The end of men : and the rise of women

by Hanna Rosin

Paper Book, 2012

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Riverhead Books, 2012.

Description

Men have been the dominant sex since the dawn of mankind. But the author has noticed that this long-held truth is, astonishingly, no longer true. At this unprecedented moment, by almost every measure, women are no longer gaining on men: they have pulled decisively ahead. And "the end of men", the title of her Atlantic magazine cover story on the subject, has entered the lexicon as dramatically as Betty Friedan's "Feminine Mystique," Simone de Beauvoir's "Second Sex," Susan Faludi's "Backlash," and Naomi Wolf's "Beauty Myth" once did. In this book, the author reveals how this new state of affairs is radically shifting the power dynamics between men and women at every level of society, with profound implications for marriage, sex, children, work, and more. With wide-ranging curiosity and insight unhampered by assumptions or ideology, the author shows how the radically different ways men and women today earn, learn, spend, couple up, even kill, has turned the big picture upside down.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member annbury
Can one review this book without making a political statement? The previous reviewer says that it is "a terrible book" and cites a whole raft of links to others who agree with her.

I don't agree with her: I don't think this is a terrible book. Indeed I think it is a moderately interesting
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presentation of some broad demographic trends that have been going on in the US for some time. Women are becoming better educated compared to men than they used to be, not just relatively but absolutely. Women are making up a larger percentage of the professions (at least up to a certain level), and women are moving into some job areas that used to be men's work. And, less positively, more and more women are opting for single motherhood -- as in most wealthy countries.

To extend these trends to "The End of Men", however, is carrying the arguement way too far. Statistical evidence shows that even if some women in some places are narrowing the pay gap, women as a whole are not. And women are taking in more of the burden of child rearing than they did in the past, when they worked less. Moreover, some of the relative economic shifts that Ms. Rosen notes probably have more to do with cyclical developments (a bad recession that slammed construction) than with any sort of gender regime shift.

Given the continued pay gap, and the continued lack of female representation at the top of most organizational pyramids, Ms. Rosin's title looks way overblown. Some of her critics may fear that her arguments give comfort to those who say, for example, that affirmative action for women is not needed.

It is always tempting to dismiss arguments entirely if parts of those arguments are suspect. It is particularly tempting when some of the political implications of the argument go in directions that are troubling to, for example, feminists. (As an old feminist who spent a career in Wall Street, I have trouble with the end of men view -- there, I knew I couldn't review this book without making a political statement).

But the book is still worth reading. Women are improving their relative position, gradually, and this is a trend with social implications that deserve consideration. By taking (at least in her title) an extreme view, Ms. Rosin has certainly cranked up discussion of the topic of how social and economic roles are changing. That's a contribution.
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LibraryThing member rivkat
Free LibraryThing early reviewer copy. The part behind the colon is only halfway accurate—Rosin is generally quite sensitive to the idea that big changes in the economy, in the US and the world, are changing gender relations in ways that aren’t zero-sum. Her basic thesis, again focused on the
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US with some comparative bits (including a chapter on “Asia” that is really a chapter on South Korea), is that women have been more flexible than men in response to tectonic social and economic changes. Women have entered the workforce, retrained for new jobs, gotten college degrees; meanwhile, men have been much less willing to change, whether that’s to do more child care or to enter historically feminized job categories like nursing where there’s job growth. As a result, women are more likely to decide that they don’t need a man who is neither a provider nor a homemaker, the basic reasoning being “I already have X kids, I don’t need X+1”—and even when X = 0, women are busy trying to establish themselves and don’t necessarily want to spend the time tending to a relationship that could otherwise be spent on career or school. While Rosen mentioned the theorists of “innate” male and female qualities, she repeatedly pointed out just how much socialization mattered, as evidenced by the rapid change we’ve seen recently. And for upper-class women who can navigate the still-strong bias against aggressive women, there is a cadre of men who are happy to live in new ways, though Rosin includes some accounts of high-flying women who were surprised to find that their partners weren’t among that cadre.

