I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would see a “response” to The Atlantic’s piece by Hannah Rosin, “The End of Men” from someone somewhere out there the Femisphere, and Ms. Irin Carmon , staff writer/blogger for Jezebel.com, whom I consider to be one of the Internet’s “Cyber Sisters”, didn’t disappoint. Her piece, which was posted on the Jezebel site yesterday, has all of what we’ve come to expect of today’s Estrogen-injected commentariat-heavy on the high falutin’ snark, but woefully light on the substance. You can see her column for yourself in full, but for my purpose I’m gonna present what I consider to be its most salient points in the form of what we Black folk know as a “call and response” format-a kind of conversation between Ms. Carmon and moi. Let’s roll:
MS. IRIN CARMON: Men Are Over. Except At The Top.
OBSIDIAN: In the words of the Gipper, see there you go *again*, doing that Hypergamy thing. You run right past the points the article itself makes and instead bemoan the fact that the topmost spots are still all Male. Sure didn’t take you long to get right to the point, now did ya?
IC: But, see, it’s different this time because that one had a question mark! And this one has a limp-dicked and downward-indicating male symbol. All of which means, I guess, that women have a slight edge over non-white supremacy. Must we always compete?
O: Hold up, Ms. Carmon. You know, I’ve been watching you and your “sisters” throw down for quite sometime now, from the sidelines, and I gotta tell ya-as a Black Man, it gets tiresome listening to upper middle class White (or Jewish, as the case may be) hipsterettes work themselves up into a self-congratulatory lather talking about how “down with the people” they are. Truth be told, there is a tenuous relationship between you all and the Sistas to begin with at best, and in that I’ve lived or worked in most of the Eastern seaboard’s inner city hoods, I have yet to run across the likes of you there making fellowship with Tanya and Rashidah. So, please, spare me the racebaiting, I simply ain’t having it.
Moreover, based on your curricula vitae, you haven’t done so bad for yourself: magna cum laude from Harvard, worked for the Boston Globe, both at home and its Jerusalem Bureau, the New York Times, Women’s Wear; you’ve globetrotted a bit and got paid doing it; and you were born into what most people would agree was quite auspicious surroundings. Nice work if you can get it, hmm, Irin? All that lathering up about Patriarchy and how The Man’s keeping you Womenfolk down’s gotta be sooooo tiring…
IC: It can be difficult to shake the suspicion that the Atlantic has an unwritten editorial policy to consider feminism — and any discussion of say, workplace discrimination, sexual assault, reproductive freedom — such hoary conventional wisdom that any issue labeled “Ideas” has to bravely blow it up. (The same may go for critiques of racism). We’re so over it all already, and now the supremacy of the feminist establishment needs to be interrogated by some fierce, independent-minded sort like Caitlin Flanagan.
O: What’s difficult to shake-to say nothing of keeping a straightface to keep from busting out in laughter-is the notion that “reproductive freedom” is something that is actually evenly applied to ALL people, not just one half.
Shall we go there, Ms. Carmon. Hmm?
IC: Rosin did actually report out her piece, though there is an unmistakable tone of handwringing to it, a worry that all women will turn out like the poor unmarried black women, and a fairly unexamined assumption that when women thrive in the economy, men will grow rightfully angry and resentful that their naturally brawny and vigorous selves are being oppressed.
O: Then it must be true, that two people can look at a piece of art or read a book and take completely differing impressions from it. When I read Rosin’s piece (complete with the video clip that I see you forgot(?) to mention, I don’t see a heck of a lot of overwrought handwringing; I saw a Woman and her daughter doing a victory dance Terrill Owens himself would have a hard time matching. Go figure.
IC: And yet, for all the hand-wringing over the lonely spinster, the real loser in society—the only one to have made just slight financial gains since the 1970s—is the single man, whether poor or rich, college-educated or not. Hens rejoice; it’s the bachelor party that’s over.
It’s ladies’ night! Are you having fun yet?
O: Let’s ask Ms. Lincoln, Ms. Whitman, Ms. Fiorina and Ms. Haley, hmm?
IC: Some of this evidence is quite convincing to Rosin’s point that women are taking over and men are lagging and it’s only going to get worse.
O: Yes, let’s examine a bit of that evidence for a moment, shall we? According to the article, *girls* are being requested at fertility clinics now, at a rate of nearly two to one-if ever that was an indicator that things are very good for the ladies, that would be it. Please point me to the part in your piece where you mention that? I must’ve missed it.
