I was going to say something about this salon article. But pandagon said something better then I could in my 0 hits a day blog:

Another big factor in all of this is that historically speaking, men really have been encouraged to seek identity through being superior to other people and this is an option that’s just not realistic anymore for your everyday man. In the past, men could count on being superior to women, being both the boss of and the protector of the women in his life. Women’s financial independence has basically pissed that away for a lot of men. The other option offered to men in our society is to Be Somebody–an athlete or rock star or something–and that’s just not within most people’s reach. Getting involved in your everyday life and finding meaning from that is sort of disdained in our culture. Taken altogeher, it’s easy to see why there’s a lot of ennui and alienation in American men.

I think this hits the nail on the head. I went to a very fancy film school, and I met a lot of men who were completely positive they were going to be the next Spielberg or David Fincher or whatever. There are usually about two annual openings for succesful entertainment moguls, and probably hundreds of thousands of film students graduating every year. These are men that were told in high school they were going to be the next best thing. Even in college they might keep that illusion up. But by the time they are in their mid to late twenties it becomes clear that they aren’t going to ever be that succesful. And its a hard thing to know that you’re going to have to find a reason for living beyond being an amazing success.

I meet a lot of men my age (mid-twenties) that basically don’t work, or if they do they don’t work hard. Because nothing is ever good enough for them. They want that job that will recognize their genius.

In my anecdotal experience career-minded women tend to be a little more practical. Perhaps it because, as Amanda said, the fact that they can have a career is reward enough after a century of being expected to sit and home and darn socks. I suspect that it may also be because all that encouragement that boys get in high school is not given to girls. High achieving girls often still get little reward other than the proverbial hearty handshake, whereas the high achieving (middle class white) boys are seen with “potential for greatness” (or they get completely written off). They are showered with praise. They get special attention. And everyone tells them how great they will be. One day, after years of odd jobs,traveling to china and working abroad (or maybe after two semesters of college), they realize that they are not going to be great writers or film makers or singer/songwriters. And then they just sort of freeze up. The great direction of their lives is taken away.

Of course, maybe everything I wrote is a bunch of crap. But I think there is something there with the listless twenty-something white males who can’t seem to get their shit together. I even feel the pull myself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2005 at 19:06 and is filed under Gender Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.