- The current era has been marked by a continuous series of challenges to once indisputable truths about sex and gender. Ubiquitous contraception, for one thing, has altered the fundamentals of reproductive roles. The alteration of these fundamentals has been followed by a series of transformations and dislocations — women’s rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, transgender rights, new forms of family formation and dissolution, and vastly altered patterns of fertility. Challenges to core understandings of masculinity — and femininity — are inescapable.
The immensity of these upheavals should not be underestimated. That people are seeking political solutions to rapid societal changes is no surprise. That these solutions erupt in political conflict is also inevitable. For some, new horizons in matters of sexuality and sexual identity offer opportunity; for others, discomfort and fear predominate. These responses are increasingly sorting themselves into partisan affiliation, sometimes uncomfortably. And as I said at the outset, they have become an integral element of contemporary political conflict, which means that an ultimate resolution is light years away.
mic drop I'll say this - and I've said it to several people, and say it just about every chance I get - I'm in two trade school programs. One of them prepares high school grads for a future where their jobs can be replaced by a $10k robot. The other one prepares high school grads for a future where they're selling upcycled dog collars on Etsy for $30 each. Here's the thing. The CNC trade school? 35 dudes and Stella. The jewelry trade school? 18 women and me. Those 35 dudes? They cut up, they tear down, they in-group, they slag on the welders, they slag on everyone that isn't them and those that are them are subject to a pecking order made up entirely of who sucks more at any given moment. All of them have guns, most of them have trucks, and they are not a nurturing bunch. Except to their dogs. They are absolutely bugshit about their dogs. The women in the jewelry school? It is amazing to me how everyone in that class bends over backwards to be supportive of each other. And we're talking "finding something nice to say about a Wu-Tang logo cut out of nickel silver." They help each other, they talk about life goals, they dream together, they have each others' backs. The CNC program's instruction is invariably delivered in the form of "if you do this, you will get fired." "If you fail to do this, you will ruin things." "If you do not account for this, it will be your downfall." The jewelry program's instruction is invariably delivered in the form of "this will help your revenue." "If you keep this in mind you'll work faster." "Here's a pitfall to watch out for that can sap your productivity." I've never before seen such a stark difference in gender roles. I'm thankful for the opportunity. I want the women to win. I want them to win by a blowout. Their present is better. Their future is better. Their past needs to be vastly more distant. I threatened to kill my father with a machete when I was seventeen. It was in my hand. He'd taught me how to survive a knife fight when I was nine. Traditional masculinity? I haz it. It's gonna die whether we want it to or not; the only question is how much it drags down with it. We live in a world where dudes have husbands and you can't call people the n-word without massive blowback and these are good things and if it rustles someone's jimmies in the process then their jimmies need to be rustled.The greatest adverse shock to the psychosocial welfare of U.S. men has not stemmed from dysfunctional notions of masculinity (not that these are above reproach) nor from #MeToo (which was long overdue) but from deep secular labor market forces — both technological and trade-induced — that have over nearly four decades reduced the demand for skilled blue collar work...These forces have dramatically eroded the earnings power, employment stability, social stature, and marriage market value of non-college men. The ensuing dysfunction touches not just in earnings and employment but also male idleness, dysfunctional and destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse), and the erosion of two-parent families, which, research suggests, facilitate children in becoming successful adults.
Yup. And all signs point to lots. There's really no reason to think that the volume on all this will go down or even stay steady. These may in fact be the relative calm years. Evolution is painful.Traditional masculinity? I haz it. It's gonna die whether we want it to or not; the only question is how much it drags down with it.
I'm not so sure. I didn't know that much about the Weather Underground a week ago; I mean, I knew they were a bunch of spoiled white kids that decided hippies weren't violent enough to enact real change. But I've been reading up and holy shit, they were the Richard Spencers of the left. Tedious fucks every one of them, holing up in a 4-bedroom estate out at Tiburon while deciding how best to blow up post offices to pander to hippies. The hippies, meanwhile, faced the existential question of "do we want to hurt people to get our way?" and largely answered in the negative. And we got the EPA, we got Miranda, we almost got the ERA. Bush won 2004 by getting out the vote in defense of marriage. 11 years later same sex marriage was 50-state recognized. There wasn't a single bomb, there wasn't a single martyr. Meanwhile I've been cranking through old Frontlines and it made me realize that the nasty-ass pro-life demonstrations of my youth have largely abated, no doubt due to the fact that the day-after pill has been around for a dozen years. I'm optimistic that the majority wants to do the right thing. The minority can squawk but at the end of the day, most people don't give a fuck what Ben Shapiro thinks.Talked to a guy recently who had known the Weather Underground back in the day. He made a very interesting analogy: Charlottesville was the alt-right's equivalent of Weather's "Days of Rage" protest, an episode of dumb street violence that discredited the people who did it.
I work in tech and I've worked for both the "brogrammer" type shops and the "Silicon Valley SJW hugbox" type shops and by far prefer the latter. That collaborative environment isn't just more pleasant to work for; a team is going to collectively get much better at their jobs and produce better work when people aren't focused on getting their slice of the pie, but instead just trying to bake more pies. When employees aren't worried about their coworkers edging them out for the next promotion, or during the next round of stack-ranked layoffs, they are much more willing to help their coworkers learn new things, and everyone has a slightly different area of expertise so everyone is always learning from each other. There's also no point to wasting time on backstabby office politics games so nobody does. I think it's also really important to emphasize that this is traditional masculinity vs traditional femininity, not men versus women. At my current "feminine-style" shop, the culture was intentionally shaped this way by an almost-all-male executive team. I've also worked for women managers who had only ever seen the "brogrammer" side of industry and so they recreated that in their management, and the results were always just as miserable as when implemented by a man. The only people who will get left behind are the people who insist on being left behind, and there's no actual material reason that a bunch of working-class CNC guys couldn't run a more mutually-supportive CNC shop.
I agree with your emphasis. It's worth pointing out that the jewelry program is run by a woman who came up in the '70s and has survived for 20 years in a department legendary for its sexism (until a metoo purge cleaned things up a bit last year) while the CNC program was run by a man who came up in the '70s and has survived for 20 years in a department where it was apparently OK to tell women that "girls just aren't as good at this as men are." The problem is? People follow the examples they know, as you pointed out. I'm hoping as the general work environment ditches the traditional masculinity, the traditionally masculine shops and exemplars stand down.I think it's also really important to emphasize that this is traditional masculinity vs traditional femininity, not men versus women.