While it’s full of provocative statistics and anecdata that certainly spoke to my particular situation, the book could have used a much greater focus on class: it’s not just that manufacturing jobs are disappearing, it’s that lots and lots of jobs are hard to support a family on, and that’s a social choice, not just a phenomenon of lots of individual choices. US politics is also almost absent; while Rosen talks about changes in high-end businesses making it easier for women at the top to raise children, she doesn’t talk about government policy like mandatory leave for new parents. Nor does she discuss government employment, which (at lower levels) has historically been good for women but means the recession has hit them extra hard as states shed employees and (at higher levels) remains male-dominated in the US to the extent that we are still, somehow, talking about whether using contraception is your employer’s business. The “rise of women” has a long way to go, especially as long as it is framed as a comparative one. Red Families, Blue Families would be a good book to read this one to emphasize that, while Rosin does look at women and men across the economic spectrum, the meanings and long-term implications of these changes may be very different across that spectrum.
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LibraryThing member The_Froo
The topic is certainly interesting. Strangely, though, Ms. Rosin seems to disclaim being deliberately provocative - for instance, she ends the introduction with "For the moment, all I can say for sure is: There is no 'natural' order, only the way things are." That said, I interpreted a common theme
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in the chapters: women are grafting both positive and negative aspects of masculinity onto themselves while men become passive non-entities. Kind of depressing, actually. Of course, I'm not sure how much I believe Ms. Rosin's conclusions. The anecdotal evidence she used just seemed so extreme, full of emotionally twisted workaholic fembots dating - but not marrying! - idle layabout amoeba-men. She referenced various studies in sociology and anthropology and whatnot, but she only seemed to make cursory use of them: quoting single sentences in the end notes for example. By the way, I hate endnotes. Footnotes, publishers, footnotes. Anyway, there wasn't anything that looked to me like data analysis with oomph. Also, the writing style was a cross between conversational and what I can only call "lib arts undergrad term paper", which fairly or not triggers my suspicion that she's making conclusions her data doesn't support.

But like I said, it's an interesting topic. I've actually had two women - one a licensed engineer with two children and a stay-at-home househusband - ask me to loan the book to them, "to see if I can see myself in it" they said. May they have better luck than I did, because I sure didn't see myself having much in common with the book's examples of men. Although really that's a good thing: let the best man win, after all.
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LibraryThing member melmmo
LibraryThing Early Reviewers book. I think the other reviewers have provided sufficient synopses so I won't go into that. I wanted to like this book but there were things that bothered me. The author backed up her arguments with sweeping generalizations, anecdote, and statistics. Several of her
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generalizations were stated in repetition in different chapters. Hopefully this is just an editing issue. I was also a bit relieved to get to the end of the book and find references. Hopefully these will be referenced in as footnotes. The final chapter dealing with Korean women was also oddly out of place. If you're going to go global, discuss several countries. Finally, the title and cover: it's too sensationalized and attention-seeking and doesn't accurately reflect the content of the book.
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LibraryThing member PaulaKrapf
I won this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

This is a most thought-provoking book, one that's meant to be read and widely discussed - it is a serious research-based effort that evaluates how our society has changed in a remarkably small amount of time, not a man-bashing
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diatribe. In some quarters this book is being unfairly panned and it appears those critics did not even crack open the book before deciding it lacks merit.

The End of Men starts with an economic argument: that women are better at adapting in this economy and thus reaping the rewards while men lag behind. Based on the statistics Rosin cites, women comprise well more than half of the workforce, and these days women are outpacing men in just about every aspect of our society - in the United States and in many other parts of the world.

For instance, women are also performing better in school while male college enrollment and matriculation continue to decline. These factors, in turn, have a profound effect on marriage, the workplace, family life, etc. More and more women are marrying later or opting out of marriage altogether (although they do choose to have children), particularly among the working class.

Meanwhile, we've had recessions, the housing crisis, and a steady loss of manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs that typically employed men. The classic work we associate with men such as construction and factory work have dried up.

Is this why we have the angry white male we hear about in the media? It seems that these issues would definitely be a factor as men see their jobs/livelihoods fade away. Rosin also notes that the demands of the new economy - which rewards social intelligence and the ability to sit still and listen - favor women over men.

But the book is not all hopeless - while Rosin cannot fully explain why women have forged ahead so strongly she does cite examples of men who have changed with the times. For example, men whose wives outearn them and who are adapting to this new world - while they admit it's not always easy, these men are leading a real change in the family dynamic.

As we move forward, will more men gravitate to traditionally female jobs? Men seem to be reluctant to take jobs traditionally associated with women. But women are part of the problem because many of them still look askance at men in "untraditional" roles.

