Women Rising

Hanna Rosin says men are on their way down, and women are rising. Stephanie Coontz says it’s not that simple. They join us.

It’s been a tough patch for men, an empowering patch for women.  Men lost jobs like crazy in the Great Recession.  Construction.  Finance.  And they lost something more - confidence, status – as the economy changed and the bread-winner role got so shaky.

Meanwhile, women – with a flexibility often born of necessity – have been stepping up.  In school.  In the workplace.  At home.  Hanna Rosin calls it the end of men and the rise of women.  Emerging matriarchy.  A big, big deal.  Stephanie Coontz says, not so fast.

This hour, On Point:  women debating the end of men.
-Tom Ashbrook

Hanna Rosin, senior editor at The Atlantic. You can find her article "The End of Men" in The Atlantic here. The article was turned into a new book, The End of Men and the Rise of Women. You can find an excerpt of the book here.

Stephanie Coontz, teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College and the co-chair and director of Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families. You can read her New York Times op-ed here. You can read Rosin's response to the Coontz op-ed here.

James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic. You can find his debate preview article here.

New York Times "Human history? Global economy? Her evidence for women the globe over consists of thin, small facts cherry-picked to support outsize claims. We read, for example, that “women in poor parts of India” are rushing ahead of their male counterparts to learn English so that they can man call centers. But will this impressive display of initiative really liberate them? And even if it did, are we to deduce a country from a call center?"

Washington Post "The phrase is so insulting to men — “he’s just another mouth to feed” — but I heard it so many times in subsequent times in reporting. Over the phone with Calvin, I was in this “Can this marriage be saved?” mode until the light bulb goes off — I realized that he was not going to his place at the seat of the table. She was going to be the provider and protector of the child. If he was going to go back, it wasn’t to be in the old traditional way."

Daily Beast "I’m a happy and satisfied stay-at-home dad. So why did Hannah Rosin turn my story upside down for her bestselling polemic? Andy Hinds calls the author and asks her."

The Guardian "It started as a story I was writing for the Atlantic magazine. I was following a small group of men through the recession and there was this one particular guy who was out of work and had split from his girlfriend. In my mind, I kept trying to get them back together and get him back to the place where he used to be in his life. Then one day I realised that he wasn't going back to that place because there was no place to go back to. His ex-partner had taken over most of the roles that he used to play. That was when it first occurred to me that something very fundamental had changed."

Independent Woman by Destiny's Child

Miss Independent by Ne-Yo