Work-Life Balance For Men?

Ideas, TIME:

"What About the Men?" was the title of a Congressional briefing last week timed to commemorate National Work and Family Month. "What about them?" you may be tempted to snarl.

When Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, first went out on the road to talk about her organization's research into men's work-family conflict, she received many such snappish responses -- and worse. Work-life experts laughed at her. Men are privileged, they said. They don't have the right to complain. In New Orleans, when she spoke about generational differences and gender role change, she was swarmed by "angry men," she said in the Capitol last week. "They were defensive. They were saying, 'We played by the rules and now you're telling us it’s not good enough.'"

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Comments

[Lucky S7even]

06:51 PM on 10/31/2011

don't get married and then you can have a balance of fun and awesomeness.

[Otherday]

09:03 PM on 10/30/2011

Note there is a "women's" section on HuffPo but no "men's" section? Just say'n.

[Lucky S7even]

06:51 PM on 10/31/2011

that's because the male perspective is the default. i'm a guy a i know this. same reason why there isn't white history month...white is the default perspective in this country. sometimes things are just what they are.

[Otherday]

07:05 PM on 10/31/2011

I suppose it is "just what they are" but that doesn't make it right. Today, the majority of employees in the USA are women. Women dominate our education establishment with college student bodies overwhelmingly female. Even education itself, being almost completely verbal these days, favors the way women learn. Look at the top 1% of wealth in America: for every 3 mega-rich men there are 5 mega-rich women. Women live about 6 years longer than men, on average, but there is no medical investment to speak of to improve the life expectancy of men - why not? Wages for men have been flat for 30 years. If men remain nothing but "defaults" in the public mind, then expect nothing to get better for the male half of humanity, at least not around here.

[Minnesota Black]

04:00 PM on 10/29/2011

"After all, what men are starting to say sounds an awful lot like the conversational stirrings that paved the way for the modern women’s movement. The vague sort of dissatisfaction. The sense that life wasn’t adding up to be all that it was supposed to be. Even the anger from those who’d lived their lives according to the old rules then found that a new generation – or even their own spouses – didn’t value their choices, accomplishments, and sacrifices.

...what about how they feel? Now that this final frontier is being breached, I wonder if we aren’t poised to see more meaningful change in men’s — and women’s and families’ — lives than ever before. That is: if we own the change and act upon it with courage, not fear."

So, this woman wrote this article where she goes out on a limb to suppose that men have the same potential range of emotions as women ... and she concludes by guessing that men expressing more feelings will be good for everybody.

I guess it does seem weird that guys having feelings should somehow seem like news ... but, besides accounting for that social cliche, I don't think this article is so bad. That is, I think it was a good-faith effort. If you want the issues pertinent to men to get some spotlight, you should commend this article and encourage more like it. Or possibly write them yourself...

[Targa3141]

05:59 AM on 10/29/2011

Men being told how to feel by women is beautiful and empowering.

[lotus321]

04:17 PM on 11/01/2011

More like sissification. Some of us do not want to think like women or be women..

[Targa3141]

04:48 PM on 11/01/2011

Girlpower will save the world, Eve Ensler said so.

[Targa3141]

05:43 AM on 10/29/2011

Hahahaha!

[J R M]

10:01 PM on 10/28/2011

I know a lot of men who are very active with their kids. I get mine up, feed them and make their lunches before my son goes to catch his bus and I drop my daughter off at high school. And in the evening I work with them on their homework - their mother gets too frustrated, so it is my job.

[lotus321]

04:18 PM on 11/01/2011

I am and/was in the same position with my kids. They would also rather spend their day with me than their mother...........

[Targa3141]

11:03 AM on 11/02/2011

Watch out when divorce comes creeping in, though. Father = abuser/batterer and *poof*, no more Daddy in kids' lives ....(and the monthly check to Mommy gets soooo much bigger!).

It's a feminist utopia.

[Tazirai]

08:19 PM on 10/28/2011

THIS is the type of article that would be AWESOME in a Men's section.

[jf12]

07:41 PM on 10/28/2011

I don't know any man who thought he was alone in work-life conflicts, or felt difficulty in expressing his feelings. Maybe the problem is in the hearers. All of us, except for the good looking and rich, feel that we've been defrauded our whole lives, and yes, especially our sacrifices and accomplishments are not valued by the women in our lives.

By the way, the rules for men haven't changed. That is the problem.

[ntl85]

06:34 PM on 10/28/2011

More misandry.

[justwhendoesitend]

05:31 PM on 10/28/2011

Well this is typical. Women just do not get it. Of course I do not get them either even with 35 years of marriage.

Many women's attitudes now are exactly what the author posted ""What about them?" you may be tempted to snarl."

I hope women find their happiness because it appears they would rather do it without the other gender. What puzzles me is all the sex in the media? The worlds population is at all time high and does seem to be reversing. Maybe this attitude is just mostly western women. Now I wish no woman to put in the situation of male domination like in many parts of the world, I am all in favor of equality. What I am getting tired of is personally being blamed for all the woes of society that women have to endlessly discuss instead of do something about. Heck this is a wierd article for Hoff Post just because it is about men, every other group has it's own section on Huff Post. Why not men. Maybe because women run Huff Post and "What about them?" attitude is in play.

Just try having children without us or our seed.

[signgrrl]

02:02 PM on 10/29/2011

duh, cloning.

[CRoeber]

03:38 PM on 10/29/2011

Read "Y - The Last Man"

[Tresco]

10:28 AM on 11/02/2011

The purpose of the Y chromosome mix up the gene pool and keep things from getting inbred. Sure women can buy canned sperm and have turkey baster parties but how sad is that.

[lotus321]

04:19 PM on 11/01/2011

Soon they will be able to have kids without us and only containing their genes..you got to keep up dude. They don't need us and quite frankly that goes both ways..if we were being honest.

[Tresco]

10:29 AM on 11/02/2011

If it flys, floats or effs, rent it.

[Shaun Hensley]

04:59 PM on 10/28/2011

" “My experience,” said Galinsky, “is that, when they have permission to speak, they have a lot to say and it’s very profound and real for them.”"

Some women just can't help but be patronizing, it seems.

[jf12]

07:36 PM on 10/28/2011

You may now speak. No, wait.

[Shaun Hensley]

07:38 PM on 10/28/2011

"profound and real... FOR THEM"

It's no different when psychologists were busy calling housewives hysterical. Not one IOTA.