The End of Men

- The Title. "The End of Men". Sensationalistic. Aggressive. Inappropriate. Simply reverse the title: "The End of Women." OR: "The End of Blacks." Or: "The End Of Jews." This is not a worthy title, though I understand it's a catchy one.

- "A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way and its vast cultural consequences." Vast is a weasel word. Used here, an attempt (in the "hook" paragraph, and just above the fold) to dramatize what's to follow, which is well-written but (let's face it) mostly devoid of hyperlinks or factual supporting evidence. Opinion piece stuff at best.

- "Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing, and with shocking speed." There have been and are many matriarchal cultures around the world, many of them predating and enveloping the dominant male patriarchy she refers to. But what I object to here is the use of the word shocking.

- "As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success, those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest." Bad rhetoric. Sophistry. You can't argue that men have forced women into a subservient role of child-rearing-and-raising while at the same time arguing that we as a society haven't leveraged the "talents" of the female half of the population. Bullshit. Back when it was tooth and nail, men fought and hunted, women gathered and took care of the kids. As our powers to control the world around us improved, so too improved the plight of women (and of men). Universally. Across the board. In a process that is still continuing to this day.

- "With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success." Correlation does not imply causation, and it especially doesn't imply reverse-causation. This should simply read: "With few exceptions, the greater the country's economic success, the greater the power of women. And men. And children." I can take any two correlated statistics and assign bidirectional causation to them too, if I want. A and B are correlated? Well obviously B caused A. Or A caused B. Depending on whatever makes my article sound better.

- "As they imagine the pride of watching a child grow and develop and succeed as an adult, it is more often a girl that they see in their mind’s eye." According to what official source? Stereotypes like this need to be backed up with hard numbers, and from better organizations than the OECD.

- "Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination." A tired old chestnut. Most companies today are deathly afraid of being perceived as discriminatory. There may be an "old boys club" around the upper echelons of the corporate power structure, but it's not just women who are excluded. I'm excluded. And you're excluded. Far more important is the fact that women don't seem to be interested in certain occupations or positions at all. Take computer programming as one example.

Well, whatever. I didn't intend to write a book on it. She came across (to me) as self-satisfied, smug, and sure, very "sympathetic" towards us broken and outdated Men 1.0 models. I read this type of material in the 60s, and in the 70s, and in the 80s, and in the 90s, and the "shocking" effects that are prognosticated never actually happen. So what's the point of this article? To take a recent employment statistic and weave it into a sermon of the marginalization of men. I found it tiresome, and there are feminists out there who actually have original thoughts (take Camille Paglia as an example).

This is what I'm wrestling with myself. I feel like it is some kind of wrong to say I would not want to change my race. Yet, while being white is not really part of my identity, it IS a part of my self image, the same as how I am blond. I feel like I would be kind of unsettled if my body image suddenly was radically different from reality.

I also like the physical ramifications of my ethnicity; the blond straight hair, potential for awesome silver hair later, and cool red facial hair. My body build is similar to that of African runners (though MARKEDLY less muscular and fit), so that at least wouldn't be very different.

Now that I think about it, your point about women is pretty valid too, though in my case that would actually be a con. I have met some black women I find extremely attractive, but that is not the mode, and I have never (personally) seen a black man with an asian woman.

All that said, I wouldn't fight a race change. I just don't think I'd seek it out.