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The idea that men are in decline and may face extinction would have seemed ludicrous even a few years ago. Now more and more people are taking it seriously. The prestigious British Journal of Medicine published an editorial written by Siegfried Meryn, M.D. titled “The future of men and their health: Are men in danger of extinction?” “Although there is still a long way to go in most societies around the world, it is clear that women can perform (and on most occasions outperform) pretty much all the tasks traditionally reserved for men,” says Dr. Meryn in his editorial. “In most of the developed world women are starting to outnumber men in medical schools and making rapid gains in terms of equality in compensation and opportunities in the workforce. “With the advent of sperm banks, in vitro fertilization, sex sorting techniques, sperm independent fertilization of eggs with somatic cells, human cloning, and same sex marriages, it is also reasonable to wonder about the future role of men in society.” Comments are welcome.
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The End of Men? 15 Reasons Males Are Facing Extinction
By Jed Diamond, Ph.D.
Contact: [email protected] Web: www.MenAlive.com
“It was a great mistake my being born a man. I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death.”
--Eugene O-Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night
Men An Endangered Species?
#1 Women Don’t Need Us
The idea that men are in decline and may face extinction would have seemed ludicrous even a
few years ago. Now more and more people are taking it seriously. The prestigious British
Journal of Medicine published an editorial written by Siegfried Meryn, M.D. titled “The future
of men and their health: Are men in danger of extinction?”
“Although there is still a long way to go in most societies around the world, it is clear that
women can perform (and on most occasions outperform) pretty much all the tasks traditionally
reserved for men,” says Dr. Meryn in his editorial. “In most of the developed world women are
starting to outnumber men in medical schools and making rapid gains in terms of equality in
compensation and opportunities in the workforce. “With the advent of sperm banks, in vitro
fertilization, sex sorting techniques, sperm independent fertilization of eggs with somatic cells,
human cloning, and same sex marriages, it is also reasonable to wonder about the future role of
men in society.”
According to Bryan Sykes, professor of genetics at Oxford University and author of Adam’s
Curse: A Future Without Men, “It is no secret that, underneath it all, men are basically
genetically modified women. In this respect, our evolution can be regarded as a gigantic and
long-running GM experiment. Adam is as much cursed as curing. Far from being vigorous and
robust, this ultimate genetic symbol of male machismo, the Y chromosome, is decaying at such
as alarming rather that, for humans, at least, the GM experiment will soon be over. Like many
species before us who have lost their males, we run the real risk of extinction.”
----
Men An Endangered Species?
#2 Males Are Fragile
From the moment of conception males are more fragile and vulnerable than females. Male
fetuses die more often than female. So do male newborns. So do male infants. So do male
adolescents. So do male adults. So do old men.
Part of the explanation is the biology of the male fetus, which is little understood and not
widely known. At conception there are more male than female embryos. This may be because
the spermatozoa carrying the Y chromosome swim faster than those carrying X. The advantage
is, however, immediately challenged. External maternal stress around the time of conception is
associated with a reduction in the male to female sex ratio, suggesting that the male embryo is
more vulnerable than the female.
The male fetus is at greater risk of death or damage from almost all the obstetric catastrophes
that can happen before birth. Perinatal brain damage, cerebral palsy, congenital deformities of the
genitalia and limbs, premature birth, and stillbirth are commoner in boys, and by the time a boy is
born he is on average developmentally some weeks behind his sister. A newborn girl is the
physiological equivalent of a 4 to 6 week old boy.
Men An Endangered Species?
#3 Males Pay a Price for the Glory of Manhood
William S. Pollack, in his book Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood,
says that boys "lose their voice, a whole half of their emotional selves, beginning at age 4 or 5.
Their vulnerable, sad feelings and sense of need are suppressed or shamed out of them," he says
-- by their peers, parents, the great wide televised fist in their face. He adds: "If you keep
hammering it into a kid that he has to look tough and stop being a crybaby and a mama's boy,
the boy will start creating a mask of bravado."
In his book, The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege,
psychologist Herb Goldberg summarizes what many have come to believe about men. “The
American an endangered species? he asks. “Absolutely! The male has paid a heavy price for his
masculine ‘privilege’ and power. He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is
playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying
himself—emotionally, psychologically and physically.”
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Men An Endangered Species?
#4 Boys Fall Behind in School
“Something dramatic happens to girls in early adolescence,” said Mary Pipher, author of
Reviving Ophelia. “Just as planes and ships disappear mysteriously into the Bermuda Triangle,
so do the selves of girls go down in droves. They crash and burn.” However, we may be
missing an even more at-risk group—boys.
