Men at work
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I love the implied slur against working class men not working 'long hours' or doing their share of the childcare.
You can only write a sentence like that if you've never been physically tired from exertion after doing a days work. There simply isn't any more energy to do anything. And putting in 'more hours' is going to be counterproductive since you're expected to perform another act at 6 am the next morning.
I know quite a few of these 'working class men' and none of them seem to live all that long past the age of 65, their bodies a shell of what they were when they started working. And with the recent increase of the age at which the pension system kicks in it's become more common that they don't reach the pensionable age at all.
Not all work-hours are equally taxing.
In the spirit of gender equality, it shouldn't in any case. ;)
People get stupid around gender. If this were an article about christian and muslims, no one would blink at using the religion of the author to help decipher intent.
On top of that, you have to consider that social sciences (including economics) are "Schrodinger objects": as you observe and describe them, they change. Once you understand that, you can leverage the dynamic for personal or political gain, which is extremely common.
So it would make sense that more sociology-styled articles are indeed written by women.
Still anecdotal though.
It seems to be that some things that are female dominated at lower levels, like undergraduate studies, might still be either more gender balanced or male dominated at higher levels, like research. Whether that is due to a glass ceiling or whatever else, I don't know; you'd have to ask a sociologist about that.
90% female undergraduate (approx 36 girls, 4 guys including me).
Around 80% female postgraduate.
About 75% male lecturer/senior lecturer/professor.
One of our lecturers brought it up, and I suggested that it might be due to more guys doing psychology in the past, but he refuted this, saying that the gender skew had been like that since he started in the field.
My only real explanation for this is unconscious/institutional sexism.
[1] http://www.asanet.org/research/stats/gender/graduate_enrollm...
BTW, this is a hell of an article. It describes an "intransigent masculinity," yet women are not supposed to let men define their femininity?
And it blames mass shootings on "masculinity." But take a look at this hocky-stick graph of the frequency of the history of mass-shootings in the U.S. [2]. There's something more than "masculinity" going on here:
[2] http://thesocietypages.org/feminist/files/2015/07/Mass-Shoot...
As a man I don't want society to give me credit for suffering. I also don't want pity or empathy. Help? Maybe, but only if you let me pay it back.
What I want is to be allowed to solve my own problems. And then a chance to contribute to society. All this while not denouncing my manhood. I'm pretty sure most men feel the same deep down.
Just sayin'.
No, actually. If I wear my body down so much that I'm dying of work-inflicted wear-and-tear, I damn well do want society's empathy and help. "Manhood" and "self-glorifying martyrdom" are not synonyms.
One's ordinary contribution to society shouldn't be cast-from-hitpoints, especially not when it will get you an unremembered early grave. This is the year 2015, not D-Day.
I'm not advocating sacrifice. I just think most guys need the feeling of contributing to stay sane.
I moved furniture as a young man, and that was only in 8 hours stints at the longest. At the end of the day, my body seemed to rebel against me if I even slightly exerted myself.
My current 60+ work weeks are mainly spent sitting, and although I'm tired at the end of the day, it's nowhere near as taxing as moving furniture was (and I'm older).
Working class doesn't mean that the work itself is more physical: the majority of these jobs have been taken over by automation and/or transferred abroad. A recent study in the US shows that mortality in white males has increased since the Great Recession. Not because jobs have gotten more physical, but because permanent joblessness has increased. It's increasingly difficult for men - especially those without the economic and employment flexibility that many of us enjoy - to find meaning in their lives according to the traditional roles under which they were raised. Long term maybe this turns out for the best as gender roles ultimately become less pronounced. But it's a hard transition and right this is a real issue that impacts everyone. Just look at current US politics.
It's not particularly necessary for the article. It reads more like elite signaling- "watches more TV," "does not contribute to housework," are there to remind you that you shouldn't feel empathy, that the subject is low status and low value.
However, I think your statement is strange. Firstly, she states that "working class" generally means "without college degree" - that doesn't mean physical work. Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect. Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run. Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting.
My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd.
No, but it in general greatly increases the likelihood.
> Secondly, knowledge workers also get diminishing returns from longer hours, potentially with even more dramatic effect.
To their bodies? Or to the work they do?
Because that's the difference, your body only takes that much abuse and then needs to re-charge. Go work a jackhammer for a couple of hours and let's talk about diminishing returns.
