The Guardian has an article on how boys are a mess (h/t: TRP), there’s nothing all that new there other than its the Guardian acknowledging the problem and its somewhat RP’d. But it has this little bit that comes up with all these articles:
“Men are opting out and women are opting in. Women are working harder at jobs, they’re working harder in school, and they are achieving – last year women had more of every single category of degree, even engineering. This is data from around the world. Now in many colleges there’s a big gap as boys are dropping out of school and college.”
Zimbardo estimates that there are, in Britain and the US, 5-10% more women than men at many colleges and universities. “So they’re going to have to have affirmative action for guys because obviously one reason you go to college is to find a guy.”
Everytime the crisis of boys/men comes to the fore, there’s always the section on how women are achieving. The triumphalism varies, this one tones it down quite a bit compared to, for example, this but there’s always this note of woman are doing better.
Except, are they?
Women are going to school more, getting more education, and outnumber men in the workforce. So, they are achieving more, at least for the mediocre positions, men still dominate the elite positions.
But are they really better off? What exactly are they achieving?
To most men, work is/has been something they had to do so to obtain a wife, then provide for the resulting family. Most men probably took pride in a job well done or in creating, but the purpose of going in to work was to earn to provide for his family. He could have gotten the pride of creation elsewhere, not to mention in today’s white-collar, paperwork world, satisfaction from creating something tangible is rapidly disappearing. Likewise, since the growth of mass post-secondary education, getting a degree for men has primarily been about avoiding a job doing physical labour, getting a better job to hopefully attract a prettier wife, and provide a more materially rich life for his family. The main purpose of post-secondary education was to get a family and provide for it, while making provision easier.
Men did this work, not for its intrinsic own sake, but for the extrinsic good of the family.
To repeat, as an aggregate woman are achieving more, but what are they achieving?
Women are now doing the work men did to support their families, without having families to support, barring (the usually poor) single mothers, who are not the kinds of women-in-the-workplace these articles are happily pointing to as signs of success. In fact, statistically speaking, these women are less likely to have families and when they do these families are smaller.
So, what are they achieving?
The only thing they seem to be achieving is more consumption and more money to be spent on the consumptive treadmill. Is that something we should be proud of? Is that kind of achievement really something we as a society should be pursuing and pushing our boys and girls to pursue?
The other question then becomes, are men really being left behind?
If a young man has no need to support a family, because he doesn’t have a wife, he might not get a wife, and when he does his wife will work and IF they have children, there will only be one, maybe two, why does he need to work?
Is he really falling behind if his part-time McD’s gig pays for his quarter of the bachelor pad’s rent, beer, and the new XBox?
Is a man really worse off spending his hours playing video games and chilling with his bros rather than spending them working hard to get a bigger (but still empty) house and a (nominally) better car?
Why is empty, high-work, high-stress consumerism somehow assumed to be better than empty, low-work, low-stress consumerism?
Either way it’s empty, but the latter is a lot easier and more enjoyable.
Maybe this ‘high achievement‘ is not some victory for women, maybe it’s simply that men know the score: Work sucks, but is (was) necessary to get a wife, regular sex, and a family. Now that men can get sex without a wife and aren’t getting a wife or family anyway, why work?
On the other hand, women seem to have been tricked into thinking that grinding away at a white-collar job is its own reward. They’re doing the shit men were forced to do and mostly disliked, while not even having the reward of a wife having supper ready for them when they get home.
Is it just the boys that are mess? Are the women really achieving?
Excellent summary.Thank you for your efforts to articulate reality for men today.
