U Not Gonna Like This

Here's yet another sickening example of misandry in the news media. (credit: Outcast Superstar)

This time It comes from City-Journal writer Kay S. Hymowitz who bashes men becuase they've finally wised up to what a raw deal marriage is (link) (link) (link) (link) and have decided to take care of themsevles and no one else.(link)

Child-Man In The Promised Land

It’s 1965 and you’re a 26-year-old white guy. You have a factory job, or maybe you work for an insurance broker. Either way, you’re married, probably have been for a few years now; you met your wife in high school, where she was in your sister’s class. You’ve already got one kid, with another on the way. For now, you’re renting an apartment in your parents’ two-family house, but you’re saving up for a three-bedroom ranch house in the next town. Yup, you’re an adult!



Now meet the twenty-first-century you, also 26. You’ve finished college and work in a cubicle in a large Chicago financial-services firm. You live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face—and then it’s off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes. They come from everywhere: California, Tokyo, Alaska, Australia. Wife? Kids? House? Are you kidding?



Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import. Some call this new period “emerging adulthood,” others “extended adolescence”; David Brooks recently took a stab with the “Odyssey Years,” a “decade of wandering.”



But while we grapple with the name, it’s time to state what is now obvious to legions of frustrated young women: the limbo doesn’t bring out the best in young men. With women, you could argue that adulthood is in fact emergent. Single women in their twenties and early thirties are joining an international New Girl Order, hyperachieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling, and dining with friends [see “The New Girl Order,” Autumn 2007]. Single Young Males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3, and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it’s receding.

If want to read the rest of the article you can. You can also make a response to the article which will be attached in a "comments" section. Just scroll down to the bottom of the article and you'll see a link there.




Here are some of responses in the comments section (link):

Sent by Douglas Gurney on 01-28-2008:



Well-written piece. But the biggest reason for young men's behavioral changes in the last 40 years was only briefly hinted at: The incredible ease with which young men can get women to have casual sex with them today versus 40 years ago.




I see this all the time. I own a nightclub which is popular among the 25-45 year old demographic (I'm 50). If you haven't seen the way young people hook up today, you literally would not believe it - and I'm in the heart of the Bible Belt!



I have lived in many places, countries, and cultures. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The behavior of men is simply a response (actually a quite logical one) to the changing behavior of women. Simply put, men are a breeding experiment run by women. You reap what you sow - and when a man can sow all he wants and leave the reaping to others, well, why not? The fact that it might be extremely detrimental to our society in the long haul does not concern men these days - any more than illegitimate children concerns many women.



Welcome to our Brave New World.

Sent by Charles Weigle on 01-28-2008:



I'm frustrated by Hymowitz's article. What she observes about modern men is mostly consistent with what I have observed, but she fails to offer any reasonable explanation for why it is happening, or any potential means to address it. Instead, the article degenerates into a shrill attack on the men themselves, as if somehow between 1970 and 2000 a new genetic breed of man appeared in America, one that is somehow incapable of growing up and is unworthy of American womanhood. Hymowitz attaches the epithet "child-man" to this new, inferior breed of man.




More thought needs to be given to the question of what happened in the last 40 years to bring about this situation. It might be useful to think about the things that have not changed. For one, marriage in this country has always been voluntary and based on mutual affection rather than parental pressure. People in the past did not get married because they were forced to, but because they wanted to, just as they do (or don't do) now. For another, men are still men, made of the same genetic material that their fathers and grandfathers were made of. As Hymowitz observes, boys generally become men as a result of getting married and having children, not the other way around. Even before the days of the "child-man," unmarried men were immature, restless, irresponsible. Why did they choose to become married men in the past? Why don't they choose to do so now?





It would seem that something has changed in the nature of marriage itself, and in the economic and social circumstances that surround the decision to get married. One problem is that risks of marriage for men have greatly increased, while the rewards have decreased. Two historical factors seem to underly this change: feminism and no-fault divorce.





