My colleague Robin Hanson has schooled me in the ABCs of the Men’s Rights Movement. Bottom line: There are a lot of things that a lot of men could reasonably complain about, but don’t, because they would be greeted with derision rather than sympathy. Here is a striking example from Kingsley Browne’s Divided Labours: An Evolutionary View of Women at Work:
On average, jobs held by women are rated as slightly higher in status than jobs held by men, because, although men hold the highest-status jobs, they also hold the lowest ones. Moreover, although women hold many of the lowest-paying jobs, men have a virtual monopoly on the least attractive jobs. Warren Farrell has pointed out that twenty-four of the twenty-five “worst” jobs as rated in The Jobs Rated Alamanac (judged on a combination of salary, stress, work environment, outlook, security, and physical demands) were 95 to 100 percent male; the twenty-fifth job was equally male and female.
READER COMMENTS
Lawrance George Lux
Jan 27 2005 at 1:00pm
Husbands also enjoy a Job stress which increases markedly with claims of ‘Battered Men’. Only old bachelors like I can make such charges, and receive the automatic response of ‘having no verifiable claim’. lgl
Patrick R. Sullivan
Jan 27 2005 at 4:37pm
This is, of course, more evidence for Larry Summers being correct about math aptitudes.
Steve Miller
Jan 28 2005 at 8:48am
I must ask, why is the “average” job a meaningful basis for comparison? How do the median jobs of men and women compare?
Saxdrop
Jan 28 2005 at 3:43pm
Just out of curiosity, what are some of those 25 worst jobs? Hopefully mine’s not one of them!
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