Memo to Men: You're Not Dead Yet

In “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin takes an extensive look at the demise of once-standard gender roles. She cites multiple facets of American culture, from women’s domination of most levels of the workforce, to lopsided college population statistics and boys’ learning patterns. The piece conveys the notion that the past three decades or so have marked the definitive conclusion of male societal success. Women, she implies, are finally reaping the benefits of their organically empathetic nature and interpersonal skills. The single, working supermom is the new Suit. The picture of an Ivy Leaguer entails wool skirts and fashionable pea coats, not Brooks Brothers ties and Ralph Lauren cuff links. I cannot argue against the reality that women have more opportunity than ever, and vocations once dubbed “boys only” half a century ago are currently gender neutral. I will disagree with the sentiment that this trend is everlasting or impermeable. This societal vasectomy Rosin paints is, like the surgical kind, optional.

I am not immersed in the full-time work force, and cannot accurately gauge the truth in Rosin’s commentary on the dwindling dudes in the office. However, I did grow up in a time when it was no big thing for my mother to re-enter the workforce while I was in elementary school, (and is now re-entering academia to receive her Masters in Education). I attended public and private schools where the faculty was often more Mrs./Ms. than Mr., and am currently matriculated in a university where the fairer sex surpasses the grittier by only two percent. At the college level, I have not seen the drastic “gender gap” Rosin highlights. This gap that Rosin insists upon seems more like a crack in the foundation, and one that cannot be generalized to all schools in all regions or all majors. Looking at population profiles from a handful of universities across the country (Syracuse, Northwestern, University of Texas and UCLA), the difference in women versus men ranged from sixteen to as low as one percent.

Within Villanova’s approximately 6,000 undergraduate population, there are individual pockets of gender dissonance, but each eventually cancels the others out. For instance, I am one of a sprinkling of women on the male heavy radio station, but one of the many gals writing for the weekly newspaper. In any given communication class, I have never seen more men than I could count on one hand. The very opposite goes for my female friends in the business school. However, at schools with more renowned journalism programs (Emerson, NYU), I’d speculate that the ratio is much more balanced. Yes, indeed, my friends and I have looked around our suburban campus and wondered, “Where are all the good men?,” but not once have we doubted the presence of plenty of men in general.

As for this “generation of boys” growing up “rootless and obsolete,” I’m not convinced that this label is all-applicable. Of all of my college pals, it is a guy who secured a multi-summer internship (plus the guarantee of post-grad employment) with a large financial services company, while most of us girls are floating through hourly wages or unpaid internships. The biggest case against my stance will be that I’ve only experienced a fraction of the population, one or two cogs in the wheel. Perhaps, yes, but so has Hanna Rosin. Times have been a-changing for awhile, but things aren’t necessarily bad all over.