> Thirdly, many common non-physical working conditions are also extremely tiring mentally and damaging physically in the long-run.
Sure. Let's talk after you've been hauling garbage for a day, been bent over under an engine hood or any other physically taxing workday. There is nothing that quite compares to being able to sit in a chair and think all day long and push a few buttons to wreck your ligaments, muscles and joints.
> Finally, you're implying that child-care is not physically exhausting.
I think you made that up, I did not imply that at all. As a father of 3 I'm more than aware of how physically exhausting child care is.
> My impression of your response is that it has more slurs than the article, to be honest - just re-inforcing the primacy of manual labour. I have the impression you know what it's like to work long hours in a stressful non-physical environment, so I find that odd.
An my impression of your response is that you would like all of the above to be true, however and for the record: I've done both. I've had a number of very physically intensive jobs when I started my career and to this day I'm grateful every bloody day that my life took a turn for the better and that I don't have to work until I can't stand up straight anymore. Being not the most physically strong person I realize that if I had continued down that path I would have been a physical wreck by now.
Have some respect for the people that do the heavy lifting. And if you're unconvinced: go take a manual labor job for a year or so and re-read your comment here.
> Have some respect for the people that do the heavy lifting. And if you're unconvinced: go take a manual labor job for a year or so and re-read your comment here.
Jacques, why the rancor and assumption that the OP and other commenters (like the GP) haven't also had physical jobs? I certainly have… It's all I did the first several years of my working life. And like you, my life is now quite different.
You have a different point of view, but it's not because we haven't done physical work. In fact, in my case I'd say it was my experience doing that kind of work that leads me to identify with what the OP describes in the linked article.
I'll be happy to accept evidence to the contrary, but by the looks of it the OP has not.
> I certainly have…
Good, so you'll appreciate my viewpoint a bit more than those of us who happen to have lucked out and have been desk jockeys since the start of our professional lives.
> It's all I did the first several years of my life. And like you, my life is now quite different.
My assumption is that because of having had a period in your life where you worked really hard for relatively very little pay that you appreciate what you have today a lot more than you would otherwise.
> You have a different point of view, but it's not because we haven't done physical work. In fact, in my case I'd say it was my experience doing that kind of work that leads me to identify with what the OP describes in the linked article.
I subscribe to some parts of what the article relates to but I take exception with certain parts and the casual way in which 'men without a college degree' (which the lady writing the article is not on both counts) are being labeled as implied slackers because 'We know they watch more television and do less childcare than working-class women, and are less likely than more affluent men to work long hours'.
I'm not understanding the level of emotion. Sorry if your friends & relatives are suffering from their jobs.
The toll adds up if you do manual labor long enough. Bodies are machines and they wear out.
> I have physical issues from the non-physical work and I know people who've had (true) burn-out and stress-related illness.
Been there, done that. And these can be serious issues as well, but it's not the same as dropping dead 2 days after you finally receive your pension because your body is done with living.
> My personal experience is that I can keep going physically when I'm exhausted but productivity drops to near zero when mentally tired.
I think we all can relate to that. Which is why we - as a rule in the industry - estimate that people are productive in knowledge work for 4 to 6 hours per day.
> My experience is that people massively underestimate the toll of non-physical work rather than that they underestimate physical work.
My experience is the opposite, people find it very easy to relate to things they have personal experience with and find it hard to relate to things that happen to others.
> Sorry if your friends & relatives are suffering from their jobs.
Where did my relatives come in?
I had a (very little bit) of warehouse work as a teenager. I mean, real warehouse work where you get minimum wage for picking things up and putting them down again, assembling shelves, picking up stuff, etc.. - and I was exhausted at the end of those days in ways that I never am now, even when I do work that is physically more demanding, and I'm in my mid 30s with a body that isn't nearly as resilient as when I was 16.
I've done a lot of data center work that had similar physical challenges, often greater physical challenges; have you ever tried to rack a c6509? bastards are heavy. In fact, I've gone out of my way, and probably taken some pay cuts so that I still get to spend significant time picking things up, putting things down, and turning screws. I enjoy it in ways that I didn't enjoy that warehouse job.