Feminism has changed things not because "men are intimidated by strong women" (men always have been intimidated by women, strong and otherwise), but because it has changed the inherent trade-offs of marriage to put the husband at a disadvantage. Feminist doctrine requires wives to deny or devalue the husband's role as provider and protector of the household. This is a role that men are well-suited for and find satisfaction in. Instead, wives are told to look to their husband primarily for companionship and emotional support. This is something that men are less suited for and find less satisfying. Their failure to meet the standards of emotional availability required by their wives often leads to resentment on the part of the wives and frustration for the husband, who senses that his wife wants him to be a grown-up without being a man.



In addition, because it is no longer acceptable to talk about "women's work" or "men's work," the division of labor becomes a source of strife rather than an efficient use of resources. Every household chore must be the subject of litigation.



The ultimate risk for the husband is that his wife's resentment might lead to a divorce. In a situation where courts still favor wives in child custody situations, divorce for the husband can mean financial ruin and the loss of his children.




The question might better be asked, why would a young man want to get married now? Sex, apparently, is generally available. Companionship is also available, and buddies make far less emotional demands than wives do. Wives can no longer be expected to provide domestic comforts (e.g., good cooking) that men value but are generally not very good at providing for themselves. (Although I would suggest that most wives still do provide these comforts, but that feminism has taught them to do so with a sense of resentment).



The question might also be asked, why would a woman want to get married? She can make her own living. The police can protect her from the bad people. Life doesn't require that much heavy lifting anymore.



It seems that the only reason left to get married is to have children. This is not to be underestimated, since children give purpose in life, introduce new levels of love and affection, and still provide a degree of security in old age that cannot be provided by government programs or careful retirement savings. For men, though, there is the greater risk of losing those children through divorce.




The frustrating thing about Hymowitz's article is that she places all the blame for this situation on the "child-men." Women surely can't be completely innocent in this breakdown. After all, the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s was a change in the expectations of women. They demanded that men change to meet those new expectations, but it appears that the men did not change that much. They are still the same "pigs" that they were back then. Only now they don't have any reason to "grow up" by getting married, maybe not so much to gain from it and a lot to lose. Maybe, as it turns out, a man needs a wife like a fish needs a bicycle.




As Hymowitz points out in her book, marriage is fundamentally important to the health of our civilization. And a healthy marriage is fundamentally useful for the people who choose to enter into it. Still, many no longer choose to enter into it. Understanding why that happens will require something better than a sneering new epithet for unmarried young men.

Sent by Jackie Coffee on 01-28-2008:



I read your article with great interest. I was hoping you'd be more forthright in diagnosing the problem of today's SYMs, but alas you just pussyfooted (forgive the pun) around the real issue. Which as I see it, is that women have given away the candy store.



Of course Freud didn't have to ask what men want; that's a slam dunk. And they DO NOT feel threatened by female "empowerment." On the contrary, they consider it a no-strings-attached, gratuitous-sex-for-life, American Express card for which the bill never arrives.



What enables the child-man to "put off family into the hazily distant future" is the law of supply and demand: every child-man knows that the number of women willing to get horizontal after a hamburger and a movie vastly exceeds the number of "squares" who won't. And that's the 800-pound Transformer in the room that everyone ignores.

Sent by Donna Stadler on 01-27-2008:



Two things: the pill and abortion. Men used to get married to have sex. Fear of pregnancy prevented most girls from "giving in," and Papa with a shotgun helped. From there, we have arrived at the place where any guy can find a girl any night who will have sex immediately with him. Why should he get married? No one is demanding or even asking him to grow up.



Divorced parents don't help. Who wants to get married and be unhappy like his parents were?



Baby boomers thought they were so smart. Get rid of the stigma of divorce and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, prevent unwanted pregnacies or kill the "accident," and won't life be grand.



Only thing is, we ruined our kids with the experiment. Maybe we should stop playing God and get back to some of the basics: grow up, get an education, get a job, get married, have kids, and then won't life be grand. Or at least better than now.



