Margaret Wente: What if women don’t need guys any more?

Submitted by anthony on Sat, 2012-04-07 21:29

Article here. (Ed. note: This is not the same article as published by Kelly McParland, just posted here on MANN. Interesting the meme sprouted up at the same time in two different places, isn't it?) Excerpt:

'Today, a lot of younger women simply don’t need guys any more. Guys can even be a liability. The New York Times reported last month that, in the U.S., having children outside of marriage is the new normal. More than half of births to American women under 30 now occur outside marriage. One mother, Amber Strader, 27, told the Times she was in an on-and-off relationship when she got pregnant. Marrying her boyfriend, a clerk at Sears, never entered her mind. “It was like living with another kid.”

If illegitimacy has lost its stigma, so has being out of work. Men who failed to provide for their families used to be known as “bums” and “deadbeats.” Now they’re just slackers.

The Richer Sex assembles plenty of evidence that, as women’s ambition is on the rise, men’s ambition is shrinking. Younger women are more focused and achievement-oriented than younger men. They have realistic career goals. Many younger men have no idea what they want to do or be. Younger women in the work force are eager for more responsibility. Younger men aren’t; they’re happy just to get by.'

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Comments

Or didn't anyone notice? Can't recall when, but 'men' became a dirty word and we got de-"man"-ified into 'guys' in the popular and general usage. I don't care if a phrase reads "women and men". What's wrong with 'women and guys' is the same thing that's wrong with 'Men and girls'.

Or does anyone really care about such distinctions? I do. I think it's quite a telling change in our language usage that reflects something rather pervasive and definitely not a positive thing for men.

As for women not 'needing' men anymore, well, that isn't such a bad thing. As some of the commentators in these articles have pointed out, it takes a huge burden off of men when women stop needing them for whatever reasons. It leaves men to (finally) be able to make their own choices about what to do with their lives without the social pressure of dating and marrying. The current phase we're in now is transitional. There are people in the Silent Generation as well as some Boomers who are not comfortable at all with this new state of things, but they will all but die out (no insensitivity intended-- just a statement of fact) over the next 10-30 years. By 2050 the last remnants of the gender-role bunch will be all dead and Gen Xers and Millenials will be the "old fogies" by then, and we won't have these gender role issues with "the kids". By then, they will finally be free (I hope) of these oppressive expectations around being the breadwinner and be free to live life as they want. In this matter, I wish my birthday was yesterday. (Perhaps in others, not so much, but in this one, yes.)

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Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2012-04-08 01:00

Society has all but destroyed the traditional male role as provider. At some point, expecting men to pay for the choices made by women will also become obsolete. Women will have to pay for their own choices. Until then, the man who fathered Amber's child will be considered another "deadbeat dad" who abandoned his child, even though Amber had no interest in marrying him. He had no other choice but the one he made, but he will be blamed. When women have the children and the jobs, it's unjust to arrest a man who fails to pay child support.

Does society have the will to hold women accountable for their behavior? I doubt it. What makes the female role appealing is she gets all the choices but none of the responsibilities, except those she chooses. And whatever choice she makes, she is rewarded. Whatever choice he makes, the chances are good he will be punished. If he's a good, responsible father, he loses his kids because he's not the "primary caretaker." Why should a man take on that role?

The real question is the extent to which men will contribute to a society that sees no value in their contributions or in men themselves.

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Submitted by el cid on Sun, 2012-04-08 14:03

I guess they don't need child support payments either? Good news huh?

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Submitted by Luek on Sun, 2012-04-08 15:45

From the article:
"And the gender gap is closing fast. The median income of young, unmarried urban women in their 20s is now higher than the men’s."

I wonder what it's going to look like when it's "closed."

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Submitted by dungone on Mon, 2012-04-09 04:53