The thing I want to point out here is that doing physically demanding labor while you are in a position to get paid a whole lot of money, like I am, is very different from doing physically demanding labor when you are getting paid very little, simply because respect, flexibility and the ability to ask for changes and exceptions scales with the rest of your compensation.
As a sysadmin, if I need a break? I take a break. Nobody gives me a hard time. There's no grope and grab at the door to make sure I didn't steal anything. If I want a tool or something to make my job easier, really all I've gotta do is find a link and send it to the boss and it gets ordered for me. If lifting something the standard way doesn't work for me? the boss gets someone to help me. My judgment on "yeah, I need a second pair of hands" is never questioned.
I mean, yeah, there are legal protections for minimum wage workers, and workers comp laws incent employers to make sure that they don't screw up employees too badly; but power differentials matter; As a sysadmin, while I'm not going to say I'm irreplaceable, if I walk, the boss will be noticeably inconvenienced. I get a pretty good say in how my job is done.
I imagine the same thing goes for being an independent electrician, or being a mechanic with your own shop vs. being a level one person in either one of those roles. Having the power to make exceptions in how you work, I think, makes a huge impact on how good or bad that work is for you.
I wonder if white collar work is the same way; if you are some minimum wage call center monkey with zero choice in the ergonomics of your workstation setup, is that way worse than being a programmer who can get a $400 keyboard and $6000 chair by just asking? My guess is yes, but I have even less time in the callcenter than I have in the warehouse.
You say you do school shooting and 4chan will tell you "Do it faggot". If you actually do it 4chan will scream "ABSOLUTE MADMAN!".
Male violence happens probably partially because of testosterone. But cultural factors is significant too. Nobody questions your masculinity after such horrid act, probably out of respect to the victims. It seems somehow disgraceful to be killed by a boy. But that denial probably perpetuates the problem.
You can often hear from women something like "You can't have your manhood enforced by violence or job. Be better human instead." But that's not how identities work. Either you find a way to be a man or accept not being a man. The latter is whole new can of worms.
Transgender people suffer from whopping rates of suicide, depression, loneliness and generally feeling insecure. It's unfair comparison. But it's not really surprising, that men with less of same identity problems are showing similar symptoms to lesser extent.
>some scholars think that, just like the black church seems to do for black men, unions could remind more white working-class men to prize not just ‘hard work’ but also solidarity and other values.
Here in Nordic countries unions have lately turned into relatively feminine thing. So this is kind of reformulating the idea "be more feminine". Which is exactly what most men are trying to avoid in the first place.
Theoretically some kind of men-only workers union might be cool. But such "patriarchal" constructs are quite demonized these days.
They don't question your masculinity because it's not applicable. They say that you are evil instead, because it's bad thing to do. Questioning your masculinity happens if you do something effeminate, and gunning down people is not that.
I guess what you're trying to say is that killing people should be considered emasculating. I think it's more damning to be called an evil scum-bag than to be called a "faggot", though.
Masculinity[1] has both positive and negative traits associated with it. We aren't taught to be masculine even in destructive ways. That's also why we don't emasculate people who are masculine in destructive ways -- because it's still masculine, but not in a commendable way. You see the difference? "Masculinity" does not mean, and is not taught to be, synonymous with "good". At least not these days.
Our concepts of what is good and bad, commendable and terrible, is not one-dimensional and solely attributed to things like gender conformance. Calling someone through-and-through evil and despicable is more isolating and condemning than calling them a pansy. You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry.
[1] In the sense of traits and actions which are associated more with men.
If you have accepted for some reason that you are evil scumbag, then that's it. Now you choose whether you are man scumbag or boy scumbag. School shooters are usually already somewhat isolated and they usually end up dead. They don't care getting isolated. They seem to care about posthumous fame.
I don't mind if masculine is not good. What I'm trying to say is that seemingly only surefire way to get the status of a man is violence. Inventing some other certain and positive way to get the status of a man would be great. But in the meantime it would seem like a good idea to make the "madman" status less certain.
>You won't appreciably reduce mass shootings by verbally stripping mass murderers of their manhood, rather than just calling them evil. Sorry.
You can't back that claim in any way. Sorry.
In general, I think more sympathy with these mass murderers, from those not directly affected, would be a better idea than labeling them as "evil".