Rosin does not try to offer any pat answers, and if anything, this book could be a great springboard to discuss some of these issues: why do gender roles still seem so ingrained in our society? Are our schools not serving men, and if not, what should we do? Highly recommended reading.
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LibraryThing member RavennaLRC
It is an interesting topic but I didn't feel that the book was very rigorously researched. There were may sweeping generalizations. I felt unsatisfied by the lack of depth.
LibraryThing member m4marya
I found this book fascinating, even if the ideas behind it go against other well documented research and statistics. I was a bit distracted in my reading as the media world took on her book. All in all, it was nice to read a book that spoke to the plight of women in the workforce today, from their
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success to their struggles.
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LibraryThing member starboard
I enjoyed reading "The End of Men". I thought it was well-written and served as the thought-provoker I think Rosin intended. I'm not completely convinced that women have made it as far as she reports but I do see examples of the phenomena she covers in my sector of the world. I would recommend this
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book to others.
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LibraryThing member mkboylan
[The End of Men and the Rise of Women] by [[Hanna Rosin]]

We've all watched employment/unemployment trends and the effect of the end of the Industrial Age with interest and, some, with fear. Rosin focuses on the idea that strength and brawn are no longer necessary in the new technological age, and
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that people skills are more valuable. That means specifically, that with service and information being the current commodity, social intelligence, open communication and an ability to sit still and focus have increased in importance as employment and valuable work skills. These are all areas in which women equal and often excel over men in skill.

While reading the first part of the book, I felt sad, as the mother of a man, the wife of a man, and the daughter of a man. It was rather depressing seeing the statistics about men no longer getting as much formal education as women. The unemployment during this vast social shift may have hit men the hardest as far as self image goes. Because our gender split society has valued men as money makers and women as bodies, (sometimes symbolized by a dollar sign and a Barbie doll), when they lose this money making function, they may and indeed have been, cast aside in some cases. If they aren't bringing home an income, what is their purpose? Many haven't yet become skilled in the functions of homemaking or child raising, which are needed by their families as their wives become the major breadwinners.

However, don't become discouraged - keep reading! There is a happy ending for most. Just as many women have struggled to learn how better to be competitive and function at higher levels as executives, as well as letting go of some of their possessiveness as mothers and letting dads move in more, men have also risen to their challenges. They are learning that letting go of some of the more negative aspects of the macho culture can pay off in deeply emotionally fulfilling roles as fathers and nurturers, as well as partners in marriages. Both men and women are becoming more fulfilled, better adjusted, and less stressed people.

Rosin traces this pattern by examining current day marriages, the struggles of making adjustments, and the rewards of this newer model. She explores how these changes are taking place worldwide by closely examining this phenomenon in Korea and other countries. This new and deeper sharing of both the instrumental as well as expressive functions of working and parenting is paying off financially both for individual couples AND whole countries. Companies taking advantage of more women in their higher ranks are finding themselves prospering as they become more creative and innovative.

When I was teaching gender identity development, I emphasized how sexism hurts men, because there has been much written already about how it hurts women. Most people can easily answer the question of how sexism hurts women. This is a great book that shows not only how sexism has hurt women, but how devastating it has also been for men, and how we are all benefitting from our new movement toward equality.

Although this book covers some complicated research and complicated issues, it is very readable - a great read in fact. It is full of personal stories that illustrate the research presented. I highly recommend it.
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LibraryThing member collsers
Although I did not always agree with Hanna Rosin's arguments and conclusions, I did find this book compelling and thought-provoking. It relied a little too heavily on anecdotal evidence for my taste, but I recognize that it was not meant to be an academic work. More distressing is how
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overwhelmingly heterocentric the work is. I recommend it with reservations for readers interested in gender issues for the questions it raises.
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LibraryThing member muddyboy
I think that previous reviewers are faulting Ms. Rosin for things that she is not attempting to accomplish. The basic theme of the book is that women are becoming more aggressive and are taking advantage of opportunities presented to them (Mostly good but sometimes bad - crime) She also speaks
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rightly about how women are many times eager to get into jobs that had been traditionally dominated by men - but men refuse for the most part to enter fields like nursing, education etc. (growth areas of employment) while they wait and hope their old factory jobs come back. I think the book was a nice mix of statistics and personal anecdotes that make it very readable. Not to sure about the need for the chapter on South Korean women but otherwise the book thought provoking in many areas (Affirmative action for men at private colleges today to try to get close to gender balance and women postponing marriage because the men they meet would just be another mouth to feed) Granted, she does make some wide reaching assertions some of which are with limited data. But the overall thrust of her thesis I see every day as a (male) college teacher. In general, the women are better prepared, more motivated and have much greater focus on their goals than the men. So I think this is a valuable book and should be read as it talks about a major upheaval in gender relationships.
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LibraryThing member creynolds
Other reviewers have interpreted Rosin's comments to mean that she is happy about what she is reporting. I didn't read it that way. She is putting out the theory that men are less "elastic" than women and have therefore not been as able to adjust to the changes in women's role in society. A lot of
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what she reports is alarming. Women have moved into formerly male occupations and have thrived. Men have floundered. Women have risen to the top in universities. Can men adjust? I hope so.
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LibraryThing member hardcastle
I approached reading this book with a lot of distain for Hanna Rosin - comments she and other members of Slate's Double X have been appallingly judgmental and sometimes downright unfeminist - but the arguments she presents are great food for thought. Most of the book I found palatable and
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interesting, but parts of the chapter "The Top" really rubbed me the wrong way - at points it came off as feeling like women just needed to accept that they have to cow tow to sexist expectations of feminine softness to get to the top, and that that was somehow acceptable. Hanna Rosin's feminism can at times be a little (or a lot) dated, but the unique perspective she presents here makes "The End of Men" worth the read.
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LibraryThing member janw
Rosin made an excellent for the decline of "cardboard" men and the rise of "plastic" women although I really dislike those terms. Most of the assertions were well documented but I really dislike the use of television shows as examples of cultural acceptance or trends. When has television
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represented mainstream America? Rosin discusses the decline in industrial America as being a large part of the problem with men and mens' skill set but I this seems to me to be only one small part of the problem. I'm seeing sons of college educated middle class families that are uninterested in post-high school education. I think there are largerer social and economic forces at work along with the problems with education which The End of Men only touches on.

