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CNN: Why men are in trouble
Submitted by mens_issues on Thu, 2011-10-06 00:25
The latest misandrist "man up" article on CNN, this time by William Bennett. Excerpt:
'(CNN) -- For the first time in history, women are better educated, more ambitious and arguably more successful than men.
Now, society has rightly celebrated the ascension of one sex. We said, "You go girl," and they went. We celebrate the ascension of women but what will we do about what appears to be the very real decline of the other sex?
The data does not bode well for men. In 1970, men earned 60% of all college degrees. In 1980, the figure fell to 50%, by 2006 it was 43%. Women now surpass men in college degrees by almost three to two. Women's earnings grew 44% in real dollars from 1970 to 2007, compared with 6% growth for men.
...
The warning signs for men stretch far beyond their wallets. Men are more distant from a family or their children then they have ever been. The out-of-wedlock birthrate is more than 40% in America. In 1960, only 11% of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers. In 2010, that share had risen to 27%. Men are also less religious than ever before. According to Gallup polling, 39% of men reported attending church regularly in 2010, compared to 47% of women.
If you don't believe the numbers, just ask young women about men today. You will find them talking about prolonged adolescence and men who refuse to grow up. I've heard too many young women asking, "Where are the decent single men?" There is a maturity deficit among men out there, and men are falling behind.
...
The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement. We may need to say to a number of our twenty-something men, "Get off the video games five hours a day, get yourself together, get a challenging job and get married." It's time for men to man up.'
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Comments
Woman up
Instead of telling men to "man up" why not tell women to "woman up" and stop behaving like entitled princesses.
As a single man myself looking at today's "modern liberated women" I see absolutely no reason to get married.
Marriage today is a big no-no for men, and women have only themselves to blame.
They used to be
"The Founding Fathers believed, and the evidence still shows, that industriousness, marriage and religion are a very important basis for male empowerment and achievement."
They used to be. Marriage was at one-time a reasonable alternative for a man. He invested in a wife and a family and would usually keep his investment. Today, there's a 1-in-2 chance he will lose investment. So why marry? Men have figured something out: if you don't want to lose your ass in a divorce, don't marry the ass in the first place.
Industriousness was good--if you could keep the fruit of your labor. The best way to lose the fruit of your labor is to marry. Then you risk being obligated to pay support under threat of being jailed if you don't. What man in his right mind would aspire to that?
Far from returning to the fold and "manning up," the best thing men can do is what many are doing--refusing to play a game they can't win. There is no reason for a man to marry and work hard without some reasonable promise of a return benefit. An employer should not expect a man to do a job if the employer is unwilling to pay the man. Yet that is exactly what is society is now demanding of men: give us your all but we won't promise anything in return. That's the deal society offers men--and more and more men are, for very rational reasons, saying "No thanks."
Whenever anyone tells me to "man up," it's usually because they want me to accept patently unfair treatment simply because I'm a man. Enough of that. It has nothing to do with being a "man"--it's just a bad deal.
Education
The first statement, "For the first time in history, women are better educated," is wrong. In the United States, women have been better educated than men since at least 1900. While it is true that more men than women went to college a century ago, college enrollments at that time were insignificantly small. The sign of a very good education back then was a high school diploma, and far more women had high school diplomas than men. The average woman has been better educated than the average man for well over 100 years. Men (really boys), were far more valuable as commodities in the workforce. In other words, they were exploited for their bodies. Men have always been 2nd class citizens.
Fathers and Families
Fathers and Families addressed this article quite well, INHO.
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=19679