Data from the U.S. Department of Education and from several recent university studies show
that boys are falling behind in their education. Girls get better grades. They have higher
educational aspirations. They follow a more rigorous academic program and participate more in
the prestigious Advanced Placement (AP) program.
It should not surprise us then that girls read more books. They outperform males on tests of
artistic and musical ability. More girls than boys study abroad. Conversely, more boys than
girls are suspended from school. More are held back and more drop out. Boys are three times as
likely as girls to be enrolled in special education programs and four times as likely to be
diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). More boys than girls are
involved in crime, alcohol, and drugs.
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Men An Endangered Species?
#5 Males Lack Important Social Skills
Surprisingly, it was John D. Rockefeller who said, “The ability to deal with people is as
purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other
under the sun.”
Neuroscientists currently believe that interpersonal sensitivity, a conglomerate of aptitudes
they call “executive social skills” or “social cognition,” resides in the prefrontal cortex, the area
of the brain behind the brow. Those with a well-functioning prefrontal cortex are aware of the
feelings of others, pick up on emotional expressions and body language, and are adept at
maintaining good social relationships with friends, family and co-workers.
Neuroscientist David Skuse believes that women are more likely than men to acquire the
genetic endowment for developing these vital social skills. The reason, he believes, is that there
is a specific gene or cluster of genes on the X chromosome that influences the formation of the
prefrontal cortex. He found that this gene or gene cluster is silenced in 100% of men but active
in about 50% of women. Hence about half of all women and no men have the brain architecture
to excel at perceiving the nuances of social interplay. This doesn’t mean that the other 50% of
women and all us men can’t learn these skills. It just means we have to work harder at it.
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Men An Endangered Species?
#6 Being Male is Seen As Bad
Some feminists believe that being male is itself some kind of disease. Natalie Angier, an
influential voice in the public discourse on gender, wrote a piece in the New York Times called
“The Debilitating Malady Called Boyhood: Is There A Cure?” Can you imagine what kind of
an uproar would be created if the New York Times published an article titled “The Debilitating
Malady Called Girlhood: Is There A Cure?”
Well, if being a male is a disease, guess what the cure would be. Marilyn French is another
prominent American writer, celebrated for her novel The Women’s Room.” In a New York
Times interview she said, “I think men would be much happier if they behaved like women. I
think they would get much more out of life and would have much more easier selves if they were
like women.” Could anyone in the world today get away with suggesting that women would be
happier if they were like men, or that Muslims would be happier if they behaved more like Jews,
or Blacks happier if they behaved more like Whites?
----
Men An Endangered Species?
#7 Manhood is The Big Impossible
In his book Manhood in the Making, anthropologist David Gilmore reports on his cross-
cultural exploration of what it means to be a man. In cultures as diverse as hunter-gatherers,
horticultural and pastoral tribes, peasants, postindustrial civilizations from the east and west, he
found a similar vulnerability in all men. “Among most of the peoples that anthropologists are
familiar with,” says Gilmore, “true manhood is a precious and elusive status beyond mere
maleness.
Everywhere he looked at cultures Gilmore found that masculinity is a much more uncertain
concept than that of femininity. As author Norman Mailer recognized “Nobody was born a man;
you earned manhood provided you were good enough, bold enough.” He could be speaking
about the universal man, not just men in contemporary western cultures. In aboriginal North
America, among the Fox tribe for instance, manhood was seen as being “the Big Impossible,” an
exclusive status that only the nimble few can achieve.
Although women are pressured to live up to certain standards of femininity in all cultures and
are sanctioned and punished if they deviate, they are not threatened with the loss of their
womanhood to the degree that is true of men. “Rarely is their right to a gender identity
questioned in the same public, dramatic way that it is for men,” says Gilmore. “The very paucity
of linguistic labels for females echoing the epithets ‘effete,’ ‘unmanly’ ‘effeminate,’
‘emasculated,’ and so on, attest to this archetypical difference between sex judgments
worldwide.”
Men An Endangered Species?
#8 Men Can’t Give Women What They Need the Most
In Africa male weaverbirds build nests and hang from them while singing their courting
song. Female weaverbirds inspect the nests of various males and stay to mate with the ones who
have the most desirable nests. Women, like weaverbirds prefer men with desirable nests.
Throughout the world and across cultures, women are drawn to men who have resources. “From
insects to primates, females prefer wealthy males,” say David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton,
authors of Making Sense of Sex: How Genes and Gender Influence our Relationships.i As an old
advertisement went, “Promise her anything, but give her Arpege.”
