Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What's wrong with 20 something men?

3 comments:

jwhitney said...

Great article. Sad, but true for a substantially large (and growing) population of men in their 20s. She makes alot of the same points that Michael Kimmel touches on in his book GUYLAND. I actually missed the talk Kimmel gave at Hamilton this past semester, did anyone go/if so how was it??

TJE said...

I did. I like this author better. Kimmel tried to bootstrap data like these to support his left/feminist agenda.

Anna Mikhailovich said...

I really enjoyed this article. The author, Kay S. Hymowitz, mainly discusses men in their 20s living an extended adolescence. On women, Hymowitz concludes that they are successful in the workplace, are the “first sex,” and will eventually “either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank.” While this may be true, I believe that this is an oversimplification. I conducted a qualitative research project about young women in the age of delayed adulthood in my Research Methods class this fall. Through interviews and field work, I found that whereas the young women of the Feminist Movement worried about their careers and receiving equal right as females, the young women of the post-Feminist Movement are more worried about marriage because of the new way in which young adults organize their lives. As large-scale societal changes have lessened the uncertainty of career opportunities for women, they have simultaneously created a culture of hooking up that makes it difficult to date. And while both men and women are expected to delay marriage and family life, they continue to value love, marriage, and friendship (from a Study of American Families). I do not think that women will give up so easily on finding "Mr. Right". However, it is also important to remember that while socially we can have a delayed adulthood, biologically (for women) it is not as easy. This places women in a difficult position and perhaps, for women who do want to have kids, they will have to resort to articial insemination as Hymowitz suggests...