IC: And some of it very much isn’t. This is true when she implies that pop culture caricatures (overwhelmingly created by male executives and creatives) are a form of female-friendly social change, and even more so when she glosses over the fact that female domination is most prominent in the least empowered classes.
O: Excuse me? “Least empowered” where? Perhaps you missed the part of her article where, at a young Men’s group meeting, a fella relayed his story about being kicked out of the house with the word “bitch!” by his baby mama, because he didn’t have any money? Or, perhaps you missed the part of the article where Rosin quotes one of the authors of the book Promises I Can Keep, about how POOR WOMEN call ALL the shots in the mating dance, from start to finish? And, again, as someone who’s actually lived a very large chunk of his life in the hood-like, um, all of it-I can tell you, without fear of retribution or rebuke, that those accounts are true. Nor is this “dominance something that is only to be seen among the poor – all up and down the social scale, Women call the shots – they can decide who lives and who dies, who pays if they decided on life. And it doesn’t stop there – it extends to who gets dragged into court for all manner of stuff, like rape and sexual harrassment charges, domestic abuse charges, stalking charges, you name it. The way things are right now, all a Woman needs is her say so in order to put a guy – be he Damon on the block or Dimon on Wall Street’s butt in a sling. If that ain’t “dominance” then I don’t know what is, Ms. Carmon.
But, move along, there’s nothing to see here…
IC: Here are the nods at the evidence that it might not be so simple:
Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination. Yes, women still do most of the child care. And yes, the upper reaches of society are still dominated by men. But given the power of the forces pushing at the economy, this setup feels like the last gasp of a dying age rather than the permanent establishment.
O: Interesting that you completely ignore the fact that boys are failing in school at ever-increasing rates, and aren’t choosing to go on to university. Nor is this surprising: in my hometown of Philly, fives years ago, the White Feminists of the Main Line swooped in like flying monkeys when the very idea was floated of creating gender specific schools to adress the city’s burgeoning crime and homicide problem. Even as Philly’s murder rate was climbing toward 500 for the year, the Main Line Feminists were staunchly against the idea, on the grounds that it would make girls feel bad. Forget the fact that said White Main Line Feminists didn’t live anywhere near where the action was, and kept it that way, making sure to send their girls to safe and tidy ALL GIRLS prep schools-no, they not only had the loud mouths, but also had the loot and political pull, to squash the idea of trying to save Black boys’ minds and lives.
Said idea hasn’t been heard from since.
But of course, you’ll never write about that…
And as for this notion that the Women work and toil from sun up to sundown both at home and on the gig, the facts don’t bear this out, Ms. Carmon. Indeed, studies show that American Men are spending more time with their kids than ever, and are contributing to home chores more than ever. Now, could it be better-absolutely. But where I come from, making note of such watershed things is called…progress. I suppose you’re not aware of that word?
IC: Near the top of the jobs pyramid, of course, the upward march of women stalls. Prominent female CEOs, past and present, are so rare that they count as minor celebrities, and most of us can tick off their names just from occasionally reading the business pages…The accomplishment is considered so extraordinary that Whitman and Fiorina are using it as the basis for political campaigns. Only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and the number has never risen much above that.
O: Yea, but here’s the kicker Ms. Carmon-is that because “The Man” is still keeping (well to do, upper middle class White & Jewish, in the main) Women down, or are there other factors at play? I say, at this stage in the game, the answer tends to lean toward the latter than the former, and not quite for the reasons you might think. Or assume.
In any event, and surely by now you must know, that both Fiorina and Whitman were able to successfully parlay their businessworld cred into votes at the ballot box-the latter spent more money than Goldman Sachs golden boy Jon Corzine and rivalled Michael Bloomberg for God’s sake. I mean, call me crazy, but I thought the other night was a good thing for Women? *smh*…
IC: In his editor’s letter, Atlantic editor-in-chief James Bennet tries to explain the dissonance more directly:
“Our politics and corporate boardrooms are lagging indicators of what is happening in the society, where women already hold most positions in middle management and would be overwhelming our universities were it not for stealthy affirmative action on behalf of overmatched young men. Small wonder the Tea Party is mostly male, as well as white.”