Increasingly men are finding it difficult to give women what they want. In her book Stiffed:
The Betrayal of the American Man, author Susan Faludi talked to Don Motta who could be
speaking for millions of men in this country who have been laid off, been downsized, or part of a
company that has gone under. “There is no way you can feel like a man. You can’t. It’s the fact
that I’m not capable of supporting my family…When you’ve been very successful in buying a
house, a car, and could pay for your daughter to go to college, though she didn’t want to, you
have a sense of success and people see it. I haven’t been able to support my daughter. I haven’t
been able to support my wife.”
“I’ll be very frank with you,” he said slowly, placing every word down as if each were an
increasingly heavy weight. “I. Feel. I’ve. Been. Castrated.”
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Men An Endangered Species?
#9 Men Are Losing Out in the World of Work
We are seeing an emerging pattern throughout the industrial world, says Anthropologist
Lionel Tiger. “Men and women may not discern it clearly, but the pattern underlies their
experience in industrial society. It is a pattern of growth in the confidence and power of women,
and of erosion in the confidence and power of men.”
This is evident in the major shifts we are seeing in the workforce. Women are moving in and
men are moving out. Women currently make up 40 percent of the labor force in Europe and the
rest of the industrial world. During the last two decades more women have begun to work
outside the home almost everywhere in the world, while men’s participation in the labor force
has declined.
We see an even more dramatic trend in the proportion of educational degrees awarded to
women:
1970 2008
PhDs 13.3% 48.9%
MDs 8.4% 42.7%
Law 5.4% 45.9%
Dentists 0.9% 40.1%
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Men Over An Endangered Species?
#10 Men Are on Top in the Death Professions
In the 2002 Jobs Rated Almanac author Les Krantz rated the nation's ten best and ten worst
jobs. The criteria to determine the most and least appealing career opportunities include
environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, security and stress. Each
occupation is ranked using data from such sources as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the
U.S. Census Bureau, as well as studies conducted by a wide range of trade associations and
industry groups.
The ten best jobs include: Biologist, Actuary, Financial planner, Computer-systems analyst,
Accountant, Software engineer, Meteorologist, Paralegal assistant, Statistician, and Astronomer.
These are the kinds of jobs that women are beginning to move into in ever larger numbers.
The ten worst jobs include: Lumberjack, Commercial fisherman, Cowboy, Ironworker,
Seaman, Taxi driver, Construction worker, Farmer, Roofer, and Stevedore. Do we see a pattern
here in terms of gender? Picture people engaged in the jobs listed above. What comes to mind
—A man or a woman? Although the Monty Python comedy troupe made famous the song, "I'm
a Lumberjack and I'm O.K.," the life of professional lumberjacks couldn't be much rougher. I
live in a town where men still cut trees and work in the lumber mills. They all know someone
who has died over the years and every man I know has sustained serious injuries. Those
occupying the other professions don’t do much better. In fact, psychologist Warren Farrell calls
these jobs the “Death professions.”
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Men An Endangered Species?
#11 Women Have Become the First Sex
In her 1999 book, The First Sex, anthropologist Helen Fisher recognizes that a total
reversal of fortunes was underway in relationships between men and women. Based on a great
deal of scientific evidence that shows that the sexes are quite different in everything from brain
function to the ways hormones influence behavior, Fisher suggests that these differences make it
likely that women will dominate in significant areas of life in the 21st century. “As women
continue to pour into the paid workforce in cultures around the world,” says Fisher, “they will
apply their natural aptitudes in many sectors of society and dramatically influence twenty-first
century business, sex, and family life. In some important parts of the economy, they will even
predominate, becoming the first sex.”
In a period where education becomes increasingly important in being able to make a
living and create a meaningful identity, males are falling by the wayside. In 2001, a record 58
percent of college graduates were women. It’s the latest peak in a 20 year trend for women, who
also graduate from high school and enroll in college at higher rates than men. According to U.S.
Department of Education projections, the diploma gap between the sexes promises to keep
widening.
----
Men An Endangered Species?
#12 Men Are Losing The Marriage Game
With male economic prospects declining and females increasing, women are less likely to
marry and have families with men who aren’t on the track for success. The education gap is
having a profound effect on marriage and family life. According to Paul Harrington of
Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies, we are now seeing a “marriage gap,”
where educated women are finding it more and more difficult to find partners that they consider
equals.
