From the cause of the crisis to the size of the debris field to the number of ads that begin "in these difficult economic times..." there is much about this recession that is new to us. We are on an unfamiliar road to an uncertain destination.
Little in our lives will come out of this unaltered; some things may be changed forever. One is the role of men in the American family. Economies heal and jobs return. But the trauma of lost purpose and lost confidence may be another click in a long recalibration of the division of family power.
Crises have a way of escalating trends, such as the way Vietnam ignited a generation already chafing under 50s-era conformity. This one has added yet another dimension to a question that just a few decades ago would have been nonsensical: where does dad fit in?
If this is a kind of tipping point in the balance of gender power, we've arrived here over several decades. An onslaught of events -- from females in the workforce to the need for two incomes to the cost of living to the decline of manufacturing -- has dramatically challenged the male's unquestioned role as provider, protector and lawgiver.
Already:
More than 70 percent of families with children are two-income. Close to 40 percent of mothers work full time. And in one in three couples, wives bring home more than their husbands; one in four when both couple work.
And now this:
Male unemployment in the current recession is a solid two points higher than for women. The downturn has hit hardest where men are most likely to work -- construction, manufacturing and finance. Areas like health care, 81 percent women, have fared much better -- actually adding jobs. Women also heavily populate government and education, two more areas that are holding up well.
It is also becoming clear that this recession brings equal opportunity pain. In the past, lower earners suffered first and most. In this downturn, the color of your collar is no protection. High earners are finding themselves on the street in numbers unseen in recessions past.
Worse, many are in their 50s, normally when men hit their peak earning years and begin the long glide path toward a comfortable retirement. They are locked into lifestyles that carry a heavy monthly tab. Prospects are dim, and time to recover is running out.
Not that women haven't lost jobs, but men appear to be taking it harder -- not surprising in a society where what you do is who you are.
Men at home and women at work is a bellows on the coals of an endless argument -- the division of household work. Certainly, men have taken on more of the responsibility than any generation before. But studies show women still do 70 percent of the work, even though men believe they are doing half.
That allocation of responsibility appears to hold even when mom works and dad remains at home -- a potentially explosive atmosphere when financial tensions are already running high.
A friend, who recently became family provider when her husband became a Wall Street casualty, told me that the threat-alert to domestic tranquility is constant-orange, easily going to red. "Little things so easily become big things," she said. "If I ask him to do a simple thing like pick up a gallon of milk or take one of the kids to practice, there is always this unspoken implication left hanging there: 'I can ask you to do these things because I have a job and you don't.'"
One big problem, according to Randi Minetor, author of Breadwinner Wives and the Men they Marry is that many unemployed men, already wounded by what they see as their diminished status, see taking on "women's work" as another blow to their manhood.
Stay at home dads may get applause for their enlightened self confidence. Cultural respect is another matter. In the movie, Mr. Mom, Michael Keaton mastered domesticity. But it wasn't a happy ending until he got his old job back -- with a raise.
There is another wrinkle to this recession that may have long term implications. Past experience says that many married women who lose their jobs simply stop looking and ease back into domesticity. Now, for the first time, studies show that men are dropping out of the job search in equal numbers, and the percent of men giving up is rising far faster than for women.
This may all just be a blip; an economically-induced hit to the body of male pride and confidence. Or it may be something more. The roles of men and women -- which have changed so dramatically over the last years, may be in for another adjustment.
As we evolve to an easier acceptance of the equal dispersion of household power, that adjustment may be difficult for men, and also women. Gender roles have been reinforced since the days when fathers provided or families starved. They won't go away quietly.
Follow Dr. Peggy Drexler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drpeggydrexler
Which study? I'd love to read it so i would appreciate a link.
It's very easy to say that you respect men when they do the housework, etc. It's another thing to actually show that respect.
By the same token, you would think it would be easy to say that someone who is mutilated as part of a sexual assault should be joked about and certainly shouldn't be blamed....read the link above.
I was a hippie, but when the first child came along, my turn to play was over. I became an engineer and dove into corporate America, looking for that "American Dream". I signed on for a defined-benefits package and went for my twenty with the same company...only to be let go at 19.5 years and 57 years old. So now what?
You play the cards you're dealt.
I now work twice as hard for 1/5th the pay, doing menial part time work and trying to start my own business. I also work around the house, help raise a grandson and still am putting my youngest through college. Thoughts of vacations or retirement are gone, so evenings with a glass of wine will have to do.
We certainly ARE in a landmark time. Just enjoy the ride while you can, but cause...it's going much too fast!
I just hope we can keep a sense of community amongst our youth. The isolation technology is bringing is our greatest threat...IMHO.
Basically, what group would you rather be than white so you could be less discriminated against?
I'm guessing you'll want to stay white.
