Where Are the Virtuous Men?

The quality of virtue—behavior showing a high moral standard—was attributed to women following the Industrial Revolution when men and women were assigned different spheres in which to exist. People wanted a safe haven from the great changes that were brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The home became this place.¹

Husbands had to be in the public sphere to work and create wealth, while wives were to inhabit the private sphere—the woman’s sphere. A “true” man was aggressive, competitive, rational, and channeled his time and energy into work. In contrast, a “true” woman was characterized by being pious, pure, submissive, and domestic. Above all, she was virtuous and was the great civilizer of men. This virtuous civilizer of men created order in the home in return for her husband’s protection, financial security, and social status.²

Are There Virtuous Men in the Public Arena of the World of Economics?

The replacement of agrarian and rural societies by a new socio-economic order defined by industrial capitalism not only ushered in the separation of the sexes into different silos, it ushered in the theory of the efficient market based on the idea of self-interest. Adam Smith, who is the pioneer of the political economy, assured us that “self-interest is the vital and healthy driving force behind the market.”³

Adam Smith was a man who stressed that virtue was needed in the market for the economy to flourish. He promoted an “enlightened self-interest,” by which he meant a self-interest accompanied by virtue to promote the public interest and facilitate the functioning of society.⁴

But virtue got assigned to women, not to the men who went into the public arena of business and politics. Over the years of self-interest untethered from virtue, we got a market economy characterized by opportunism and greed. In this world of men, wealth has come to serve as a “surrogate marker” for virtue.⁵

A Market Economy Without Virtue

Adam Smith believed that the purpose of human life is to lead a good, meaningful, and successful life, which no one else can do for you. He proposed that a good and successful life assumes that you care for and about others and practice being a virtuous person—one who practices integrity, justice, and courage.⁶

Unfortunately, economists missed the part that economies should be guided by virtue. What we got—and still have—is often greed and opportunism. Our current economic crisis began in the ’80s, giving us several decades of privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts, all of which foster the opportunism and greed that were unleashed when virtue was assigned to the private sphere.⁷

Men in the Market Economy Without Virtue

Changes in the market economy over these last several decades have resulted in some men losing the economic and social status that supported the post-Industrial Revolution idea of “masculinity.” Most of the jobs created since the 2008 Great Recession have been in more female-dominated sectors such as health, education, administration, and literacy—jobs that some men have not taken.⁸

Some men have been trying to retain their “masculinity” without the corresponding economic and social power to back it up.⁹ Some men may try to rename themselves as “retrosexuals”—affluent urban men who wear hunting garb, buy designer axes, and write about the art of manliness on blogs.¹⁰

America has moved from a society that valued loyalty, team play, and vocational mastery to an “ornamental culture” in which competitive individualism is not tied to work but is measured by commercial values. Commercial values for men are defined as striving to be the most, the best, the biggest, and/or the fastest.¹¹

Women in the Market Economy Held Virtue But Became Invisible

In the early 20th century, when children were asked on school questionnaires what their parents did for a living, they were told to leave a blank for their mothers if they were housewives. Women’s work in the domestic sphere in the market economy was invisible.¹²

Since the ’80s, those in charge of our economy have increasingly shifted more costs onto the two-parent family. This so-called “nuclear family” is to provide for themselves with little public support. Social conservatives’ reverence for the traditional nuclear family provided the values-based cover to justify the market economy’s efforts to dramatically erode the welfare state. Families run by virtuous and economically invisible women are now the keepers of the social safety net. They bear the responsibility for providing child care, enrichment activities, higher education, and even eventually homeownership for their children.¹³

COVID-19 Has Exposed It All

The pre-COVID-19 pandemic economy is characterized by stagnant wages, high inequality along with skyrocketing costs of child care, higher education, and health care. It is an economy that has limited men’s traditional ways of succeeding, relying on the “virtuous” homemaker (who now also holds down a full-time job) to provide the social safety this market economy does not sustain.¹⁴

COVID-19 may be the tipping point for a new economic approach—a tipping point to re-establish virtue in the economy. It can be the tipping point to change rigidly defined spheres of existence—one for men and one for women. It can be the tipping point to reimagine work-family balance as living with purpose in all areas of life. Work and family need not be different spheres of existence with different moral standards.¹⁵

We Need Virtuous Men and Women Running a Virtuous Market

Men and Masculinity

Masculinity as the identity of a “real man” must be challenged. One group of men who are reimagining traditional manhood are stay-at-home dads. Here is a path to reimagine masculinity through “girly jobs” and dirty diapers. Men who embrace parental leave spare women the stigma of the “mommy track.” There is a simple principle for men to adopt. Contribute your fair share at home and at work.¹⁶

Women Are No Longer Invisible—They Have Jobs and Careers

Since the ’70s, women have been challenging the idea that they are the sole keepers of the home fires; that a woman is rigidly defined by characteristics such as piety, dependency, submissiveness, and being naturally domestic. We challenge the idea that we are the virtuous civilizers of men. What a trap that has been.¹⁷

As a result of the pandemic, many women have had to leave the workforce (in staggering numbers) because of businesses closing and the closures of schools and day care centers. Most working women wanted their partners to become a “co-parent” or “co-housekeeper” and share the emotional work of being a family. This has not been happening.¹⁸