The ‘Men are Finished’ Debate

Rosin, the author of last summer's Atlantic cover story "The End of Men," used her opening statement to argue that men are through dominating because they've failed to adapt to a postmodern economy that places a higher premium on traditionally feminine attributes (consensus-building, social intuition, empathy, and communication skills). Men have narrow, inflexible ideas of what it means to be a man, and thus have pigeonholed themselves into dying industries. Women, on the other hand, are more flexible and malleable than ever before. There's "some special formula required for succeeding" today that women seem to have in greater abundance," Rosin said, while reeling off favorable statistics. In 2010, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in American history. They now hold 54 percent of managerial jobs, and are set to dominate 13 of the 15 industries projected to grow the most in the next decade. They're more likely than men to receive a college degree. Meanwhile, one-fifth of men are out of work. And images of the "omega" male (imagine the slothlike, video-game entranced, drugged-up, potbellied guys you see in Judd Apatow movies) dominate movies and television shows. "We'd like you to think of this as the writing on the wall, the sign that points to an inevitable future," she asserted. "The world where men dominate the public sphere, and where male traits lead to public success is the world we're saying goodbye to."