Wars have made a lot of men "grow up" too, sadly. I'll bet the guys in the all-volunteer military will end up being the mature ones. Many of the guys that managed to avoid the draft during Viet Nam are now sporting graying ponytails, still smoking "grass," and divorced several times. They have spawned the "cretins" you have described that are ruining our society. I wouldn't want to be a young woman today.

Sent by F Wallace on 01-27-2008:


Ms. Hymowitz is wrong. SYMs are not avoiding marriage. They are priced out of it, and of relationships. Young men in their thirties in the 1970s could buy their own houses.


Now, even high-earning MBAs cannot buy their own houses, a prerequisite for marriage and family.



Women with their own earnings require a "premium" over their own status/money/social power, or future expectation of same. "Sex and the City" was more a tale of high-powered young women finding A-Listers unwilling to commit. Because they want the few men with more social power than they possess.



Young men are substituting video games and childish diversions because they lack the ability to gain a woman's intimacy that will lead to marriage. Theodore Dalrymple writes about this extensively in "Life at the Bottom." Even lower-earning women choose bad boys over the regular decent guys. Because women want men with higher status than their own.

Sent by Robert Butsch on 01-27-2008:



Your op-ed piece ("The Child-Man" in the Dallas Morning News) struck a chord with my friend, Justin. Justin is many years younger then I. He's 26, right in the 10-ring of your putative, monolithic Single Young Male demographic. He asked me to compose this in his place since he's getting oiled up for a crazy week in Vegas with a few buddies before stopping in Phoenix on the way back in case there are some Super Bowl tickets left to score. Besides, writing isn't a skill of much use to him in his promising financial-services career.



Anyway, he would like you to pass on his personal thanks to all your New Girl Order, hyper-achieving comrades who have done so much to make his current lifestyle possible. He says there's a ton of them out there in the increasingly female-friendly workplace where he spends his 60-hour weeks, and they've been just super cooperative.



This situation has paid off especially handsomely in the case of Mary, a well-employed and very intelligent and attractive young woman, and presently Justin's main weekend diversion. It seems there's some guy -- also 26, strangely enough -- wanting desperately to marry her. But this guy doesn't have Justin's hunk factor or care-free personality; plus it's pretty obvious, given the career the guy has chosen, that he's never going to make it out of the mid-five-figure income mire. The contemporary adulthood into which Mary is emergent appears to have informed her that there's no way this is what a genuine New Girl wants out of life, so she's made herself regularly available for Justin.



Of course, Justin does sometimes have to sacrifice a little Playstation 3 time to keep Mary company on shopping sprees. Occasionally he even finds it necessary to travel with her to one of her special places. But if things get out of hand, he says he'll just move on. No big thing.



By the way, he says he's tried to work up a little guilt over his pointless, vapid existence, but so far with no success. It's just way too cool. So, once again, a great big thank you from my favorite SYM, Justin.

Here's another response from a gaming web site (link):

tonny from belgiumJan 30th, 2008 - 08:28:07





Appently Hymowitz is describing something without understanding the causes .Men in the sixties lived in a totaly different society,not so much because the lack of computers but because the family tissue was very different .Role modelling was pretty much what it had been for the last hundred thousand years with men going out to work ,bring in the money,strive for a career and a future for his family .





THe ethics of the industry were also different,you joined a company ,provided it with yout labor and productivity and as a reward you got a salary and a future in the company,based on your merits and experience .Most of that has vanished too,nothing is stable anymore.More than half of weddings end in the garbage bin,men are competing with women on the job market,experience doesn't count for much in a job ,productivity is stretched out until all the fun has disappeared out of working.On the work floor modern man is nothing but an extention to the machines .






