The model of modern masculinity whose guiding force is women

To say Obama represents masculinity would be wrong. Masculinity is hard to represent in a person; it is more about traits or attributes, as is femininity. I think what the author here is really getting at is priorities and outlooks. Take a situation like this: One has a 9 AM-8 PM job but could really use some more time off to do things like pick up kids from school functions, etc., even if the income from the O.T. is welcome. Now one POV says this is good and noble but if the job is one requiring vigilance, such as being a police officer or fireman (or, is that "firefighter"?), then there really is no way to just let the employee slide off without compromising the job. That's atypical, I know.

But, what if I am an employer and I seek a competitive advantage and want my customer service reps available until 8 PM (instead of 5 PM as my competitors do), then it is quite arguably good for the entire firm for the employee to be there 'til 8:00. The employer's POV is this: we all have jobs, we all have duties, we all make sacrifices. As an employer, I sacrifice this: I worry 24/7 about my business and while I don't work 24/7, believe me, it feels like it. And, it's fair to say I work 90-120 hrs/week, anyway, dammit.

So that is one POV. The other of course is this: I like my OT but will happily give it up for more time away.

This is a hard decision to make and a hard balance to strike, indeed. The point here though is that the interests of two parties, an employer and employee, have to be balanced. One role of gov't is to resolve conflicts of interests between members of society. When these interests are in conflict, and the conflict cannot seemingly be resolved by marketplace actions, the gov't gets involved. But every time this happens, a price is paid. As most of us know, when the gov't intervenes, some kind of price is paid, in what economists call "efficiency" and what the rest of us call "petty annoyances". But gov't intervention in conflicts-of-interest between members of society is not a bad thing as such (after all, take murder of a kinsman, for example - it's a trial in court or a long-running clan feud-- which would you rather have?). We have gov't intervention to thank for 8-hour standard workdays and those two days off we call "the week-end". Not bad! But sometimes, as we can see in other countries, too much siding with one set of interests over another can be bad fore the collective well-being of the population at large.

So the point here is that the incoming president of the United States may well be a bit too over-exposed to the interests not just of women, but of feminists. Serving the interests of women is as fine and noble a goal as serving the interests of men; both should be equally served, as far as humanly possible, by any president, as all citizens have the right to have their interests and rights served equally. But to serve the interests of feminists more than some other group? In this case, that is a legitimate concern. And we know as MRAs that already, the interests of women are being put ahead of those of men in all manner of gov't policy. So we already are starting at a nasty level of inequity.

Personally, I am willing to give Mr. Obama a fair shake as far as my assessment of his actions as POTUS go. He has yet to assume the office so we have yet to see how he will do. I have my concerns, of course, as would any MRA, but I endeavor to be a fair-shake kind of fellow. "We shall see" is how I approach the topic of our president-elect... we shall see.....