{"id":2578,"date":"2006-08-03T09:49:52","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T16:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/03\/is-this-the-new-patriarchy-or-economic-restructuring\/"},"modified":"2006-08-03T09:49:52","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T16:49:52","slug":"is-this-the-new-patriarchy-or-economic-restructuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2578","title":{"rendered":"Is this the New Patriarchy or Economic Restructuring?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luke <\/a>directed my attention to this article <\/a> from the New York Times. The general premise of the article is that an increasing number of men are out of the labor force. Here is a quote:<\/p>\n

Millions of men like Mr. Beggerow \u2014 men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 \u2014 have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.<\/p>\n

About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960\u2019s. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950\u2019s and 60\u2019s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am ambivalent about this trend. On the one hand, I see it as a product of economic restructuring, where working class and poor men are losing job opportunities because of the loss of factory jobs and the rise in incarceration. On the other hand, there is a big part of me that wonders if we are seeing some of the signs of the new patriarchy where the big battle will be over leisure time. Even though women still do not receive equal pay, it seems like it is going to be very difficult to get middle class women “back into the house.” So since we can’t keep women out of the labor force, what can men do to keep the upper hand? Work us like crazy?<\/p>\n

Well, I think this phenomenon is the new trend. I am seeing this in my own life and with many of my friends. An increasing number of young women like myself are the primary breadwinners, which is no problem, except for the fact that we end up working full time, doing most of the housework, kin work, consumption work, and care work. In fact, the article notes that many men who are out of the labor force are not raising kids, which significantly contrasts them with unemployed single women. In fact, many of these men are single. It is not readily apparent if they were single when they first lost jobs or opted out of the labor force. It is entirely possible the loss of a job and the subsequent time out of the labor force contributed to the break-up of their relationships.<\/p>\n

However, I do think there is a significant difference between men in the lower class and the working class, and their middle and upper income counterparts. Factory jobs, once populated with working class men, are going overseas. The number of men with felony convictions has also increased in large part due to the war on drugs, and upper income men are not the targets of the war on drugs (even though they are no less likely to use drugs). Lower income Black men have been hardest hit by the war on drugs, and it should come as no surprise that they are overrepresented in the number of men who have been out of the workforce for an extended period of time. This is where I have some sympathy with men who are out of the labor force. Getting a job with a high school education or a felony conviction isn’t easy, and it is getting harder by the minute. I also think it is nice to see men who are opting out of the labor force to do child care and other types of family work. In these cases, the families are often middle class, the women out earn their male counterparts, and the couple has invested more in the woman’s paid labor.<\/p>\n

What troubles me is the cases where men opt out of the labor force and put the pressures of both paid labor work and family work on the shoulders of women. Some of the men in the article said that they didn’t want to take jobs that were “beneath” them. In some ways I can understand not wanting to take a pay cut or a downgraded job, but I get the distinct sense that women are way more likely to take jobs that are “beneath” them. It’s one more example where women are expected to make the sacrifice. This is where I think we are seeing the new patriarchy. The men who are out of the labor force and relying on their female partners for everything even if the couple can’t pay their basic bills, even if the women is working all day and all night. It is almost like women are expected to be the mother’s and father’s for their children and male partners. It’s almost like some men are doing this just because they can. I know of a case where a women worked full time for years so her husband could pursue his writing. She coordinated everything and paid for everything, so he could fulfill this dream, and he made very few sacrifice for her. Women need leisure time to, and we need people to make sacrifices for us, just as many of us do for others. I think most women don’t mind hard work. We just want to see our hard work matched by our partners.<\/p>\n

So is this the new patriarchy or economic restructuring? My sense is that the increasing number of men out of work is the product of both. What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke directed my attention to this article from the New York Times. The general premise of the article is that an increasing number of men are out of the labor force. Here is a quote: Millions of men like Mr. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-and-the-like","category-gender-and-the-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}