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Alpha Queens & Beta BlokesThe Second Sex? Eleanor MillsFull article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article6914863.ece These days, outside top City circles, being a man does not signify first-class status. In much of modern life, maleness means coming second. For instance, boys are now less likely than girls to succeed in school and are less likely to apply for and get into university. Last year there were 172,925 female undergraduates and only 141,643 male. Teenage boys are more likely to take drugs, drink, commit crime and exhibit antisocial behaviour. They also tend to spend longer out of work and in training. This female empowerment is a global phenomenon; in America there are now more women than men in the workforce. The credit crunch over there has been called the Mancession: four out of every five jobs lost in the US over the past two years have been held by men. It is blue-collar jobs in manufacturing and construction that are haemorrhaging, while white-collar work in increasingly female-dominated fields, such as education and health, is holding steady or even growing. Society has changed incredibly quickly: work, schools and the family were once arranged around men, allowing them to excel. But these days careers are less linear; structures are less hierarchical, and in an increasingly mechanised and computerised world, men’s traditional strengths are less prized. Indeed, it is now often women who seem to have all the choices: if they want a stellar career, companies will increasingly fast-track them as it becomes more important to be seen to have women in senior roles (even the Conservative party is at it); but if as a woman you decide to work flexibly or part-time, or not to work at all, that is fine too. Feminism was about giving women the right to choose — these days it often seems as if females hold all the cards. --- Boys may still aspire to become engineers and scientists, doctors and lawyers, but compared with girls, they aren’t making the grades. And in a society where girls win all the educational prizes, what rewards are there for the boys? The feminised face of the working world is forcing men to re-examine their own roles both within employment and outside it. Could those changes be good for them, giving them freedom, choice and opportunity, just as the sexual revolution changed the lives of women? It’s when children come along that things get complicated for men and women. They earn similar wages in their twenties, but when women start families the pay gap opens up. Traditionally, it has been the woman who, as the lower earner, cuts back on work (and pay) when she reproduces — but what happens when it is the woman who has the higher-paying job? The decision often comes down to economics. Successful women are following the well-worn path of the successful man down the ages: finding a loving, nurturing partner who will keep the home fires burning. The number of stay-at-home dads has doubled in a decade to 200,000. I went to meet some of them on a beautiful day at London Zoo. The sun shone over the new gorilla house. There were the usual mums with tired eyes and large coffees, chatting to their toddlers in buggies. But my eyes were drawn to the young men proudly showing their charges the attractions. These were the househusbands I had arranged to meet. --- Their qualities are not new — anyone who has a loving husband, father or brother knows how great maleness can be — but often in our society men’s gentler virtues are drowned out by violence and machismo. Perhaps being allowed to be competently caring — and be respected for it — will be a step forward, not backwards, for men; perhaps this group of men in Llanelli really do point the way to a new male paradigm. After all, if women are going to be free to work and engage their brains in the professional sphere, men are going to have to pick up some of the domestic, family slack. Many men of my generation are already doing so — and enjoying it. There has been a quiet revolution in how men behave in the domestic sphere and the quality of relationships they have with their children. --- When feminists set out on the road to equality a century ago, they didn’t want to become men, they wanted to be judged on equal terms. They fought to do the jobs men did — and they wanted men to do some of the emotional work they did. Men and women may be different, but in our essential humanity we are the same. We all want what is best for our families, to raise happy children, to live the best, most interesting and fulfilling lives we can. The Llanelli men have found real happiness in living full lives with their families, redefining themselves by what they have to give rather than what they earn. If we are going to ensure that men do not become “Guys Left Behind”, as Penn puts it, society has to start working out what men need to get back on track. Many of the men I spoke to talked of being excluded during the birth of their children. One, who was with his wife throughout her 36-hour labour, said he wasn’t offered so much as a cup of coffee. Others described how midwives plied the mothers with leaflets but ignored the fathers. Certainly the rite of passage into parenthood has become very mother-centric — more must be done around birth to ensure that men feel an integral part of caring for children from the start. Some Scandinavian countries now allow men and women equal leave to look after a new baby. Britain is probably not ready for that, but Finland, where 90% of men take paternity leave, “has captured a culture change” according to Julia Margo at Demos. Her forthcoming report recommends that younger boys (particularly those with single mothers) spend time with positive male role models and that Britain should introduce mentors in schools. “The hugely successful Canadian Big Brothers Big Sisters programme brings adult mentors into schools and has been particularly effective in poorer provinces where there are high rates of teen pregnancy and absent fathers.” If women continue to dominate the learning sphere, more men are going to have to learn the Llanelli lesson. Perhaps Duffield and his peers are the last generation of men who will be able to assume that they rule the world. In future no man will be able to ask his question. But what makes me profoundly optimistic are the extraordinary men I met while researching this piece; there are remarkable role models out there waiting to lead our lost boys into the future. They may not be lost, however, so much as tentatively finding their way to a new kind of manhood. If the relationships of the future include massage, supper — crispy potatoes, even — things are looking up, not least for the exhausted career woman who walks through the door in the evening. As Simone de Beauvoir said in 1949, “The free woman is just being born.” Could the same now be true of men? |