It’s a Man’s World, and It Always Will Be

In spite of how it begins, this article can be read as yet another criticism of men, albeit an underhanded one. Two key points the author makes betray this:

"Yes, there has been a gradual transition from an industrial to a service-sector economy in which women, who generally prefer a safe, clean, quiet work environment thrive."

"After the next inevitable apocalypse, men will be desperately needed again! Oh, sure, there will be the odd gun-toting Amazonian survivalist gal, who can rustle game out of the bush and feed her flock, but most women and children will be expecting men to scrounge for food and water and to defend the home turf. Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists, who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible. It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments. It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall."

To summarize, she argues that women are better adapted to the modern white-collar workplace while men, thanks to their brute strength, are better adapted to lower status blue-collar jobs, and nothing short of an apocalypse will put men back on top. There's certainly no rancor against men evident in this fact-based argument!

This end to the article is especially unfortunate because there should be some real concern about how men are portrayed in modern media. In children's movies, boys have become brutish, bullying antagonists to the protagonist princess more often than not. In comedies, the most common formula pairs a strong, competent, beautiful woman with a bumbling, slob of a man-child who will inevitably woo the lass with sweet intent more than anything else. Arguably, this probably reflects the fantasies of the bumbling, slovenly, men-children running Hollywood more than a deliberate campaign against the competent male, but the effect is the same. Action flicks glorify blue-collar men. The cerebral, hero scientists of decades past are long gone. Heck, even Indiana Jones is grossly over-educated by modern action hero standards!

TL;DR: Men built the modern society, women should be grateful. Men are doing all the dangerous work in the world, women should be grateful. When society collapses, the classic male figure will be necessary once again.

That's it. I guess the author does not think that women would be "pouring concrete, laying bricks" even if their lives depended on it.

From Jezebel: "Camille Paglia has been trolling since before trolling was A Thing. She's the OG of barfing up archaic assertions about women, men, and feminism, justifying them with sweeping, unverified statements, and dressing them up with $2 words, and calling it new. Her latest, "It's A Man's World, And It Always Will Be" is so absurd that it doesn't merit a response; it merits an edit." Http://jezebel.com/camille-paglia-please-see-me-after-class-1484324950

> without strong men as models to either embrace or (for dissident lesbians) to resist, women will never attain a centered and profound sense of themselves as women.

You know, if you feel your femininity is defined in terms of the men in your life, that's your business. And I can understand how if you felt that way you might feel that other women weren't really women.

But if that's your definition, then I don't want to be your sort of woman. Waving your hands in the air and saying things like 'centered and profound' just makes you sound like you don't have an argument.