A Post-Macho World?

It’s been a rough recession for everyone, but especially rough for men.
Tally up the job losses since November, and 80 percent have fallen on American males. Factory jobs, gone. Hard hat construction jobs, gone. The very male cowboy culture of Wall Street, stumbled and humbled.
Reihan Salam looks at the fall and sees not just numbers. He sees the end of an era of macho jobs, macho risk-taking, the end of an age of macho culture ruling the economy.
It may be a quiet end, he says. And it may not.
This hour, On Point: Reihan Salam on the grind of the Great Recession, and "the death of macho."
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Reihan Salam joins us from New York. He's a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of an article in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine titled “The Death of Macho.”  He's the co-author, with Ross Douthat, of "Grand New Party: How Conservatives Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream."

Joining us from Olympia, Wash., is Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College and director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families.  Her most recent book is "Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage."

More links:

UMass-Amherst economist Nancy Folbre puts Reihan Salam's piece in context on the NYTimes.com Economix blog. One of the articles she points to is this one, from Forbes, called "Cleaning Crew: The women who are fixing the financial mess."

And in Foreign Policy, BYU political economist Valerie Hudson writes "Good Riddance: Why macho had to go."