Web Letter: Women and Men in the Workplace
Web Letter: Women and Men in the Workplace
Web Letter: The Fate of Women and Men in the Workplace
To the editor:
Myriam Miedzian misrepresents the argument of Kay S. Hymowitz’s Manning Up in her review ?Blaming Women for the Infantilization of Men.? Miedzian suggests that the anecdote she uses at the beginning of her review about hysteria regarding women’s power in academia, from when Miedzian was a graduate student, is in some way similar to the argument proposed by Hymowitz in Manning Up. That is not the case. The argument laid out by Hymowitz is simply that women in the West have adjusted better to the new economy and, as a result, men need to change their whole attitude about work and responsibility, if they want to compete with women and contribute to their families and society.
Hymowitz starts her book from the rather conservatively minded point of view that there is a crisis in the lack of responsible male breadwinners under forty in America. Miedzian is very much on the mark when she points out the defective conservative bias at work here, especially in the lack of attention to causation and collective cultural responsibility. Hymowitz’s conclusion at the end of the book is as simple as it is irritating: men need to man up! This is a standard (often unspoken) philosophical difference between the Left and Right. The Right sees free will and personal responsibility as primary to almost any argument whereas the Left generally sees a deterministic myriad of cultural, social, and biological influences as the most significant factors in any attempt to explain happenings in the world.
One of the most startling things about Hymowitz’s book is that she spends almost 200 pages listing these forms of historical and cultural influences only to conclude they are unimportant. Miedzian is barking up the right tree when she points out that the dominance of the masculine ethos of sports arrests education and intelligence in boys. Much of the problem with men is social, cultural, and psychological.
However, I suspect that Hymowitz and not Miedzian is correct when the latter finds fault with the former’s evaluation of the comparative success of women and men. The ?glass-ceiling? analysis of the work force has become outdated. Hymowitz argues that when you break women and men?s performance down into various groups such as class, race, origin, and profession, you find women are usually ahead, especially the younger you look.
The glass-ceiling statistics do still demonstrate a disparity in those old boys? clubs, like brokerage firms and other related occupations. The fact that some jobs seem to attract more men (such as finance, politics, trades, engineering, and technology) is not proof that women are losing out to men in the overall workforce. It is also true, as Miedzian points out, that a select group of men still seem more attracted to and successful at attaining many of those high-pressure jobs that consume every waking moment. But much of the glass-ceiling effect is the result of men from the above-forty generation, and as time moves on we?ll likely see that effect attenuating rather quickly. A more obvious problem will be the number of underemployed, unemployed, or completely unemployable men. And the problem is, more or less, that these men are social misfits, bouncing around the fringes of society, unable to meet the criteria of employers.
Miedzian seems unwilling to allow for the idea that these workplace dynamics are changing and clings to the old glass-ceiling model because she appears to be quite attached to proving that women are worse off than men, as if it only one of the two sexes could be seen as victims of oppressive cultural forces. Miedzian approaches the ridiculous when she writes, ?Hymowitz does not deal at all with the fact that there has been so little accommodation to women in the workplace.? Yes, it?s true Hymowitz does not discuss that because it has nothing to do with the subject of her book! Her book is about the decline of men, not the failure of the corporate world to treat women well. The book does not argue that women have it so much better than men; it is arguing that these men are causing a gap that strains families and social resources. But Miedzian repeatedly uses the word ?blame,? as if Hymowitz’s argument was that women are to blame for men’s failures, which is nonsense. It’s rather startling that Miedzian seems to recognize the problem on the one hand but on the other hand seems to dismiss its importance.
Both writers demonstrate an impoverished view of theses real and alarming social problems.
-John Palmer, Toronto
The anecdote at the beginning of my review?which I thought I had made clear, took place about twenty-five years after I had been a graduate student?had nothing to do with argumentation. It was all about providing the social context that might influence people to view women?s progress in the workplace as a ?takeover.? My point was that books and articles with titles like How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys or The End of Men: How Women are Taking Control of Everything can best be understood in the historical context of radical change?and overreaction to it?which my anecdote captured.
As I point out, Hymowitz?s arguments do not lead to the conclusion that the rise of women is the factor or even the main factor in some boys and men delaying traditional adult behavior. John Palmer seems to agree with me on this, when he writes about Hymowitz?s ?lack of attention to causation and collective cultural responsibility.?
When Palmer describes me as ?approaching the ridiculous? when I point out that ?Hymowitz does not deal at all with the fact that that there has been so little accommodation to women in the workplace,? he is just not understanding my argument, which has everything to do with the subject of the book. I am pointing out that while some studies indicate that young women in large cities are doing better than young men, once women have children, combining work and family gets so difficult that a significant percentage of women?about one third of the workforce according to Hymowitz?drop out to care for their children. When they go back, only 40 percent are able to find full-time jobs. As long as the workplace is so ?family unfriendly,? contrary to what Hymowitz and Palmer contend, there is little reason to believe that inequality will decrease at a swift pace, and that the glass ceiling is on its way out. As for the glass ceiling being due mainly to men ?from the above-forty generation,? the crude, pornographic, sexist culture that surrounds today?s younger men does not augur well for women being respected and taken seriously?in private life or in the workplace.
I agree with Palmer that we have a very serious problem of unemployable men. Among working-class Americans, women, who are more likely to graduate high school and attend community college, are doing better than men, so many of whom have lost their blue-collar jobs. The main?and often sole?wage earner in many families is the wife. But since Hymowitz makes it perfectly clear that her focus is on college-educated men, I did not deal with these men in my review.
-Myriam Miedzian
