How Lovely to be a Woman

A recent piece in The Atlantic has made quite a splash. It is provocatively titled "The End of Men". In it, author Hanna Rosin discusses how the global economy is shifting toward skills that supposedly women excel in. I think her case is over-stated, unsurprisingly, given her title, but it's certainly interesting.

Nicholas Kristof, a great champion of the girl child, already has a response, in which he assures us that boys are going to be okay. He's probably right. Balancing things out is likely to have some unfortunate moments of ugliness though. Power is never given up without a struggle.

One of the most interesting things Rosin points out is that while women have entered into most previously male-dominated fields in droves, men have not moved into women-dominated fields much at all, even the ones that used to be male-dominated like teaching and secretarial work. That resistance seems to be holding up, despite the fact that many of these fields are now the only ones growing. We'll see how long that lasts. How poor are men willing to be to maintain their machismo?