Due all of that there are remnants of earlier ages,atavisms thet need to be filled in .When we were kids we played knights liberating damsels in distress,cowboys and indians preparing gor manhood,defending one's family against the evils of the outside world .All that has vanished ,the woman we protected is either our competitor ot our boss,our wife is out at work,no ordinary family can function on a single salary anymore .Our kids are left on themselves more than in earlier times .The average day of media warchings azccounts for at least ten people shot on TV or in the streets .




So does it wonder anubody if a lot of adults escape all that in a virtual world .It grants perhaps only virtual satisafaction,but the outside world has even less to offer .

This response comes from one of the webmasters at the Men's Activism blog (link):

"Misandry. Ever hear of it? Because your article was full of it. Did it ever occur to you that men don't marry because the rules are rigged against men? If a divorce follows, who gets the kids? And who gets to deny their former spouse access to those children? If any allegations of domestic violence is made, who automatically gets kicked out of the house (no evidence required)? And who doesn't?




Indeed, your article even stooped to old-style social Darwinism. Chromosomally challenged? Surely it has occurred to your superior intellect that while the male population has EVERY gene that the female population has, they also have additional genes that no females have access to? How does that fit into your superiority paradigm?



And it would be very easy to write a long list of public policy of recent vintage that are clearly anti-male. Which gender gets routinely sexually mutilated at birth? And which does not? Which gender dominates the Ritalin 'drug solution' for school-age children, and which does not? Which gender suffers from much greater rates of school-age violent deaths? And which gender gets more funds to fight school-age deaths? Which gender dies younger (on average)? And which one has more federal and state funding for health care? Between prostate cancer and breast cancer, approximately equal numbers of men and women die, yet which cancer gets 7 times more research funding? In general, which gender's gender-specific health issues gets 50% more federal and state research funding? And which gender, do you suppose, suffers 93% of all workplace fatalities?




And on TV and movies, which gender is routinely sexually injured for 'laughs'? And which is not? Which gender is routinely cast as an idiot? And which is not? Which gender is routinely cast as violently 'evil' or the 'bad guy', and which is not. Lastly, which (allegedly immature) gender, would you speculate, is more likely to risk their lives to help a stranger?"

and in the comments section there:

A toast to the article and response to the author
Submitted Tue, 2008-01-29 20:51.

I'd like to lift a toast to the young men described in your article. How exactly do you respond to a world where "maleness" is routinely denigrated, dispised, and legislated against. There is more hatred for men in western culture than there ever was for women. But then, you wouldn't see that would you? Because you can't.



I think your descriptions are 80% accurate. The fact of the matter is, women are not worth the sacrifice and marriage is a very, very bad deal for men emotionally, economically, and spiritually. And you can thank feminism for that. The USA and the westernized countries entire scheme is to protect and facilitate women, and therefore not a nice place for boys to grow up. There is a reason marriage rates are plummeting and illegitimacy is soaring (now at nearly 40% of all births) - women, in their desperation to have a child and "catch her man", are now pulling the trigger on pregnancy and using deception to do it in pitifully selfish acts of abduction and entrapment on a very wide scale. Women write about it all the time on the internet. Some advocate it "to get their commitment".



The reason young men do not want to make a commitment is it is not worth it. The women are easy, they dress like whores and throw themselves at men. And the boys have caught on to the game. Expect more of the same until the laws that "govern" reproduction and marriage are changed to benefit both sexes equally - rather than the totally one-sided atrocity we have today.

oregon dad

Yep
Submitted by mcc99 on Tue, 2008-01-29 22:40.



I don't care what she and others like her may write, say, or think. It isn't their lives and livelihoods that are on the line when they "tie the knot", at least not like it is for men.



I have always thought: If being married were as bad for women as feminists claim it is, why do so many women, like the author of this piece of crap, seem so obsessed with the topic? Hell they should be rejoicing that we have no interest either in marriage, nor for many of us, competing in the world of corporate achievements (just leaves them more room to advance). For years now the collective female political and economic psyche has been asking for, nay demanding, and working night and day, for one thing: exactly what the author describes. Now that they have it, they don't want it? They want men to want to marry them? Isn't marriage an act of patriarchal oppression and bourgeois mediocrity? They want men to have aspirations for success and dreams of abundance (to give to them of course), but don't want them standing the way of someone else (a woman)?



