While at the doctor's office, I caught a glimpse of the new Newsweek cover, with a story about how white men are losing ground in the modern world. Wait, what?! Granted, the recession has hit a certain segment of white man (high school drop outs, blue collar workers) particularly hard. But, let's be honest, they were never going to be on top. So, I flipped open the magazine and see this article say that even college-educated white men turn into BWMs once they turn 45--"Beached White Males."
The article goes on to state: "And while economists don’t have fine-grain data on the number of these men who are jobless—many, being men, would rather not admit to it—by all indications this hitherto privileged demo isn’t just on its knees, it’s flat on its face."
I'm flummoxed. The quote pretty much says, "we don't have hard data OR anecdotal information to back up this assertion." Yet, the article goes on for 4 more pages about the sad story of a laid-off Harvard MBA.
So why does the article even exist? Or get published? Is this because there's a black guy in the White House? Is it because that pesky feminist movement is mature enough to have women who graduated in the 70's experienced enough to make a dent in power positions? Is it because companies are have promoted managers based on talent instead of membership in an exclusive club?
But it is not as if white men are a scarcity at the top. At my company board meeting, it was full of white men. And I mean FULL. Not one woman. Not one person of color. Management ranks are equally diverse. If I am to extrapolate my future at my firm based on what is currently above me, I can expect one more promotion and then...well, that's it.
So, I'm going to call bullshit. Bullshit on BWMs. Bullshit on the pale, male, stale board meetings. Bullshit on denying privilege. Bullshit on the idea that me getting a promotion means that I'm taking a position away from a man that needs to support his family. And bullshit on Newsweek. Way to perpetuate a completely bankrupt point of view, asshats.
To me, this is the most true piece of the article --
ReplyDeleteThis is a generation caught between two ideas of manhood, says Coontz: “Old enough to have been brought up with a model of male breadwinning. Young enough to feel they shouldn’t be threatened if their wife has a job.”
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I think about this a lot in terms of the movies put out in the last 10 years, too -- all of the down-on-their-luck, slightly dumb but don't we love them anyway?, young, male protagonists. It's like all of a sudden we feel bad for men because they are being rendered obsolete by working women who have had to multitask their whole lives. I had a boss once who said, when given the choice between two equally qualified people, one male and one female, he would always hire the woman. He said they were universally better at managing their time and their assignments.
I don't think that men have yet caught on to the idea that yes, we CAN do professional jobs just as well as them. It's no affront to their manhood, their intelligence, or anything else to acknowledge that women bring skills to the table too. And I also don't think that they've caught on to the idea that while their wives are capable of performing professional work, they, too, are capable of contributing to the household.
So all I have to say to all those laid-off men is they'd better be doing some laundry while they are at home and their wives are out busting their asses.
Thinking on the BMW's, though I haven't read the article yet, I'm not sure how I feel. I often think about male and female roles in the workplace - especially when I was the only female engineer working in an office full of men. I think I was lucky in that they mostly treated me as an equal (really they just watched what they said around me) but I never felt as though I wouldn't have "made it to the top" just because I am female. I remember thinking back in college (due mostly in part to old stodgy professors with antiquated views on how the world should turn) that it was going to be very difficult for me to make it very far in my career just because I was XX and not XY. I don't think I've found this to be the case, though. Even in my new job - where there are significantly more women (though no other female engineers - I'm told I'm the first of those) I don't feel as though there's any reason I can't succeed as far as any other person. However, all this being said and as Idgie has mentioned, I don't believe there's much diversity in the boards of either organizations that I've worked for. I suppose it may take another generation to flush the old boy's club out of those positions.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I still think we're in a pretty good place with sexism in the workplace compared to other countries. I've been fortunate enough to travel the world training vehicle manufacturers on how to run certain tests and have encountered a number of men who turned to my subordinate male colleagues, instead of me, to ask questions and obtain information. I politely handled the situation and, in the end, was deemed a "famous engineer" by a small group of folks from an unnamed auto company :)
Substantive proof that you can be famous for something other than eating white chocolate.
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