Concern on gender roles and feminism. Does anyone else see this as a potential issue?

21 points26 commentssubmitted by smeltaway to r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates

Men's Lib, and to some extent MRAs, have been advocating for men to abandon traditional masculinity on the grounds that it is constraining and men should be free to pursue what they want, not just what society tells them is good.

In a vacuum, I think this is great. Men shouldn't be forced into a role there is no longer a need for. Although I haven't researched it, it seems plausible that following what we want to do is one of the better ways to be happy and live a fulfilling life.

My concern is that we don't live in a vacuum, and coupling this with the feminist movement will ultimately lead men to be forced into a role in which we have no choice, power or value. Here's why:

The feminist movement has been pushing for women to be strong, independent, pursue financial success and climb the career ladder. Women who choose not to do this are vilified. To be clear, women working and achieving is just fine--they should have the same right to a job we do.

We also know that leaving the traditional men's role means men are incentivized to do almost anything that doesn't focus on career success.

We know humans respond to incentives (see Freakonomics ch.1 and tons of behavioral psychology literature), and we know the incentives are now tied to women working and succeeding and men doing anything except that.

Results of a recent LinkedIn study which showed women were 16-18% more likely to to get jobs they apply for than men, women make up the majority of the workforce now and get the majority of university degrees at all levels.

Given these trends, it is increasingly likely men will have a harder time finding a decent paying job compared to their spouse and will be relegated by lack of a better option to being homemakers. This is already happening, over the last 25 years, the number of men staying home has almost doubled from 4% to 7%, and the number who are staying home ostensibly to take care of kids and family has risen by 1,300% (no thats not a typo).

We also know that what we see around us helps influence our cultural norms, and that children are much more likely to take after their parents in career choice. However, this is largely true for roles which are culturally seen in either a positive or neutral light culturally.

As a result, it seems likely to me that feminism's enforcement of success and promotion of women at work and the fact that men have a harder time getting degrees and finding jobs, coupled with a lack of social support for men focusing on a career will ultimately not lead to equality, but rather men falling into a norm of being homemakers. If the current rate of increase holds, we are about 90 years from seeing men stay home at a rate last seen for women in the 1960s.

When women were homemakers, society largely dictated that it was the man's job to provide for his family and take care of them. Feminism holds no such notion about how women should treat men and generally argues the opposite. Although it is all anecdotal, if you read stories of men who married spouses who significantly out-earned them, abuse was common. The expectation from the woman was often "my money, my rules". I see no sign of this changing.

Assuming trends hold, in 90 years this means men who are homemakers are very likely to have little say in what happens in the family or their own lives, receive little recognition for the work they do, and have no social support for seeking other roles. We have already seen how long it took women to escape this.

As a result, I am very concerned that by virtue of ending social norms of men succeeding at work, we are setting up future men for a society which will develop oppressive norms and treatment toward the role of men.

What do others think? Am I completely off base here? Is there anything to this?