One thing you'll never get from the collective feminist crowd is a consistent, straight answer on anything. Goes back to what others have suggested is just the seemingly inherent tendency of women to find men objectionable (collectively) from a moral standpoint for whatever reasons-- desire to control via shaming, a need on their part to feel superior in that way as they can't in others, or whatever. No matter what the reasons the end result is the same, and as common wisdom amply shows: Women are simply never satisfied. The more crap like this they write, the more they show the point.



Now allow me to return to my bachelor's life filled with peace, quiet, and the kind of freedom only a single person can have. I ain't trading it for nothin'.

do i hear whining?
Submitted by daveinga on Tue, 2008-01-29 23:17.



yep, thot so. we are cutting deep and it is taking it's toll. men are immature, selfish and on and on and on. whatever.



women must have marriage. the marriage strike is scaring them to death. funny, so greedy and selfish they destroy what they need to be happy, the thing that defines them most, marriage and having a real family. doesn't sound toooo smart. over fish a fishin' hole and the fish get hard to catch, and scarce. i guess women can always marry each other nowadays. do i see lotsa lesbian love on the horizon? wonder who gets all the goodies in a lesbian divorce? probably not the butch one. maybe this was the n.o.w. lesbians plan all along to get all the women.

Who are they to decided what we should do with our lives
Submitted by AndyOng on Thu, 2008-01-31 01:21.



I don't see why a man enjoying video games and pursuing other 'childish' interest is of any business to others. Isn't ferminism meant to eliminate gender roles to begin with.



If men truly felt threatened by women's empowerment then why are women the ones that are complaining about what men did to bring happiness in their own lives.



My answer to the question poised by the author the article. "what men want?" is to be left alone. I may not have be able to speak for all men. But how often will a man prefer that everything he does in his life at his own expense to be weighted and judged by people who had never lifted a finger for him, people such as the author. It's tiring to be constantly seeking for approval from others in order to be content with yourself.



The author will be better off admitting to her insecurities and arrogance and accept she is desperately forcing herself to a role she is has never been welcomed or qualified to play; a self-appointed authority on what man should and shouldn't do through endless shaming and resentments. Men as a group can easily figure out that getting married to pursue lifelong happiness and stability is different from getting married to be accepted and approved.



And instead thinking about what part she can play in a man's life, how can women be important to a man. You can't have any lasting relationship when it's all about what you want and expect from others. You can't try your very best at hurting people for not giving what you want and expect them to be madly in love with you at the same time.

I leave you with these words:



The best marriage is not having one!



Marriage is like taxes. Taxes take from the hard working to help the ones who are lazy (not talking about paying for roads, public buildings, etc).



Marriage is just another way of taking money from the hard working (and gullible) to the ones who don't want to work in the form of alimony and child support.



When a man marries:




Half of his money and wealth is hers (usually men have more money and wealth than women)
He has to work harder since he has one more mouth and many more to feed in the form of children




All of his disposable income goes to his family now




His vacations are for her and the kids and visit his inlaws




If he gets divorced which is a 65-70% chance he will loose half his wealth due to alimony and child support. He will actually loose a lot more when he adds the years of child support and alimony




And there is more....but who is counting!





When a woman marries:




She usually quits work




She gets to do what she wants




Housework doesn't take as much time as it use to with all the equipment to aid
When she divorces him she gets half or more of his income and wealth through child support and alimony.




If she cheats she still gets the child support and alimony.




Men who marry today just enjoy being poor in financial terms and in emotional terms.



I don't need a woman to feel happy, glad, or rich....I take ownership of my own life and can stand on my own two feet.



Life is simple....stay single....if you are lonely get a dog. Enjoy women, for sure, but on your own terms!


Cheerio. KS



PS....go scuba diving.....it is an awesome rush!