If the ascent of women has been much exaggerated, so has the descent of men. Men’s irresponsibility and bad behavior is now a stock theme in popular culture. But there has always been a subset of men who engage in crude, coercive and exploitative behavior. What’s different today is that it’s harder for men to get away with such behavior in long-term relationships. Women no longer feel compelled to put up with it and the legal system no longer condones it. The result is that many guys who would have been obnoxious husbands, behaving badly behind closed doors, are now obnoxious singles, trumpeting their bad behavior on YouTube.
Their boorishness may be pathetic, but it’s much less destructive than the masculine misbehavior of yore. Most men are in fact behaving better than ever. Domestic violence rates have been halved since 1993, while rapes and sexual assaults against women have fallen by 70 percent in that time. In recent decades, husbands have doubled their share of housework and tripled their share of child care. And this change is not confined to highly educated men.
Among dual-earner couples, husbands with the least education do as much or more housework than their more educated counterparts. Men who have made these adjustments report happier marriages — and better sex lives.
And.
Men who request family leave are often viewed as weak or uncompetitive and face a greater risk of being demoted or downsized. And men who have ever quit work for family reasons end up earning significantly less than other male employees, even when controlling for the effects of age, race, education, occupation, seniority and work hours. Now men need to liberate themselves from the pressure to prove their masculinity. Contrary to the fears of some pundits, the ascent of women does not portend the end of men. It offers a new beginning for both. But women’s progress by itself is not a panacea for America’s inequities. The closer we get to achieving equality of opportunity between the sexes, the more clearly we can see that the next major obstacle to improving the well-being of most men and women is the growing socioeconomic inequality within each sex.
From Stephanie Coontz in The New York Times with “The Myth of Male Decline”. The article also includes some great myth-busting data on the idea that women are ascending at the expense of men.
What a fantastic article, I found myself nodding in agreement at all of the points made. It’s sad that women making advances socially and professionally must be seen by so many as somehow being disadvantageous to men. It doesn’t have to be an either or, men v. women, fight to the death, yet that seems to be how many people view it.
I think about this topic all the time. I’m technically a stay at home mom but even if it sounds weird, sometimes I feel conflicted abut how much cleaning and child care my husband does vs. my father or grandfather. I want to be a strong woman but I want to be careful not to emasculate him because he is such a great dad and hard worker. We talked the other day about how I am a lot of things: an artist, a singer, a good wife and above all, how seriously I take my job as a mother… What I am not? Is a great housekeeper. My house is clean because its important to me, but Jon helps me a lot there. I feel better since we both laid out what our full time jobs are and knowing that he understands the hours I put into the success of this family has erased the guilt I have about having done the dishes twice in four years.
Ps love your blog, was sent here by Tara Egan
You have to be careful not to emasculate him? And how can his masculinity be related to him pulling his weight with the housework? I read a great comment somewhere else recently; a guy said: “how is it that the stuff I have to do in order to be thought of as a reasonable flatmate in a share house suddenly becomes emasculating for me to do the day I marry?”
I don’t get how doing cleaning or child care can “emasculate” anyone, unless you’re being forced to as part of some D&S mind-f***. They’re jobs that (a) need to be done and (b) are usually neither partner’s idea of the funnest thing they can imagine doing, with the result that who does what needs to be negotiated.
The division of labor might be unfair (depending on your definition of “fair”), but I can’t see how Manning Up And Doing What Needs To Be Done is in any way damaging to anyone’s “masculinity.”
Well, when you phrase an equal distribution of chores as “Manning Up,” of course there’s no threat to masculinity!
My dad goes ahead and tells us that my tone is not sweet enough to my partner when I ask him to “help” with child & hosting work, and also that eventually my partner is going to get tired of having to do all the ladywork around here and leave and then what will I do.
Doing housework will definitely harm a man’s image with some other men.
I don’t think house work emasculates anyone, but finding our partnership in historically typical gender roles and breaking the mold of what that means requires thought. He does not feel emasculated, but I like being conscience of the word because I want my man to be strong and valued in a way that makes sense to him and not just me. It’s not enough to look at someone and say “Do you have a penis? Can you do the dishes? I don’t care how that makes you feel after you’ve worked all day and grew up in a house where the wife had dinner on the table and a smile on her face.” The progression of this conversation has to allow for redefining what we thought masculinity means, and valuing how important that is. I don’t mind using that word, because its an important word to consider just as I expect him to value the things that make me feel feminine even if they seem silly.
@Alissa King
I concede that I might not be the best judge of this.
My father (1923-2004) could be pretty sexist at times, but on occasion he did laundry, sewed, cooked meals, changed diapers, and, when my mother wasn’t available, took care of us 5 kids, and never gave the impression that he was any less of a man for it. While he of course didn’t feel that it was his job, I think that he felt that being able to do whatever needed doing (and do it well) was an essential part of his manhood. So it has never occurred to me that doing “women’s work” would affect my manhood.
You know what is funny about this conversation AMM? My husband would totally agree with you. He probably wouldn’t even know why I’m still talking about this. Both my sisters also married men who don’t blink at household chores or helping with child rearing and seem to enjoy their feisty wives. My older sister is the co editor of feminist Mormon women’s publication and my little sister works while her husband wants to be the one at home with the kids. My dad had all aunts, all sisters, all daughters, and no dad to speak of. I wonder if some of my hyper sensitivity to respecting my husbands masculinity comes from wanting to protect what it means to me. Not that he needs my help… okay here’s a quote that has always made me laugh and cringe from a guy standing around a campfire in Garrison Kiellors The Book Of Guys:
“I’ve been busting my butt for years trying to keep women happy, and they’re madder at me now than they were before I started trying so hard. I quit playing softball and deer hunting and took up painting delicate watercolors, still life’s mostly, and tossing salads, and learned how to discuss issues and feelings and concerns and not make jokes about them, and they’re STILL angry at me.”
This may seem off topic for this blog post, but it seems pretty on topic if this post is about how the rise of women does not mean the decline of men. It means, hey, let’s all kick ass, don’t just WILL things to be different, BE different, and laugh when we trip on our own feet because there is a learning curve for every generation.
Reading this thread, it seems like what the disconnect is is what defines masculinity and what we think *should define masculinity.
I think this is an extremely complicated question, but what it comes down to, i think, is being very attached to the gender binary and how that hurts everyone in the end.
At any rate, at least we all agree that the unpaid work that happens inside the home should not be seen as dis-empowering, degrading or belittling – regardless of the gender of the person doing it.
[…] there are plenty of instances where I have talked about ‘work and family juggling’ as a topic involving both men […]