Ardent reader
I doubt the premise is even true, most of these educated women aren’t productive, they leech off government funding or work too few hours to earn their keep. And the few who do add value will tend to depress wages and hobble innovation
Last night I was talking with a group of men, an all over the place conversation in that way things go when you spend the night drinking around a barn fire. One guy, a cop tells us how pointless his job is. Then the next guy says basically the same thing, and then the next guy and the next guy. No point being a cop because of the rotating nature of the criminal system. No point working for a big investment house because that whole system is corrupt. 24 years in the military for what? War on drugs? Failure. Global war on terror? Failure & we are importing hajjis/ terrorist by the boat load etc etc. 40 minutes go by and we all pretty much agree the dude doing HVAC work and the guy working for a major grocery store chain were the only dudes who had a useful job that brought value to other lives. In the way the world views things, the two dudes with the “least important” jobs where doing the most day to day useful work
We are all middle 40’s or so and all.agreed the younger generation of men have this bit of life figured out before we did. A man ha to eat so a man has to work but by and large most work supports a system that should not be supported….. which sounds perfect for the typical chick
As you say, it depends on what metric we are using for achievement.
If you believe that men and women are equal (equal defined as ‘the same’) then they both share the same ultimate realization of true virility and can achieve it using the same methods. Thus, if you do believe this, you will believe that women are achieving and men are failing.
BUT
The Reactionary denies the first principle emphatically. Men and women are not equal. They are not the same. They have different ultimate realizations of true virility, and as such what women are actually doing rather than achieving, is spectacularly failing, not that men are doing much better of course.
A note to women: If you are a mother and a loving wife who keeps a respectable home and is of an observant and kind nature, you are succeeding as a woman. If you are a millionaire executive with no time between your PDA and your cappuccino for children or a husband you can respect, then while you might be succeeding as a peon of Modernity, you are utterly failing as a woman.
@Mark Citadel:
I’m sorry, but I must correct you. It’s not the Reactionary that denies the principle emphatically, but reality and order itself.
I just find it so hard to believe so many women find the life of the mediocre careerist appealing. Women who stay at home with the kids and embrace being a housewife seem invariably happier people. That’s such an invaluable service to provide to your family and society as a whole.
On the other side of the coin, if you’re a multimillion dollar CEO or a successful veep, and you are not home every night at the dinner table, and you are not there when there are problems at school, and you are not there when the drugs have made their appearance in the area…
… then you may as well not be there at all. You’re just a hoodrat with a job. You ain’t a daddy.
“It’s not the Reactionary that denies the principle emphatically, but reality and order itself.”
I would like to think that Reactionaries are the guardians of reality and order itself ;) its representatives here on earth.
Good post. Women think they’re making great strides when they’re actually being victimized. It’s nerve-wracking to witness. Corporate elites LOVE this development: Not only does doubling the workforce drive down men’s wages, but women are even cheaper than men (because they don’t know how to negotiate), they’re more willing to go all-in on consumerism, and if they get themselves knocked up and wind up as single moms they have no choice but to work whatever hours the company wants because they need the paycheck. Wealthy shareholders are the biggest winners here, except maybe the colleges that clean up financially selling worthless Communications degrees to bright-eyed young women for 20 years of indebtedness.
The losses are spread evenly among everyone else. Men have a harder time supporting their families due to wage stagnation. Women now frequently have no choice but to work even if they do get married and have kids (in which case the kids get raised by TV and daycare workers instead of their parents). Workplaces are less collegial and comfortable due to draconian PC harassment policies. Homes are less welcoming with both parents working. People get takeout instead of cooking healthy meals, and get fat and unhealthy as a result. Men are less masculine and women are less feminine. Mindless consumption and media addiction rise to fill the emotional void caused by fewer, lower-quality relationships.
Bad enough to see all this happening, but the worst is seeing women rush to embrace it, heedless of all warnings, only to wake up someday at 40 and realize what a terrible mistake they’ve made, and that they only thing left for it is to buy some cats.
Seeing that link to The Last Psychiatrist on the sidebar reminded me of this very on-point post:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/03/dont_hate_her_because_shes_suc.html
All the difference in the world between ‘achieving’ and ‘innovating’
Between ‘achieving’ and ‘creating’
‘Achievement’ is for children and young adults.
Women are achieving more, but the cost is profligacy which just means that they cost more than they can produce due to them (and coloureds) not being able to keep things under budget. White men built this system with the grace of Our Lord Jesus in his Trinity and it’s our place to run it, else it will change to something else, something less glorious…
A.J.P.