While I would not make the same decisions, it's important to realize that the refusal to understand a person's POV contributes towards isolation. That's an important component we don't recognize.
I'm sure that a lot of soldiers and drone operators feel more masculine after the kill.
Actually, I think it's worth testing. People have worked in deeply irrational, amoral ways before, you know.
There also is no "morality tale" for what women supposedly owe their husbands. But it hurts to find you are only valued for your money - is that really wrong, misguided, whatever? Are people not allowed to have feelings in relationships? I bet some wives are also hurt when they get older and find they were only valued for their pretty body. (Not saying either fate is inevitable, but it happens).
Low income is the best predictor for divorce, so there really is pressure on men to perform. And contrary to the feminist narrative it is not men who can't cope with their wives outearning them filing for divorce, it is women who tend to file for divorce.
Society has changed a lot. Good Blue collar jobs are hard to come by. Even white collar jobs are not what they used to be. It's basically a mess. Consider yourself luckey if you have a job you don't hate?
That said, when certain people become unemployed--they fall to pieces. I know it a blow. I know there's a risk of homeless. I know he might leave you. (If he leaves you, or "makes you pay for being unemployed" you probally picked the wrong mate?)
What I'm trying to say is don't beat yourself up too much. I have seen way to many people define themself's by what they do. "I'm a blah, blah, blah." You are a person first? With a lot of interests? I know it's difficult. The first question out of every Bobble Head is "What do you do?".
I saw my sister pretty much destroy her marriage. She was making a very good living. He was an Actor, and a great father to their boys. Because he wasn't the guy on t.v.--literally, or figuratively she emasculated him to the point he cheated. He married a person who didn't judge him as a success, or failure. He is now happy. His depression went away. I wonder why?
My sister still watches the television fantasy world where the man is a "man". He's a successful something. He the protector. He's the hard working something? Usually he's an Architect, or Doctor on T.V.? (By the way in real life. If you can make a living as an Architect--you are lucky.)
My sister has been through a lot of men, and never found one that had the qualities of her first husband. She now knows she should not have let the media, and the village; determine what's desirable in a mate. She says pushing away her first husband was her biggest regret.
I have no advice. I just see some men/women go to any lengths in order to get "the paper". Yes, a lot of it is hormones, but don't kill yourself trying to be what this society is constantly thrusting upon us. My father was a "working man's hero". He was misserable too. He died way to soon.
The biggest problem is not that a worker-owned coop doesn't work. They do. The problem is one of primate social hierarchy. That is, "someone has to be the boss".
The differences between that and management-owned companies are the political tools all workers have to influence decisions, and the shared social contract which says all owners have a stake in the company's decision making (not all employees have to be owners from day one).
My experience is that cooperation is nice but it doesn't scale. As soon as you reach a significant size (a few hundred people), hierarchy is established; leadership will then progressively solidify around a specific network of people, which becomes a de-facto separate class; eventually, you end up in a situation that is cooperative in name only, with a traditional managerial class dominating an exploited workforce; in the best case, the organization will share a culture of respecting workers slightly more than regular companies, but that's about it.
Note that I'm not discarding the model entirely, it can work extremely well on a small scale. There are also "hybrid" examples (like the John Lewis Partnership) which seem to better embody the cooperative ethos than "pure" coops at scale.
I think this is an important thing to think about, because labor has been fighting for rules to get companies to reduce turnover for a long time, and I'm not sure that is in the interest of laborers as a whole.
I certainly agree that employment is very important (especially under our current economic system... but personally, I think that having a job might be important even when you don't need to fear for your food.) - I think that lowering the unemployment rate is one of the most important things we can do for the happiness and health of our society, certainly as long as we use our current economic system.
but... I don't see why that means you should work at the same place forever. As is common in my industry, I jump around rather a lot; I don't think I've worked at a company I didn't own for more than five years (and five years was about the max I worked full time at my own company, rather than contracting myself out for venture capital)
In fact, I'd argue that greater job mobility gives the worker more power not less... the coercive power of the capitalist boss only exists if you think that after getting fired from this job you can't get another job. I would argue that workers as a whole would be better off at a same total level of unemployment, if changing jobs was easier, not harder.
Also the web developer in me has to point out that was a very clean and usable site (at least with my ad blocker and ghostery).
