Is Sheryl Sandberg's 'Ban Bossy' Campaign Bad for Boys?

If this piece is supposed to be fair or balanced the author is miles off.

As well as pushing all the usual sad, outdated and unproven feminist tropes she couches it all in a sneering, contemptible tone dripping in condescension.

This is typical of the sense of smug complacency that is typical of most female columnists. She is a serious argument against educating females, quite frankly.

Men. When was the last time a large mob of women with guns, swords, etc., stormed a palace, mansion, legislative building, etc., and killed or captured the heads of state and declared a "glorious new day", etc., etc. Well, we all know how it eventually goes. It's one damned thing after another.

Anyway, what is the single greatest reason men rebel? And then, eventually, overthrow their government, either the entire form thereof (e.g.: the US back in the 18th century) or merely the people in power (too many examples to pick from -- most take the form of regular elections)?

Answer: Economics. When women live in poverty, they are miserable and with any luck, find someone to live with or be with and together they can survive. Or, they get help from the gov't, if possible, which is usually a lot faster to help them than impecunious men. In any case, they don't take up arms and march on palaces, do they? But men? Men without economic options or an economic future? If there are enough such men walking around idly, trouble's gonna brew. There's also this: If men feel they are being oppressed, just as Jefferson (and others, uncredited) wrote, prudence makes men bear injustice rather than correct it for as long as it is tolerable as a means of avoiding the trouble and bad effects of revolution (bloodshed, etc.), but once it gets to be intolerable, men feel they have nothing left to lose, or that they must do today what is needed for a better life for their descendents tomorrow. (Paraphrased, obviously.)

The two things are closely intertwined. Men with little economic opportunity (or who think they have little) often also feel they are politically oppressed. The two tend to go together since a person with little money cannot afford good counsel if he or she is arrested, and the authorities know it. The authorities are much more likely to obtain convictions of people charged with crimes if the accused are short on cash vs. those with millions in the bank, even ill-gotten millions. [So those wondering why so many bankers who deliberately messed up the global financial system a few years back to make a few quick billions here and there are not in jail at the moment: now you know why. Besides, those guys are on the "inside" of power, and the snake balks at eating its own tail.]

To current events: the Ukraine. Did those who overthrew the Ukrainian president wear pants or skirts? Pants. Did they have penises or vaginas? Penises. Maybe there were a couple female armed marchers, I don't know, but I am guessing there was not an "equal representation of genders", nor would you likely see feminists complaining about that. On boardrooms making $1.2 million/yr. to attend 4 mtgs./year at a French resort for a week, yes. Legislative bodies with air conditioning and central heating and oodles of perks? Yes. Any job that pays well and allows people to stay clean and dry and socialize, especially if that is half the job? As Sarah Palin would say, "You betchya!" But march down streets, risking getting shot to overthrow an abusive and oppressive gov't? No, that's better left to the men, like garbage collection and custodial jobs. However once the men have overthrown said repressive gov't, who then shows up and says "Hey, we want half the lucrative gov't jobs, posts, legislative seats, and set them aside for us, and give us special rights, etc.!" Yes.

Well anyway, life's not fair, guys. But we already know this. Now about the Ukraine, why would these men overthrow the gov't? Answer: Sky-high unemployment. If they had economic opportunities that allowed them to do well even with their president being "Moscow's man in Kiev", they probably would not have marched on to glory and wrote their own version of the Star Spangled Banner. Check out these stats:

From the CIA World Factbook on the Ukraine:
Industrial production growth rate: -5% (2013 est.)
Unemployment rate: 8% (2013 est.)

Unemp. rate of 8%, with an ind'l prod'n growth rate of -5%. Fishy, yes? That's because the unemp. rate is a Ukrainian gov't estimate. It's about as reliable as a standard internal combustion engine without oil.

