”The End of Men” by Hanna Rosin

In her article ”The End of Men” Hanna Rosin writes about how women are taking over the control, and how they outmatch men in both school, at the labour market and even sexually. Men have been in charge since the early ages of history and women have always been the submissive ones serving the men. And this is not strange considering how, for example the bible, portray women. – Eve had to be created from Adam’s rib.

But woman has trough many years fought for equal rights and have now climbed up the hierarchy-ladder to end up even more powerful than men, in Hanna Rosin’s opinion. She is not just a feminist writing a report on how amazing woman are, she is building her article on interviews and numbers, which makes it more trustworthy. In the 1970s Ronald Ericsson, an acknowledged biologist came up with the idea that people should be able to choose the gender of their children. He found a way to do this. Since ancient times parents (mostly fathers) have resorted to extreme methods, in an effort to produce sons, so Ericsson was convinced that people would primarily use his method to get boy-babies. But he was wrong, and to his astonishment he discovered twenty years later that there was a higher request on girls. The reason for this is simple, and well explained by Ericsson himself; “Women live longer than men. They do better in this economy. More of ‘em graduate from college. They go into space and to everything men do, and sometimes they do it a whole lot better. I mean, hell, get out of the way – these females are going to leave us males in the dust.”

The reason for this could very well be that women fell like they have a lot to prove as opposed to men, who have always been “the bosses”. This easily leads to an upheaval in the roles of men and women, simply because the woman works harder on proving that they are just as capable to create a career as men. They are more motivated because of the former male dominance – which now seems to be gone. Women are now taking over the political power. It seems that the physical strength is no longer the way to success and since men are known as the ones with strength in the physics and women are known as the ones with social and psychological abilities, they are forced into political power in an effort to improve the fortune of some countries. This is also one of the reasons why parents choose to give birth to a girl. They notice the success of women, and imagine that their own daughter will succeed as well. And it is proven that there are actually more women succeeding than men – in the workforce too. These days women are dominating the colleges and the professional schools, which imply that a larger number of women is receiving an B.A than men.

Obviously this leads to a larger number of women getting a good job. Again this is caused by the attributes that are most important today like social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus, which with exceptions is the attributes of women and not men. This has also been proven. As if this were not enough women are also starting to dominate on the sex-front. A new kind of powerful alpha-female has appeared. Of course we are talking about “the cougar”, which was once labeled as the desperate older woman trying to get hold on younger boys. But in the modern world it is almost the opposite in columnist Gail Collins’ opinion. “[…] the cougar phenomenon is beginning to look like it-s not about desperate woman at all but about “desperate young American men who are latching on to an older woman who’s a good earner.”” Hanna Rosin mentions the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney in the leading part. He is a man who can not get what he wants, and he is being rejected by the beautiful women around him. The reason why she is mentioning this is that wants us to reflect upon what hope there is left for the average man, if “the sexiest man alive” can get rejected twice.

This argument is clearly supporting the substance of her article, but it is a weak and untrustworthy argument considering that it is a movie she is referring to. In my opinion she could profitably have left this part out. She also mentions the increasing number of female killers all over the world. Maybe she does this to argue against that the development of woman is only good. This makes her seem less like a feminist. At last Hanna Rosin refer to the situation in the U.S. which is much like the situation in Denmark. Many women are still paid less than men and is still the ones being at home taking care of the children and the cooking. But in her interviews with many different college women, she is confident that most of them are going to be the ones working, while their husbands are doing the housekeeping, reasoned the forces pushing at the economy all around the world and the revolution of the powerful female.

Hanna Rosin writes a relevant article considering that her focus is supported by reliable facts. It is obvious that it is a woman writing the article, but she does not argument on how this revolution is either good or bad. The reader has to create an opinion on the subject. The consequences of the changes mentioned in the article are in my opinion positive. The fact that women are able to support the economics of the world is very progressive. But then again this situation can take a wrong turn if the revolution of the alpha-female gets out of hand. There has to be a balance between the power of men and women, and if the female gender keeps up with the improvements already made to their social status, it could result in a suppression of men. This would be as bad as the former suppression of women. We have to find a balance where everyone is able to have equal rights.