Men aren’t really going anywhere in terms of extinction, but some might say Hanna Rosin could’ve just as well given a guy a swift kick to the groin and gotten the same results as she did by writing her article The End of Men a couple months ago in Atlantic magazine.
Not all men saw it that way. Newsweek’s Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil co-wrote Men’s Lib in late September in which they called for the image of manliness to be revised.
If being the primary breadwinner and working in construction or manufacturing jobs is what it means to be a man, then yes, men are being emasculated and rendered useless by the demise of the old smokestack industries.
But if being supportive of women in any way possible is what it means to be a man, then men still have a shot at holding on to their masculinity.
The expectations of men need a makeover because women’s roles have already changed immensely and men’s have not—at least not to the same extent.
Gloria Steinem said, “Women’s liberation is men’s liberation too.” It’s time for that to happen.
Romano and Dokoupil point out that going back to the “Marlboro Manliness” ideal isn’t the answer to the significantly changing demands on men in our society today.
“Women still need men to prosper. We’re not talking about Mr. Cleaver bringing home the bacon—we need men so that we can excel at work, to level the playing field at home,” feminist journalists Ellison and Jessica Bennet wrote in their Newsweek article Who Needs Men? We Do.
In the last few decades, women’s roles have expanded far beyond the confines of domesticity. In the same way, men’s roles need to go beyond their day jobs and into carrying their share of the weight at home in domestic tasks.
In whatever we’re doing, we need each other to succeed. And I mean that in its fullest sense.