23 replies to this topic

[necreia]

A lot of the other ideas I recall being argued were pretty flimsy. "Women are just naturally better at service work, which is where the economy is headed", while incredibly broad, also sounds a lot like "girls are just naturally not as smart as boys and so not as good in school. We should discourage higher education for them and pigeonhole them into Home Ec". That one didn't really hold up, and the author's observation about current trends in service work isn't any better founded. Women are inherently and insurmountably better at ervice work only if you have a cartoonish view of what men are and how they interact with others.

Women performing better at service-based work actually has little/nothing to do with the personal aptitude, but rather the social trust issues between genders. Women are seen as comforting 'mothers' and men are 'villains' in western society ('bad guy', 'the Man', etc). This is why women get higher tips than men in the service industry, why a womans voice is preferred over a mans in automated systems, and so on. Until it's no longer popular to attack men in media, this will simply be the case.

I don't think the author understands the core reasons, but the reality does match.

[jtagge75]

With the rise of hipsters, emos and other groups who seemingly want to give off a feminine vibe with questionable clothing choices it doesn't seem like it will be to long before there won't be any "manly" men left.

[Khaiy]

Women performing better at service-based worked actually has little/nothing to do with the personal aptitude, but rather the social trust issues between genders. Women are seen as comforting 'mothers' and men are 'villains' in western society ('bad guy', 'the Man', etc). This is why women get higher tips than men in the service industry, why a womans voice is preferred over a mans in automated systems, and so on. Until it's no longer popular to attack men in media, this will simply be the case.

I don't think the author understands the core reasons, but the reality does match.

Fair enough, I suppose. Whether or not that's the reason for the phenomenon (and I tend to agree with you here I think, I just try to avoid claiming a definitive explanation for social phenomena), it doesn't support the author's analysis. Societal rewards to women vs. men in a job doesn't have anything to do with the quality of work performance, which is one of the author's key positions on why men are less relevant.

The reality will of course match the author's observations. She's observing reality. But the current state of affairs is insufficient for projecting future trends, and because the author is trying to explain both the current situation and her imagining of the future, she doesn't get much leeway on being wrong about reasons for trends.

And to ddn3, do you think that the chemical feminization of men due to androgens in the environment are driving the trends that the author describes? She talks about socially valued work shifting away from what men are traditionally considered good at, not about men becoming less masculine and so unable to do that work. I don't doubt that chemicals like Atrazine are dangerous in far smaller quantities than companies are allowed to dump in the water, and chemical feminization is a serious issue, but do you perceive a connection between that and the author's position? I would appreciate your thoughts.

[ddn3]

Male and female roles and relations have been pretty stable for nearly 20,000 years (before then early societies were matriarchal according to some theories). Even with the progressive women movements during the early 1900s the roles didn't appreciable change. It wasn't industrialization which brought about the emergence of a more feminist society, since that was going on for nearly 300 years prior. It was only in the last 70 years has the feminist movement really picked up steam (and only in the Western world) and i suspect its most due to the disruptive factors as i mentioned in the previous post. People try to ascribe their own pet theories to sociological events best they can but in reality it usually boils down biology. Ie we got bigger brains because we started eating meat, etc.. but in reality it was because we evolved a better cooling mechanism which allowed our brains to grow bigger without overheating.. etc.. Endocrine disruptors and estro-mimics destabilize the current gender social order allowing a new one to arise, nothing special there, esp when it has a gender affinity. If the endocrine disruptors made men shorter all sudden would she then ascribe that height change to eating habits?

My view it's pure biology and there is plenty of evidence to back it up, sociological theories aside. Male menopause didn't even exist 50 years ago, now it's epidemic. Disruptive hormone mimics cause havoc on both mental and physical development which lingers for the person entire lifetime. It's easy to see what a estro-mimic does to a male but what does it do to the female (earlier puberty, imbalance hormonal system, infertility)? I'm sure both genders are affected and it's affect is un-predictable..

-ddn