Now, some reality from the Trading Economics site:
Primary educated males: 8.7% unemployed
Secondary educated males: 58.2% unemployed
Tertiary educated males: Nothing shown

For those who don't know, primary basically means you finished what's known in the US as "grade school", or the first 8 years of school. At that point you are usually 13 or 14 years old. Secondary is "high school", grades 9-12, and most people graduate at age 18, some a year earlier, others a year later. The grade numbers are usually still used though some high schools use the terms "freshman", "sophomore", etc., particularly in private schools. Tertiary is what the US calls "college", in the UK, "university", etc.

So based on what I am seeing here, the Ukrainian gov't is reporting that among those men with primary-only educations (grade school), there is only 8.7% unemployment. Yet among men with secondary educations, it jumps bizarrely to 58.2%. Am I totally mis-reading this chart? I don't think so.

Now admittedly, the data is from 2008. Does anyone imagine things have turned around so much in 16 years that men with high school degrees in the Ukraine now enjoy a far less severe unemployment rate? And how it is that men with a grade school education out-qualify men with high school educations? I suppose it's possible, and I don't know the details of how and what and why Ukrainian employers may base their hiring decisions. But it seems weird. And no stats at all for Ukrainian men with tertiary (college) degrees. Is that because the number is statistically insignificant? I find that hard to believe. Maybe it just wasn't reported.

I don't pretend to know or fully understand the revolutionaries' motivations. I do know the Ukraine and Russia have a very long, usually strained relationship, with tension and conflicts going back generations, and I also know that the guy they just ousted was hand-picked by Putin as a candidate. The Russians have a strong interest in holding the Crimea since it gives them a year-round port. But the Ukraine is to Europe and Russia what the American mid-west is to N. America: the biggest single supplier of high-calorie, high-nutrition food that can be used in numerous ways. The only reason urbanized civilization as we conceive of it was ever even possible was the invention of farming techniques that leveraged the ability to plant and harvest high-value grain crops. Some even speculate that after it was discovered these things could make alcoholic beverages like beer, the motivation became much greater to centralize and coordinate activity necessary to ensure the highest possible yields of these grains. (It's easy to forget that common sources of intense pain such as tooth abscesses and other infections were, before modern medicine was developed -- by men, of course :) -- bad enough to drive people to kill themselves; beer and other alcoholic drinks offered some relief at least for a time and alcohol killed some infections too, even persistent ones, especially in the mouth, as beer was so potable. Beer was such a fixture in early Levant-area civilizations that it was often used as a form of payment; the ancient Egyptians would pay workers sometimes in beer, for example.) This required centralized power structures and the delegation of power to authorities to enforce laws and regulations to ensure harvests were as successful as possible. With all this extra food, too, people were free to do other things that made life easier. Basically, the difference between hunting and gathering and struggling to keep up the tribe's numbers vs. creating a flourishing civilization with a predictable social order and a much-higher degree of safety for the people (men who didn't have to farm due to the abundance of high-value foods could instead be full-time defenders of the people against attack, as well a other things) was being able to grow grains successfully.

Anyone who possesses land that can do this holds the Keys to the Kingdom.

Not even when the US and USSR were at total loggerheads during the Cold War over this or that did either side ever say we would not provide the other with grain should there be a significant crop failure in either the US mid-west or the Ukraine. Indeed, the entire world relies heavily on American and Ukrainian grain to keep itself fed. There are of course other crops that are high-value and they include rice, for example. Rice keeps billions of people fed, too. Between rice and grains, that's where most of humanity's calories come from. We can and do pay a price, however: arguably we'd be better off sticking to low-carbs and making up the calories with vegetables and fruit. Now for first worlders, that's possible, but maybe not right away for those elsewhere. Which is why the Russians cannot let the Ukraine fall into the hands of anyone who wants to or could restrict access to the fruits thereof.

I don't like what Mr. Putin is doing: massing troops on the border, making it clear he will not let Ukraine fall into the hands of anyone who is not most cooperative with Moscow. But I do think if some group tried to overthrow the state gov'ts comprising the US mid-west or if they attempted to secede from the US, I am willing to bet that Pres. Obama wouldn't let that happen, and for the same reason Putin has for not letting the Ukraine "go its own way", military installations/nuclear bombs that may be there aside. The US mid-western states are simply far too valuable not to be in the fold. The US would never sit by and let that happen. So even though on paper the Ukraine is its own country -- no way in hell in fact and it hasn't been for years.