But really people from all spheres of life have strong, weak, but at least some opinion about stuff like that. _That_ is even weirder. That we can't just express ourselves how we are, but have to doubt and second-guess things within some identity framework.
The idea of pondering the role of masculinity comes from the feelings and actions men feel and take, it doesn't define them the other way around.
But people _do_ consciously think about it. Most people have conceptions, insecurities, and pride around what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. They are not studying things that people express but are unconscious or indifferent towards.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/berardi-interview
"Franco 'Bifo' Berardi is an Italian Marxist academic and theorist who has written extensively on the topic. In the introduction to his study of mass murder, Heroes, he says, "I saw the agony of capitalism and dismantling of social civilisation from a very peculiar point of view: crime and suicide". For Berardi, the mass murderer is not an aberration or a monster, but a character directly produced by a system which coerces us all to be constantly productive and competitive."
"I'm curious: if mass murder is a symptom of neoliberalism, which all of us live under, then why are all of these lone killers men? Yes, it's true. In the beginning of my book I say that I will be talking about young and old, white and black, Christians and Muslims – but only men. I don't think that a single woman has ever committed these kind of acts. Why so? The crucial point in the narrative is our culture of competition.
I know that many women are indeed very competitive, but I believe that competitiveness as a trait is essentially a male problem: first at the sexual level, and then also at an economic level. Feminism, as far as I can see, is essentially about abandoning and overcoming this imposed sense of competitiveness. This is why mass killers are men and only men."
The book Heroes is a chilling read. The forcible casting of men into these toxic roles that provide only insecurity, loneliness and frustration is a form of biopolitics. The man who is convinced he is alone and must fight and struggle against society to be himself is more useful to that society than a man who is rooted in his community, who endeavors towards his self-actulization collectively, in cooperation with his fellow man and woman. A new masculine paradigm may end up looking quite old: A rejection of neoliberal competitive individualism and a rekindling of the communal man.
I mean, declaring that women don't become mass murderers is 100% wrong. So does anything he wrote stand up, then?
Also, Countess Erzsebet Bathory of Hungary, just for fun.
Granted, they emphasize those things in general. That's the picture of human being painted by neoliberalism. It affects men more. Men don't have something like feminism yet that allows them to resist these narratives and reclaim their male identity.
Not many women make it to presidential or CEO levels of power, but those that do hardly have a perfect human rights record, or show a clear preference for "collective self-actualisation, in cooperation with man and woman."
The problem is unlikely to be down to competition. It may be due to stresses/abuses while growing up and/or in adulthood, but it's difficult to find a definitive map of cause and effect.
I'm certainly not a supporter of neoliberalism in any way at all. But I strongly prefer criticisms that aren't factually wrong.
I think toxic masculinity is under-examined and men are disadvantaged about talking about it and recasting their identities without it because, well, a lot of men in these comment trees demonstrate a resistance to entertaining the idea it seems on principle. That principle seems to be, and I have to guess here because it's usually left implicit, is that masculinity is somehow immutable, innate, apolitical and unideological, and I think that's a harmful attitude to take in the interest of society and one's own interest. It makes violence against men at the level of identity and gender unassailable, unexaminable.
But of course some guy in this comment tree found a way to blame it on feminists and women.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10683479
> And traditionally women were loath to marry down, for example, whereas for men it was pretty common. I guess to prevent mass shootings, more feminists should marry down instead of complain about male competitiveness (which is 99% driven by women's choices, as mates is part of what men compete over).
I think the reading I suggested is far more constructive than everything else being brought to the table here, really.
You're right, reading the whole thing is the only way to know for sure. But time and attention are finite resources. We can't actually read everything. When deciding what to read, I tend to lean heavily towards those things that get basic facts right, because they're more likely to be in some way related to reality.
I think the pressure on men in society is simply higher. Women at least have their wombs, men only bring their achievements to the table. And traditionally women were loath to marry down, for example, whereas for men it was pretty common. I guess to prevent mass shootings, more feminists should marry down instead of complain about male competitiveness (which is 99% driven by women's choices, as mates is part of what men compete over).
I also seem to remember reading that the "running amok" thing also used to happen in traditional societies, so assuming it is a symptom of Neoliberalism is probably incorrect. The word "Amok" apparently is derived from a traditional culture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok
jaquesm has some very interesting critique here.