Why men really aren't in trouble

This blog post is in response to the CNN article posted by William J. Bennett today titled, "Why men are in trouble."

What we are currently witnessing in trends and statistics -- that women are getting more college degrees and experiencing more rapid job growth -- is not because of men's downfall in society. Rather, it's a shift in society, and men are still leading this shift.

Statistics that state that from 1970 to 2006 the number of men with college degrees dropped 17%, that there are three women with degrees to every two men, and that women have experienced a 38% greater dollar earning growth than men since 1970 make it appear as though men are getting trampled by women. In reality, however, it's just that men have been sitting back and waiting for women to just catch up.

Men aren't being lazy, there's just not much for them to do these days. Women want to do it all (yet, still, they later complain about how much they have to do).

Really, though, it has always been in men's best interest to have women succeed; it means less work for men (simple math: two breadwinners versus just one) and less having to hear "anything you can do, I can do better." Women finally feel like they are out there, in the real world, making the big bucks, proving they can do things -- but, really, they seem to be still falling short.

Why? Because they're just following the rules, the rules that are over a century old: go to school, get your degree, get a job, get married, have babies, get your babies to college, then start saving for your retirement fund. When we live a life that goes from Point A to Point B to Point C... what happens when we get to Point Z? That has been the unsettling thought for this generation.

Seth Godin recently posted that we are on the brink of the industrial revolution's death and the connection revolution's birth. Sir Ken Robinson, on that same hand, has been zealously speaking far and wide about the reform of education. What both these brilliant minds tie into this conversation is that there is a developing change in how we approach work and school. So the fact that women are only now able to master the old paradigm of reading the textbook, going to class, taking down the professor's chalkboard notes, then going home and studying them for the exam (Point A to Point B to Point C...) does not mean they are taking over -- it means that they are still lagging behind.

In a related article, Hannah Rosin writes that "men are struggling to stay relevant in this rapidly changing economy, as manufacturing jobs disappear." The fact that manufacturing jobs are disappearing isn't a bad thing. Rather, it is giving men the wonderful opportunity to step back and think. From this thinking, many men appeared to have turned to entrepreneurship. For each month in 2009, for instance, 340 out of 100,000 adults started a new business. 

New businesses are certainly a good answer to the high unemployment rate in this country, but it appears women are falling short in that realm. Not only are just 30% of business owners women but they are not doing much for earning high revenue and creating jobs. 

What this generation of adults needs to consider is that technology has granted us the wonderful opportunity to visualize and communicate concepts in a remarkable way. A generation more heavily dependent on technology will understand the world in a different way than generations before. (So perhaps all that time spent playing video games actually goes towards a greater benefit!) This opens a lot of doors to a lot of new possibilities. The people stuck in the old way of doing things are not going to be aboard the train that is going a different direction.

Women are just following the rules. Men are looking for ways to break them. 

So do we need men? Of course we do! Should we belittle them, deprive them of their masculinity, and chastise them? Of course not! 

There is no need to act like power-hungry, blood-sucking robotic vampires. This is not a man's world, and this is not a woman's world. Men need women just as much as women need men. Sometimes, women will be better at some things, sometimes men will be. The fact is, however you skew the statistics, both genders can always bring more to the table.