He lost his job, took on the chores,
the kids, & the grocery shopping;
he's still on the team & so is she;
it's OK if they do some role swapping.
http://www.mykuworld.com/MyKu.mvc/Board/735
It takes time to learn any new job or skill set, and it takes communication and patience on both sides. One good assumption is that both partners have the best of intentions and want their relationship to work. That means that if something doesn't work the way it's expected to, it's not someone's fault, it's just life. It happens.
I have three boys and a girl who I hope will be equal partners in their relationships and not take advantage of another human being because of their sex. My sons can wash dishes and cook, and my daughter can fix stuff and squish her own bugs. Sorry guys, we girls loves ya, but what comes around goes around. Deal with it. Mwwwaaahh.
What many of the men here have said is that society...society is made up of people...looks down on them and, oftentimes, even ridicules men for doing what is perceived as feminine work.
I haven't seen any actually complaining about doing the actual work...just the insults and insensitivity that comes along with it.
To which you respond with insults and insensitivity.
Helpful.
'society...society is made up of people...looks down on and, oftentimes, even ridicules men for doing what is perceived as feminine work.'
Well, get this: society has looked down on and ridiculed women, JUST for being women, for millenia. And now, because the staus quo is shifting to something more equal as women refuse to be treated like idiots or powerless children, men will have to pull out their hearts in this generation the way the women and girls learned to pull out their moxy a generation ago. Women are learning, now men need to do the same. It's not hard unless you have just a huge ego, male or female.
I know more single dads with custody than I know single women with custody.
It does work both ways and some of us were doing both before the wifey left for a man with more money or a younger man, or the right to just, oh heck, be who they should've been until some selfish as*hat came along and got them married and into motherhood before they had actualized themselves...
___
Most men don't doe a lot of those things anymore - they pay other people to do them. And I can kill my own spiders.
My situation is very similar to yours, with the addition of my father being chronically ill, not missing. So what I am about to say to you is not said in ignorance or for that matter, lack of empathy.
This story is about men with wounded egos in the same way that a story about double amputees is about people who have trouble finding the right shoes.
This is the worst economic downturn in 70 years and the brunt of it is being born by these men. The next time you wonder why blue collar guys go into the polling place and "vote against their own interest" by choosing repubilcans, you might think about what a lack of empathy does to a person.
One thing I have learned, sadly, from posting on HuffPo for a while now is how unwelcome I am, as a white man, on the left oftentimes. There are many "on my side" who hate white men, as a group, in the exact same manner they decry white people hating and thinking about other genders and races.
I can see how someone (without such strong leftist values) would be pushed out of the Democratic party into the hands of the Republicans. It's stup*d, counterproductive, racist and sexist.
I think we can do better.
I often long to see the gas-guzzlers disappear from the road, and the pontificating ivory-tower types in their fancy clothes and their fancy houses, in their fancy neighborhoods actually REALIZE what it's like for people in the real world, all over the world, and the banksters who've ruined us all... well, never mind.
I've always said that if I won $100 million in a lottery, I'd convert it (after taxes - much more than the average person would pay in several lifetimes) into 5s, 10s and 20s, stash it in a vault, NOT invest it in any way to create jobs, NOT even be concerned about the concept of earning another penny, and therefore NOT be required to file a 1040 despite my wealth (not meet the filing requirement). I might even be entitled to the Earned Income Credit. Ah, to be truly rich and selfish!
Think for a minute of the television advertising world's word "target"--'these advertisements are targeted at children', 'these at women,' etc.' In pimping products to children, a salient agenda is getting the main adversary to their efforts out of the way--parents, and more specifically, the father in the family. How is the father neutralized by the advertisers? By a reduction of the father by trivialization, condescention, humiliation. To test this theory, watch advertisements that are targeted at children, and see how many you can put in the category of "dumb daddy." See how many, in their 60 second mini-dramas, end by portraying the father as a buffoon who responds inappropriately, and who should be end-gamed by the children and compliant mother.
The White man is learning what is meant by "cultural castration" of Black men--the effects continued unemployment, and how that affects their psyches, in spite of their sad efforts to compensate, to bolster their image by adoption of macho bravura. I doubt nothing reduces violence in America like low unemployment.
The feminist movement has largely been successful in its culture war, and rightly so. They've been so successful, in fact, that the movement itself has a rather large amount of momentum behind it. It cannot stop on a dime, at some undefinable line of gender equality. Besides that, cultural change is never precise. Just as the movement is still short in some areas (like domestic violence) it has over reached in others (such as the treatment of boys and girls in classrooms). Hopefully, these disturbances will be balanced out in time, as smaller cultural shifts are much more manageable.
You haven't been outsourced have you?
Yes there is a conspiracy and it's real...but conspiracy is just another name for it...
Greed or do everything and anything to make a profit even if it means selling your employees down the river.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-haskins/target-women-doofy-husban_b_248703.html