That said, allow me to address Mr. Putin as if he were here:

"Sir, I feel you're playing this one wrong. Sorry, I just do. Maybe I don't know all the spooky, behind-the-scenes details and in fact I am sure I do not. But I do know this: The Ukraine is as every bit important to the US as the American mid-west is to Russia and Europe. We all need access to the grain our countries produce. I am not on the inside of what if anything the US gov't has planned for Monday (or later) if you don't turn the tanks around, as it were. But I do know that our president and our Sec'y of State have "speeched" themselves into a corner. They have to do something. They have threatened heavy sanctions, etc. Chancellor Merckel is going with it, too. So in order to keep from looking like dolts (an especially urgent issue for the president, since the Nov. Congressional elections are a few months away and he has got to start scoring points with the American people), they'll have to do something that at least looks like a big deal. This is going to be one of those cases where you will end up looking bad even if you re-gain control of the Ukraine, and it will do a number on the Russian economy if the US and Europe starts swinging their economic might around. You of course will try to do likewise and the whole thing will look like the proverbial Old West gunfight that leaves everyone dead, including the piano player. On top of that, the Chinese are about to default on everything from banking concerns to factories that make those little toy surprise things you find in Cracker Jack boxes. Talk about a "perfect storm"!

So sir, speaking as your unpaid/unsolicited adviser on these important state affairs (admittedly, I have never run a country, but at this point, I think that may actually be not such a bad thing; no preconceived ideas, etc., to get in the way), I suggest to save face you withdraw half your forces from the border, but keep the Crimea (that, you cannot let go of, I get it). Maybe you can re-negotiate that sucker later but for now, yeah, you need it. As for the Ukraine, you out-resource them by about a jillion-to-one. At this point, don't worry about the direct control of the grain. You have control of the Crimean port. And you can find ways to manipulate the grain prices upward by interfering in its transportation via rail car, driving up the cost to transport it, making it less competitive with the prices of US grain or grain from elsewhere. So you can force the new Ukrainian leadership to the table faster. And remember, they're amateurs; you're not. You've held power in Russia inside a tankful of barracudas and survived. You've personally killed men with your bare hands. (Yes, I know no one's supposed to talk about that stuff, but really, like we don't know? You were a KGB officer for years AND you've survived Russian post-USSR, every-man-for-himself-by-whatever-means-necessary politics AND stayed the Top Dawg! There's only one way to do that. You have to be ready, willing, and able to KILL. And everyone knows it.)

I'm guessing these new guys in the Ukraine will make some decisions. They will ask themselves what is best for the Ukrainian people, as well as what will keep them from unknowingly sipping that new brand of tea, "Polonium Earl Grey" (it's Earl Grey tea, only the drinker dies in agony after drinking it a few days later -- you can probably figure out why). Within a year or less, the Ukraine will be back under your control for all practical purposes and you'll have secured your place in history as the "one who chose peace". Schoolchildren will write essays about you. History books will leave out that stuff about the KGB and killing men with your bare hands, etc. And every teenage girl (well, maybe just most, and some teenage boys, too) in the world'll have a poster of you in one of your famous "shirtless outdoor" shots on her bedroom wall. But invade the Ukraine, and all that goes away."

OK, I'm done. I had a lot of fun writing that and hope you guys got a kick reading it, too. =)

Anyway, I will close this way-too-long post simply by saying this: When men are short on opportunities and feel economically marginalized, it is *they* who march on palaces and replace prior governments with new ones. Having a large number of under-educated, un- and/or under-employed men around is a recipe for certain social and political disaster. The worst thing a civilization can do is allow most of its men to be less-than-employable. But that is exactly where the US is headed unless we also "turn the tanks around".