this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023

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Men's Employment Crisis: Only 41% Experienced Steady Careers (stoppopulationdecline.org)

submitted 11 months ago by tintory@lemm.ee to c/politics@beehaw.org

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[–] Detheroth@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sorry if this isn't the right place. But the comments here spurred this train of thought.

It seems everyone agrees that the ultra wealthy are the real problem. Yet there is always consistent divisive arguments about which group of people that the wealthy should be oppressing 'more'.

Men and women of every race are being brutalized by a system that doesn't give two shits about us. This system is governed by people who are incapable of empathy.

Studies and articles are released constantly detailing the destruction of our society/civilisation and instead of humans banding against the monsters that control the wealth (and, by extension, the world), yet we argue amongst ourselves.

We are being systematically turned on each other so that the 1% can become the .1%. Until the 99% can actually co-operate against the system, we are doomed to repeat this God forsaken cycle.

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

Frankly I agree. I did what would be considered quite well in my career. That does not mean however I was treated well at all. I am not talking about money, I am talking about being valued, considered, respected, and treated well on a human level. And I worked for a company that would make those good company lists too.

[–] Blapoo@lemmy.ml 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've got news for this article: Having a steady job doesn't make you a breadwinner

[–] tintory@lemm.ee 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Neat, the article and the study even talks about it

The study calls for a reevaluation of the breadwinner ideology, highlighting the need to understand and support American men’s diverse and often precarious employment experiences.

Hell, the article's conclusion is about economic instability being a bad thing? >

[–] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

I was just looking for why this was framed as just pertaining to men rather than men and women. I would like to see a follow up which includes women as well to have some kind of basis on more reasonable expectations for the present and what to demand from our economic systems in the future.

[+] spacecadet@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 16 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Let me start off by saying that as a 39 year old cis white guy, I have struggled with reconciling the gender based expectations I was raised with and the reality of the world. I won't lie - I have also grappled with the notion that I am part of the problem in part because of how some people opine on the matter.

This

Men build social order, liberal democracy, and nearly everything else women take for granted that let them live happy, healthy, and cozy lives.

and this

Without men society collapses. Who is going to do all the real dirty jobs that keep the world moving

and this

trying to get power back on when her husband dies from an early heart attack from dealing with her BS all day.

is the patriarchy. The assumption that because they have been historically barred from equal treatment, women are inadequately equipped to participate equally is an inherent part of the problem and one which you and I can change for the better. Yes, a small number of extremely wealthy people are driving many of the levers of social inequality but the solution is not to turn on another group that's suffering under the same dehumanizing pressures. Acknowledging their struggles - like lacking bodily autonomy, or being shamed for being the victim of assault, or being punished professionally for raising a family - doesn't diminish or delegitimize your own struggles. Railing against them only serves to drive wedge issues that divide us so we have less ability to organize against the few that profit off of our disunity - don't do their dirty work for them.

Tl;dr - don't say sexist shit. It's not okay

[–] mymanchris@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nobody is saying that women are inadequately equipped for those roles, they are observing that women don't choose those roles, even when barriers are removed. It's not a coincidence that everyone is clamoring to bring equity into the C suite and boost women enrolling in STEM programs, but nobody is trying to bring equity to mining jobs, janitorial services, garbage collectors, etc.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've met plenty of women employed in trades and manual work for whom the misogyny and likelihood of assault from their male counterparts was and still is absolutely a barrier to their equal participation.

[–] spacecadet@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

Name them? It’s easy to provide anecdotal evidence. I let tons of women who don’t go into trades because they think it’s lowly work for dumb expendable men.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

He's chosen his wording poorly, but there is a kernel of truth under his words.

There are tasks which are better suited to the different mental and physical attributes of men, just as there are tasks better suited to women. This has to do with biology, not society.

Yes, the top 10% of women can preform as well as the average man in physical tasks, but when we're talking about a whole society that isn't sufficient to cover the amount of jobs that directly benefit from these differences. If you hire 50% men and 50% women for a construction site, you're going to have a lower productivity than if you had 90% men and 10% women. The average women are going to swing the hammer more times for the same number of nails, they're going to carry fewer boards per trip, and they're going to need to use a ladder more frequently to reach work higher up. Society has said we can't pay women less than men, but they only look at it per hour, if they measured output per hour on this task specifically, that means average women would be more expensive to employ than average men. This is about efficiency.

