{"id":880,"date":"2015-12-28T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=880"},"modified":"2015-12-28T08:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T12:00:19","slug":"what-about-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/blog-posts\/what-about-men\/","title":{"rendered":"What About Men?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-881\" src=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/men-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/men-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/men.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>When I make presentations to audiences of women and men about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/New-Rules-Women-Revolutionizing-Together\/dp\/0982056982\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1450034656&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=New+rules+for+women%2C+Revolutionizing+the+way+women+work+together\">my research on women in organizations<\/a>, they often ask me, \u201cWhat about men? What\u2019s happening for them?\u201d\u00a0 Recent studies, reported by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/15\/opinion\/sunday\/mens-lib.html?_r=0\">Richard V. Reeves and Isabel V. Sawhill<\/a>, reveal some important changes for men in the United States workforce.\u00a0 Specifically, Reeves and Sawhill note, \u201cthe old economy and the old model of masculinity are obsolete.\u201d\nWhile women have been pushing, for the most part successfully, into previously traditionally male roles, men have not been pushing into traditionally female roles.\u00a0 Because the jobs that men used to do are largely disappearing, men either need to adapt and move into the female-dominated HEAL (health, education, administration, and literacy) jobs, or men will have fewer and fewer prospects for participating in the labor market.\u00a0 The thirty fastest-growing occupations are currently in the HEAL sectors.\u00a0 The only obstacles to men entering these occupations are culture and attitude\u2014men aren\u2019t training or applying for these \u201cpink collar\u201d jobs.\nHere are some recent trends that do not bode well for men if they do not adapt and change:\n\n\n<ul>\n\t\n\n<li>Male wages are stagnant and, among the less educated, have fallen. Median earnings for men with only a high school diploma have fallen by 28 percent since 1980.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Men are now a minority on college campuses, accounting for 42 percent of graduates.<\/li>\n\n\n\t\n\n<li>Girls demonstrate more focus, effort, and self-discipline as well as better study habits starting in the early grades, and, consequently, they have higher grades.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nThe authors note that what is needed is a \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/15\/opinion\/sunday\/mens-lib.html?_r=0\">cultural recalibration<\/a>\u201d for men.\u00a0 Many men are retreating into violent \u201chypermasculinity\u201d in order to try to hold on to their old competitive edge over women.\u00a0 Instead, we need campaigns that encourage men to see themselves in HEAL jobs the same way that campaigns currently encourage girls and women to see themselves in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) jobs.\u00a0 We need to balance participation and opportunity across all the sectors for both women and men.\nThis cultural recalibration also needs to include adaptation by men on the home front.\u00a0 In households where two parents work outside of the home, men are doing more childcare and housework than in the past, but not as much as they think they are doing.\u00a0 Claire Cain Miller of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/12\/upshot\/men-do-more-at-home-but-not-as-much-as-they-think-they-do.html\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a> cites several rigorous studies of the division of labor for opposite-sex, dual-earner couples across the transition to parenthood.\u00a0 While the division of labor for housework showed no gender gap before children, a significant gap emerged after birth.\u00a0 While men in two-income families reported that they shared housework and childcare equally after birth, analysis of rigorous time studies showed that women shouldered much more responsibility at home.\u00a0 This extra work for women, in addition to holding a full-time job, creates pressure and stress that can push them out of the workforce.\u00a0 Miller cites the work of Paula England and others who note, \u201cthe gender revolution has largely been one-sided\u2014women have entered traditionally male jobs but men have been reluctant to take on traditionally female activities.\u201d\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/15\/opinion\/sunday\/mens-lib.html?_r=0\">Reeves and Sawhill<\/a> sum up the challenges for men as follows:\n\n\n<blockquote>\u201cThe way forward, we believe, is for men to embrace and adapt to the new, more androgynous world.\u00a0 There is no point in harking back.\u00a0 The world in which high-paid manufacturing jobs could support a family, and where women were expected to focus on being wives and mothers is gone.\u00a0 Women have shown they are ready for this transition.\u00a0 But what about men?\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n&nbsp;\nImage courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[225,230,371,457,551,612],"class_list":["post-880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-gender","tag-gender-equality","tag-masculinity","tag-politics","tag-stereotypes","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}