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<div class="timestamp">September 10, 2012</div>
<h1>Why Men Fail</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by DAVID BROOKS"><span>DAVID BROOKS</span></a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
You’re probably aware of the basic trends. The financial rewards to
education have increased over the past few decades, but men failed to
get the memo. </p>
<p>
In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging.
Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly
behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees go to men, along with 40
percent of master’s degrees. </p>
<p>
Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force.
In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54
worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday’s jobs
report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low. </p>
<p>
Millions of men are collecting disability. Even many of those who do
have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the
Hamilton Project, annual earnings for median prime-age males have
dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years. </p>
<p>
Men still dominate the tippy-top of the corporate ladder because many
women take time off to raise children, but women lead or are gaining
nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20s outearn men in their 20s.
Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.
</p>
<p>
Over the years, many of us have embraced a certain theory to explain
men’s economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards
traits that, for neurological and cultural reasons, women are more
likely to possess. </p>
<p>
To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention
in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and
aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and
cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks. </p>
<p>
But, in her fascinating new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin posits a
different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues,
are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new
social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are
like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have
kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They
follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more
fluid. </p>
<p>
This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social
position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the
top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who
were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re
going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically. </p>
<p>
Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are
flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college,
pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left
and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In
the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 percent of
the median male income. </p>
<p>
Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new
social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new
campus hookup culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic
commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hookup
culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming
distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are
desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give
them the freedom to focus on their professional lives. </p>
<p>
Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender war or
that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She’s just
saying women are adapting to today’s economy more flexibly and
resiliently than men. There’s a lot of evidence to support her case.
</p>
<p>
A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that
small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small businesses
during the last recession. In finance, women who switch firms are more
likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are more likely to
see theirs decline. There’s even evidence that women are better able to
adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by
25 percent after a marital breakup. </p>
<p>
Forty years ago, men and women adhered to certain ideologies, what it
meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosin argues, are more
like clean slates, having abandoned both feminist and prefeminist
preconceptions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits
their vision and their movement. </p>
<p>
If she’s right, then men will have to be less like Achilles, imposing
their will on the world, and more like Odysseus, the crafty, many-sided
sojourner. They’ll have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a
strange land. </p>
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