Where have the good men gone? Kay Hymowitz opens Manning Up with this question. Her answer, based on a comprehensive survey of sociological research, is that men have been told they are better off remaining boys. Hymowitz’s subtitle—”How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys”) might suggest that her book is just another rant against the evils of feminism, but it’s not. The problem is not the rise of women, as if success were a zero-sum game, but rather that young men are responding poorly to new socio-economic realities. It’s clear that there are a growing number of young, directionless, middle-class males, and Hymowitz aims to get to the bottom of it.
Manning Up, published in 2011, is part of the ongoing conversation that includes Hannah Rosin’s 2012 book The End of Men (based on Rosin’s 2010 Atlantic cover story) and a 2009 Foreign Policy article in which Reihan Salam dubbed the Great Recession the “he-cession” for its disproportionate effect on men. In a “knowledge economy,” Hymowitz observes, jobs are marked by increasing complexity and variety. This means that lots of education is a must in order to compete for the high-earning jobs. For various reasons, from stronger interpersonal skills to higher numbers and superior performance in college, women are better suited to succeed in this economy.
In general, women use young adulthood (or “preadulthood,” as Hymowitz calls it) to lay the foundation for a successful career. For decades now, “girl power” and careerism have been encouraged in young girls, giving rise to what Hymowitz terms a “New Girl Order.” Social engineering has directed girls away from early marriage and toward the single-minded pursuit of career. A woman typically doesn’t begin to think about marriage until she is financially independent. Even then, a man must be her equal for serious consideration. For Hymowitz, the independent women of Sex and the City epitomize the new female life script.
While women have been empowered by the knowledge economy, men have become disillusioned. At the beginning of the 19th century, men worked for themselves, whether as farmers or entrepreneurs. Over the ensuing two centuries the economy gradually shifted so that now the lucrative careers find men filling desk jobs and working for “the Man.” Movies like Office Space, Fight Club, and Wanted portrayed these types of jobs as prisons. Furthermore, the modern woman no longer needs a man’s paycheck, so his potential role as a husband and provider is redundant. Hence, young, single men are in no hurry to start seeking a permanent career.
Along with the provider husband, the father has also become a social casualty. We’ve lauded the heroic single mother who is able to raise healthy children on her own, free of the influence of a father. In fact, over a quarter of children now live apart from their fathers. Homer Simpson, Ray Romano, Phil Dunphy, and their ilk represent the ranks of feckless dads portrayed in the media. They reveal a deeper assumption that fathers are liabilities around the house. Borrowing a quote from the aforementioned Rosin article, “guys are the new ball and chain.”
This is where the problem starts to crystallize. Hymowitz suggests that until recently the roles of husband and father were the defining aspect and motivator for the pursuit of mature manhood and career. Now those roles have been diminished and delayed. Enter the child-man, the unmotivated foil of the driven woman of the New Girl Order. He is so daunted by adult expectations that he decides to remain a preadult indefinitely. It’s unclear how pervasive the child-man is, but that he occupies a growing slice of media attention is clear. One need only follow the money trail of Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, and the “Frat Pack” (Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughan, Owen and Luke Wilson, Steve Carrell, and Jack Black). Networks like Spike and Comedy Central have sprung up to meet the entertainment demands of an increasing population of child-men. The video game industry is a 12-billion-dollar juggernaut, and no wonder: nearly half of males 18-34 years old play video games an average of just under 3 hours daily, according to Nielsen Media.
Not surprisingly, Hymowitz finds one of the chief purveyors of the child-man lifestyle is the men’s magazine. Playboy encouraged men to throw off the dullness and enslavement of marriage and remain “[play]boys.” Maxim then ratcheted this up by giving the child-man all the banal lust, top-ten lists, biting social commentary, and mental masturbation he could handle. In essence, Playboy idealized the libertine lifestyle and refined tastes of a Victorian dandy, and Maxim encouraged young men to remain preadults. Faced with the realities of unsatisfying work and the diminished role of husband and father, the child-man frees himself of the responsibility of a mortgage, wife, childcare, and bills and settles in for a marathon of Halo on XBOX Live. The women of the New Girl Order have no time for such losers and are content to leave them in their parents’ basements.
So it goes until the female biological clock starts ticking. But when she is ready to start a family, a woman is increasingly faced with the decision to settle for a lesser man or take matters into her own hands. “Choice mothers” decide they no longer want to wait for a suitable man and explore alternatives such as sperm-donation and IVF; thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of fatherlessness.
What is to be done? Hymowitz suggests that men are still motivated to succeed by the prospect of marriage and family. She finds that young men who are married or expect to be married are “motivated to work harder and make more investments in their future.” Her solution to the child-man issue is encapsulated in her title. Men simply need to man up (and pursue marriage).
This is all well and good, but where will the motivation come from? Hymowitz freely admits that the child-man lifestyle, like the New Girl Order lifestyle, is based on the assumption that singleness is “uniquely pleasurable” and provides the most freedom and fulfillment. She has spent most of the book building the case that young men are encouraged to flee marriage. Women have a biological clock to temper the singleness impulse and goad them into getting serious, but what’s to push the child-man into a responsible life? Beyond this, making marriage the silver bullet fails to explain the vast majority of highly functioning, well-adjusted single adults.
The real source of the child-man phenomenon is a crisis of manhood. Child-men are daunted by modern adulthood, confused about what it means to be a man, and over-whelmed with entertainment options, so they resolve to never-never grow up. Reversing this trend will require the re-enchantment of mature manhood and a greater investment in the lives and education of young boys. In our eagerness to give young girls a boost through the glass ceiling, we have ignored the falling boys. For whatever reason you choose, the urgency that comes naturally to young women must be cultivated in young men. Despite arguments to the contrary, fatherlessness begets fatherlessness. Boys need strong male role models, whether their fathers, teachers, coaches, or some other significant relation. Perhaps boys are remaining boys because there is no one to show them how to be men.—Jonathan Sprowl
Linda Hogan’s Indios is a narrative poem of more than 50 pages. That will daunt many readers—even some who read a lot of poetry—but Hogan’s book will repay your time and attention. A member of the Chickasaw Nation and former professor at the University of Colorado, author of many books in many genres, Hogan here seeks “to undress a five hundred year old wound.”
Indios takes its title from its main character. The poem is cast as a dialogue between a reporter and a woman accused of killing her own children. Although Indios acknowledges she is not innocent, she also says she is not guilty of such a crime. Despite prevailing wisdom, Indios was lured into marrying a white man. When his interest in her passed, he discarded her; she was left to reckon with their children’s rightful claim as his heirs. Seen as a threat because of these claims, Indios’ children were stoned before her eyes by men doing the bidding of her former husband and the white woman he now loved.
As the self-appointed “aftershock of history and colliding lands,” Indios confides in the reporter that the blood on her hands is the blood of the white woman her husband turned to. A first reading of the poem reveals in the death of her children the murder of countless tribal children at the hands of their colonial oppressors. A second reading highlights another tragedy—the manner in which Indios comes to resemble her oppressor. The cure for this wound becomes apparent only with a third or fourth reading.—Todd C. Ream
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