The complaint that there aren’t enough “good men” available is particularly noticeable for
college-educated African American or Hispanic women. African American men receive about
half as many college degrees as black women and Hispanic men are outpaced 60 percent to 40
percent by Hispanic women.ii What has been true for minority women for some time, is now
becoming true for mainstream women. Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of Creating a Life says that
the more successful the woman, the more difficult it will be for her to find a mate or bear a child.
From a man’s point of view his prospects are becoming diminished. Without a good
education he can’t get a good job. Without a good job he can’t get a good woman who wants to
settle down and create a family with him. Without a family a man becomes increasingly isolated,
irritable, angry, and depressed.
----
Men An Endangered Species?
#13 Fatherhood Is On The Way Out
As women have fewer children, more are choosing to raise them without the involvement of
the father. “More women are having children without men, and therefore more men are without
the love of families, says anthropologist Lionel Tiger. “With startling new techniques,
unprecedented arrangements have been struck for insemination, conception, implantation, frozen
embryos, and surrogate mothers.
One of the leading predictors of violence in countries throughout the world is the percentage
of young men between the ages of 20 and 29 who are not married. Countries with large
percentages of young men in this age group include Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Turkey, Egypt, India,
Afghanistan, China, and Israel. We don’t have to be experts in world politics to know that these
countries are also the ones where war and violence is a constant concern. According to Edie
Weiner, president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., a leading futurist consulting group in the
United States, “The most destabilizing geopolitical force in the world today is the vast number of
young men without jobs and other opportunities.”
The place where the large population of unmarried males is most evident is in China. Chinese
traditions, a tough one-child-per couple policy and modern medical technology have combined
to create a demographic nightmare that could pose a threat to the stability of China and is likely
to impact the rest of the world. Over the next two decades, as many as 40 million young Chinese
men won’t be able to marry, settle down and start a family.
----
Men An Endangered Species?
i David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton. Making Sense of Sex: How Genes and Gender Influence our Relationships. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997, 34. ii Ibid.
#14 Men Are Losing Out in Work and Love
Divorced or separated men are more than twice as likely to kill themselves as men who remain
married. On the other hand, a marital split is not a significant risk factor for suicide among
women. These are the findings of a recent study of suicide and divorce that reveal a surprising
gender gap on the issue. "We knew from past research that divorce was linked to increased risk
of suicide," says Augustine Kposowa, the author of the study that appeared in The Journal of
Epidemiology and Community Health. "What we didn't know was the difference between men
and women in this respect."
Kposowa believes that one of the primary reasons for divorced fathers higher suicide rate may
be that they feel so alienated from their children. "A man may not get to see his children, even
with visitation rights," Kposowa says. "As far as the man is concerned, he has lost his marriage
and lost his children and that can lead to depression and suicide."
Karl Marx said about the industrial system that people are profoundly alienated from the
means of production—jobs. If Darwin were alive today, he might comment that men were
profoundly alienated from the means of reproduction—women.iii Freud might have pointed out
that men have become alienated from both basic needs, lieben und arbeiten--To love and to
work.
----
iii Reported by Tiger, 1999, p. 27.
Men An Endangered Species?
#15 Men Are Killing Themselves in Record Numbers
There are millions of men who are depressed, but don’t know it and millions more who know
it, but are afraid to show it. It isn’t manly to be depressed. There is a double stigma for men.
We can accept physical disability, but mental disability makes us feel helpless and out of control.
Emotional problems are also seen by many of us as “feminine.” We cover our unhappiness with
drink, drugs, excessive exercise, overwork, and angry moods.
Psychotherapist Terrence Real, author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the
Secret Legacy of Male Depression says: “Hidden depression drives several of the problems we
think of as typically male: physical illness, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, failures
in intimacy, self-sabotage in careers.”
Estimated Annual Suicide Rate per 100,000 by Age and Gender
Age Range Men Women Male : Female
5-14 1.3 0.4 3.25
15-19 18.5 3.7 6.08
20-24 27.2 4.0 7.35
25-64 25.6 6.1 4.20
65-85 49.4 5.1 9.68 85+ 75.0 5.0 15.00
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But these trends don’t need to define our future. The old adage, popular in some feminist circles, “A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle,” might be placed in the category of
“be careful what you ask for, you might get it.” As we’ve undermined the position of men in society, we have unleashed a good deal of male despair and violence, turned inward in the form of depression and suicide and outward in the form of aggression and violence.
The truth is that women need men as much as men need women. We’ll all do better to recognize that there will be no world without men. We will either swim together or sink together. I know where I’m putting my energies. How about you?
Comments are welcome.
From The Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing The 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression By Jed Diamond e-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.MenAlive.com & www.TheIrritableMale.com