male-dominated industries] are sex-segregated?" says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "Very often women aren't welcome there." Real or perceived, discrimination in certain sectors could discourage women from seeking employment there. A dearth of role models might, in turn, influence the next generation of girls to gravitate toward lower-paying fields, creating an unfortunate cycle.

But industry doesn't tell the whole story. Women earned less than men in all 20 industries and 25 occupation groups surveyed by the Census Bureau in 2007 — even in fields in which their numbers are overwhelming. Female secretaries, for instance, earn just 83.4% as much as male ones. And those who pick male-dominated fields earn less than men too: female truck drivers, for instance, earn just 76.5% of the weekly pay of their male counterparts. Perhaps the most compelling — and potentially damning — data of all to suggest that gender has an influence comes from a 2008 study in which University of Chicago sociologist Kristen Schilt and NYU economist Matthew Wiswall examined the wage trajectories of people who underwent a sex change. Their results: even when controlling for factors like education, men who transitioned to women earned, on average, 32% less after the surgery. Women who became men, on the other hand, earned 1.5% more.

Skeptics who deem the 77% estimate too optimistic also note that the figure only counts women working full-time (35 hours a week or more, for the full year) and doesn't account for the fact that women are far more likely to take time off to start a family or work part-time while rearing one. Over a period of 15 years, according to a 2004 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), a full 52% of women in the prime earning age range of 26 to 59 go through at least one full calendar year earning nothing at all, compared with just 16% of men. Those choices make a difference: over that span, female workers earn just 38% of what men make — making the wage gap twice as large as the census figure. (And despite the earnings premium that comes with greater education, women with bachelor's degrees earn less over 15 years than men with a high school diploma or less, according to the IWPR study.) (Read TIME's 1982 cover story "How Long Till Equality?")

Yet no matter how you interpret the numbers, there are a few stubborn percentage points that can't be explained away. Economists and advocates alike speculate that these are the products of slippery factors like discrimination — conscious or not. A 2000 study, for instance, famously found that after symphony orchestras introduced blind auditions, requiring musicians to perform behind a screen, women became more likely to get the gig. "I think discrimination has declined," says Cornell's Blau. "But I'm not yet seeing or believing that it's been completely eliminated."

Ensuring an end to discrimination would benefit more than just women, as advocates who resist the characterization of equal pay as a zero-sum game are quick to point out. When Iowa instituted wage adjustments to combat pay discrimination, men accounted for 41% of the beneficiaries. And considering that nearly 40% of American mothers are the primary breadwinner in their households, America's children would benefit as well. Women's wages have increased just half a penny on the dollar for the past four decades. How much longer can it possibly take for equality to arrive?
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1983185,00.html

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The End of Men

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