The Good Men Project’s own Noah Brand weighs in against Hanna Rosin’s notion of “The End of Men”
On yesterday’s Stream program on Al-Jazeera online, the subject was controversial author Hanna Rosin and her new book The End of Men, spun off of her popular article for The Atlantic. Also on the show were Stephanie Coontz, who wrote “The Myth of Male Decline”, a response to Rosin’s thesis, and the Good Men Project’s own editor-in-chief, Noah Brand, along with other panelists, including popular GMP contributor Carlos Andrés Gómez.
Take a little time to watch the video and review the points being made, particularly after the twenty-five minute mark, when the show goes into its less-structured bonus material, and the arguments being advanced grow a little more pointed. It’s the kind of engaged, serious discussion of issues that’s too rare in media today, so our hats are off to the good people at Al-Jazeera for facilitating such a fair and interesting round table on such an important issue.
Recently,Iwas talking to my Daughter on the phone. She ‘s a PA for an orthopedic group and at least 2 days a week she’s in surgery. Needless to say I’m very proud of her. Anyway, on the phone she’s lamenting about how her 30 something year old friends can’t seem to find a husband (she’s fortunate to be married to a wonderful man). I didn’t know how to respond. All I could think was”If I were a young single man today, the LAST thing I would want to do is get married!” I of course didn’t say this to my… Read more »
A well-rounded discussion. Very informative.
Good discussion overall and nice to see Hanna Rosin separate herself (a bit) from the title/headline of her book.
One piece of delicious strangeness that cropped up from the two remote females in the discussion, and to paraphrase: “…It’s not the end of men because women still have it much worse…”
Depends on the area, but not everywhere women have it worse, some areas I’d say men have it worse. Men can still decline rapidly though even if women are at magicnumber 80 and men at 100, those men can drop 10 points a year whilst women rise 5 points a year and you have a huge problem.
What really stood out for me were Hanna Rosin’s comments from 25:32, about women’s role in keeping men wedded to old ideas about masculinity. I found her response to this idea quite telling. It’s as if she were unaware of this dynamic and possibly her own complicity in it before she was asked about it, when I think this is the typical experience for heterosexual men in the dating world. It seems most women are still most attracted to those men who display many of the traits traditionally thought of as masculine, such as being a provider and protector. It… Read more »
Agreed, scarbo. In addition, after that point, the last image that’s posed is one from Christina, who complains about how tired the women who have garnered some power in the business world are, because, according to her, they’re still doing the childcare juggling, et al. Hanna Rosin backed her up on this, purely on both of their anecdotally based opinions of how men are “missing” from sectors of our lives. I also found Rosin’s “both” answer to Noah Brand’s last question to her to be a tacit admission that she’s just playing on our fears: there is no “End of… Read more »
Very good discussion of very important issues. I didn’t have time to watch the whole segment, so forgive me if I missed it, but: Did anyone mention the fact that the only people at the table were women and the primary commentator for the book was also a woman? At least half of the online talking heads were women, as were many of the tweet authors. Perhaps that by itself is evidence of something. I also wonder what the reactions will be from Al-Jazeera’s viewership. I’m sure the English-language viewership is different from the viewership in other languages, but I… Read more »
@ wellokaythen
I lived in the middle east for over 20yrs approximately & it’s my understanding that anybody who is savvy enough to join or have enough time to ponder the gender issue on the internet, for the most part is open minded enough, affluent & educated enough that the ethnicity of Hanna Rossin wouldn’t be an issue unless she identifies as an Israelite.
Fair enough. One more stereotype out the window….