IC: You could quibble about whether the Tea Party is evidence that white men are going out kicking and screaming because they’re so over, or whether it’s just a repackaged insurgency of the same old dominant norms. But in the haste to declare the end of all men, everywhere, what’s missing here is the fact that this supposed male disempowerment has yet to seriously affect the major citadels of power — who has access to economic and political capital, or positions of influence ranging from Hollywood to Wall Street to, well, The Atlantic . Is it a lagging indicator that will trickle upward somehow, or is it just a reconfigured landscape in which class, race, and gender converge to keep the concentration of power relatively unchanged?
O: Oh, I get it-so what happens to Joe Sixpack ain’t all that important, huh, Ms. Carmon? It ONLY matters when Ted Turner gets his comeuppance-is that it? Very empathetic of ya. And please, stop with the “we’re all in this together” BS, because we’re NOT. Neither you, nor the whole lot of you Feministas, have shown any evidence of really giving one whit of care or concern about what happens to Black or Brown lives. I know, because I’m where the action is.
IC: As Ann Friedman notes ,
“Sure, college-age women tell her they hope to become surgeons and marry men who will be primary caregivers. But research shows that few women actually realize this domestic arrangement— they tend to marry other high-achieving men who expect their own careers to take precedence.”
O: Hmm, I wonder why that is? Could it have anything to do with the fact that in truth, the vast majority of Women, given the choice do NOT want to hookup with Mr. Mom?
IC: Many of the fastest-growing, female-dominated industries, which do not require a college education, are among the lowest paid. And while there are a handful of female CEOs and senators, women have yet to crack the glass ceiling with any sort of critical mass.
O: Meanwhile, many of the jobs don’t require a college education, like uh, coalmine worker or oil rig operator, just happen to be ones where fatalities occur, and which are overwhelmingly staffed by Men-you know, like the ones that who died back in April, Ms. Carmon? Wonder if you wrote anything about that. I have to check your website…
IC: To argue that female valedictorians and single mothers getting social work degrees will someday mean “the end” of a society in which men still set almost all the terms is skipping steps. You know, the ones in which we reshape our cultural norms so that male identity isn’t polarized between Marlboro Man and “omega male,” as Rosin posits and implicitly enforces. And in which increased and broader participation of women isn’t concentrated at the most disadvantaged segments of society, or uncritically construed as a dangerously unstable zero-sum game.
O: Please-you know just as well as I do that if and when Women can choose-and we all know they most certainly can and do-they ain’t that crazy about “reshaping cultural norms” to the extent that Michael Cera replaces, or even keeps pace with, Tom Brady. And as so many authors, yes, quite a few of them Women like yourself have noted so many times, quite a few Women in our time are CHOOSING to be singlemoms, and despite all the spinning from your corner of the blogosphere, no one’s forcing Women to make their academic bones in the Humanities departments. This is all their own choice, so if they don’t like said choices, who should they then blame? Why Men, of course!
IC: By the way, with all of the Atlantic ‘s talk of women and brown people ruling the roost, what will that mean for their own staff? Let’s look at their line-up of star bloggers:
O: Come now, Irin, why stop there? Here’s a shortlist of the Internet’s top ten feminist blogs-maybe you’ve heard of a few of em:
1. Feministing
2. Feministe
3. Our Bodies Our Blog
4. Jezebel
5. Broadsheet (part of Salon.com, don’t ya know)
6. Finally Feminism 101
7. Women in Media & News Blog
8. Holla Back NYC
9. MediaGirl
10. Bitch Magazine
And let’s not stop there-theres the traditional “Seven Sisters” mags, Cosmo, Marie Claire, Vogue, People and its many variants, Essence (since you’re so concerned about “people of color”)…and let’s not forget the Queen of them All, “O” magazine, named after its “mama” Oprah Winfrey herself (and soon to have her own network-all Oprah, all the time, oh joy). There’s Ana Marie Cox, founder of Wonkette…I mean the list of Women in media, legacy or new wave, is virtually endless. The mere thought or suggestion that somehow Women aren’t getting their message(s) out and/or having their voices heard, is patently absurd, when one just takes the most casual of glances around. You could not have written the above with a straightface…right?
IC: And as has already been pointed out , eleven of the fourteen pieces that make up the Ideas issue were written by men. Either the Atlantic is another lagging indicator, or they’ve read their own cover stories and decided to throw a bone to the beleaguered white man — that future of affirmative action they mention, perhaps.
O: If the shoe fits, my lady. After all, Affirmative Action was designed to redress historical injustices. With the way things are going now, it ain’t too far fetched to say that being Male is the New Black.
I just happen to know a little something about that.
If you got a mind-holla back…
The Obsidian