It extends beyond just simple strength and height though, men are also more likely to take risks. This can cause problems in some situations, but it can also be beneficial in many tasks as they push harder to achieve more. Not just in physical tasks either, men are also more likely to start businesses which is a very risky situation and lots of them lose money on it.

I don't think society would collapse without men, but it would look a lot different than it currently does. Women would absolutely take up those necessary physical tasks, but they would need to have more workers to complete the same amount of work which would alter the overall balance of the economy due to the reduced efficiency.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago

This is an incredibly charitable interpretation of their comment.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You have a point that jobs should match the employees and generally speaking men are larger and more muscular than women, but you do know power tools exist, right? You also realize that output is not purely about physical capacity but also mental and emotional buy in? And that construction isn't purely about nailing boards in place but doing things in the right order at the right time with the right tools and planning appropriately?

I think you're making too many broad generalizations here and over stating the importance of gender on job performance. I think there are more salient points to be made about job seeking strategies between men and women and how that should affect hiring strategies and gender disparities in certain fields. Women tend to prefer more work flexibility (malleable hours, flexible vacation time, ability to make time to pick up kids from school etc) than men and women tend to be more risk averse than men and this is reflected in the jobs they choose and are recruited for.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Even with power tools, an average man can work faster than the average woman for many tasks. They're going to be the exact same in an excavator where there's no physical component at all, but when it comes to using a jackhammer an average man is going to be able to position and control it far more effectively than an average woman. Power tools make those differences smaller or non-existent for SOME tasks, but they do not make things equal in most tasks.

I realize construction isn't purely a strength thing, but it's a major component for most workers and even a 5-10% efficiency difference is quite significant across an entire industry. Construction is just a single example though, there are hundreds of jobs that have significant physical components. From the original comment about electrical Lineworkers, all the way to washing dishes in a commercial kitchen.

The ability to lift 40-50% more weight around on average comes in handy a lot.

I don't think I'm overstating the importance of physical attributes in terms of job performance, we're not talking about office jobs here. In physical jobs, someone's physical attributes will drastically change how fast someone can work, and often how safely as well.

[–] spacecadet@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

First off, truth != sexism. So what I said is not sexist.

How’s that sexist? Women have every opportunity (and in most cases because of preferential hiring, better opportunities) to do these dirty and dangerous jobs, but they don’t? Because of some abstract loosely defined notion that is the “patriarchy”? I bet if I said women aren’t as good of golfers as men your “Cis white man self” would somehow blame the patriarchy.

[–] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 6 points 11 months ago

Among other things, I take issue with "men build social order, liberal democracy, nearly everything else...". This is simply not true, social order has existed in many forms since people existed, liberal democracy has existed in many places run primarily by women or in mixed gender groups, and men do not exclusively build the world.

Yes, men are experiencing a mental health crisis (at least in the US where I am most familiar), and it has been largely ignored by government but not because women are deemed more important, but because we do not support mental health of anyone. To say no one cares and no one is doing anything about it is like saying no one cares about the lives of our children because we haven't solved school shootings yet. People know it's a problem, people want it to change and to fix it, but our system of government is not reflective of the people's opinions. (This is part of what makes up poorly conceived rhetoric about men ruining things, "if men created our liberal democracy and society as you say, surely it's obvious it is not working out too well").

It's normal to feel upset and defensive when you see a group you identify with suffering. It's not okay to take those negative emotions and direct them towards other groups, be they gender, ethnic, social, or otherwise. Remember it's in the best interests of those who oppress to keep the oppressed fighting amongst themselves.

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You started off with reasonable complaints and ended with spouting off misogynistic bullshit.

[–] spacecadet@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It wasn’t misogyny, it was research based truth. Check the most recent noble prize winner in economics. A woman essentially stating exactly this.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

looking over the modlogs, i think it's exceedingly funny to say "it wasn't misogyny" when your comment ended with the following, something that i'd expect off an incel forum:

Highly doubt Becky from HR who can’t start every morning without complaining out loud his bad the coffee is and how cold it is in the office, will ever be working as a line man in sub freezing temps trying to get power back on when her husband dies from an early heart attack from dealing with her BS all day.

we're not in the business of bullshitting here: this is misogyny, you've already had several comments removed from this thread, continuing to respond in this manner will be a ban from the instance.