u235

No that's not a metaphor - it's a literal. And before you get all uppity over 'yet another man-bashing' post read the fine print: the number of men that are unemployed between the ages of 30 and 54 are up, why is that?

Before I get into ranting out my opinions, let me start with my source: the honorable NY Times (article 'Men not working, and not wanting just any job'). I'll digest some of the content for you and pull out the numbers that prompted me to hit the keyboard and start pounding keys:

Millions of men [...] in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 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.

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

...

Even as more men are dropping out of the work force, more women are entering it. This change has occurred partly because employment has shrunk in industries where men predominated, like manufacturing, while fields where women are far more common, like teaching, health care and retailing, have grown. Today, about 73 percent of women between 30 and 54 have a job, compared with 45 percent in the mid-1960’s, according to an analysis of Census data by researchers at Queens College. Many women without jobs are raising children at home, while men who are out of a job tend to be doing neither family work nor paid work.

The article includes discussion on the backgrounds of the men in question, some are blue collar and some are white collar - often refugees of the dot-bomb debacle of the nineties. The point however is clear, these men are not afraid of not working. Nor are they scared of ripping through their savings or assets to support themselves while they wait. Of course waiting implies that they are actually waiting for something, that something being a new job one might suppose.

If you take at face value that there are men in the 30 - 50 year range that aren't working to support themselves and their families how does this factor into their image of themselves both morally and politically? I personally find the idea that "I can't take that job... it's beneath me" as a validation of what people have been saying about immigration. There ARE men out there that need jobs, but aren't willing to do what they consider menial tasks. So the tasks go to women and minorities who don't have that kind of self-esteem issue. Personally in my experience I found that having a job, any job, to be more essential to my mental health than the desire to inflate my ego by saying I was too skilled to punch a clock. I have lost my job and I have gone out immediately and gotten a clock-punching job. No I didn't put it on my professional resume, but the need to bring home a paycheck... any size paycheck was fundamental. It was my "screw you, I'm going to make money no matter how hard you kick me - what you think I'm just going to sit at home and cry?"

Putting aside the whole immigration topic, the other point that bothers me is how the country is leaning to the right. We're in a war. We're cracking down in illegals. We're pushing back on raising the minimum wage (though that may finally pass). We're pushing more of the responsibility for health insurance onto the consumer. We're isolationist, antagonist, bible-thumping propagandist. We're all of the above and more, swinging the clock back as far as possible to the cold-war mentality of the 50's where the Red Scare is now replaced by the Islamic Scare. How does all this sit with these men flopped on the couch at home watching Oprah? How are they voting? Does the idea that we're a nation at war motivate them? Does the drive to legalize or deport aliens inspire them? They can't be sitting in a darkened room all day, they must be exposed to what's going on... my question is: if America is going back to the 50's mentality how can 4 million men be sitting on their asses today when it wasn't acceptable back then?

I have an image in my mind of one of these men sitting at home with a bag of snacks watching the war on CNN. Watching their countrymen getting killed and maimed overseas. Watching the walls being built between the US and Mexico and shaking their bag of snacks and mumbling "Get'em Dubya" between bites. It's not a good image, of the white American male, but then again that's why I'm ranting... isn't it?