My opinion is that some of the chapters needed some pruning then a little more time could have been spent on the issues in schools and the current economic plight of the middle class. Growing disparities in income and the shrinking of the middle class must surely play into the plight of men. With these caveats I would recommend the The End of Men to anyone interested in gender issues.
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LibraryThing member sparemethecensor
I had a real problem with this book. Not just its premise, though that bothered me; it was the technique. This book purports to be journalism on social science research, but it isn't. The author has a weird agenda based in an outlook on gender relations that is inherently combative, as though civil
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rights are a zero sum game. She identifies as feminist but this is not a point of view expressed by any modern feminists I know or read. The combativeness, as though it would be impossible to move toward a feminist world without hurting men, permeates and makes this hard to read.

In addition, I have a real problem with the way that Rosin describes much of the research summarized in this book. She briefly cites Armstrong & Hamilton as evidence of the lack of harm and power of women in so-called college hookup culture, but Armstrong & Hamilton's work -- both articles and their book, Paying for the Party -- is much more complex and nuanced than here. They would not subscribe to the views Rosin espouses. Similarly, Edin's work on marriage values and childbearing among low-income women is so much more complex than the short shrift it's given here. Anyone familiar with the literature on this topic will find Rosin's book far from compelling in its presentation, much less get to her very problematic conclusion.

Meanwhile there are random comments that simply don't make sense. She offhandedly dismisses that the Christian Right wants to restrict women's reproductive rights. Perhaps she is unaware how many states have passed restrictions on this in recent years? This is not something that can simply be dismissed.

I would have enjoyed interacting with a cogent opinion to which I don't subscribe, but this was so poorly argued that it just doesn't get there. Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the sociology literature will be especially appalled.
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LibraryThing member wbc3
Hanna Rosen’s book was all over the news a few months ago when it came out. It draws heavily from a couple of Atlantic articles she wrote (The End of Men, July/August 2010 and Boys on the Side, August 2012). The basic premise is that women are becoming the dominant force in everything from
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business to academia to the bedroom. Rosin uses a wealth of statistics, her own research, and personal anecdotes to make her case. I found her book compelling, thought provoking, and often frustrating. Ultimately, I found myself depressed by Rosin’s almost gleeful attitude on much of what she describes. I don’t find women dominating men to be any more desirable than men dominating women. Unlike Rosin, I also don’t think that women becoming as cavalier about sex as frat boys a good development. Regardless, I would recommend the book to almost anyone interested in some very important trends in our society. Or, you could save some time and read her two Atlantic articles!
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LibraryThing member sonyagreen
No book trying to describe gender is going to be perfect, and Rosin seems to embrace that from the start with a title so off-putting I was worried what her perspective would be.

What I found was a thoughtful, well-written, primary-source-referencing summary of where she things we are, in regards to
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gender and relationships. I can’t tell you how much of this book helped me understand the sociological patterns that I’ve been immersed in. This has absolutely helped me understand why I’m conditioned the way I am, and what struggles men are facing as women become more and more active outside of the defined roles of the past.
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Language

ISBN

9781594488047

Local notes

sex/ sexuality

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