Category: Books

Hanna Rosin’s controversial new book proclaims the “end of men” and tracks the rise of women. (Guernica Magazine)

EXCERPT: Despite the shocking-pink title on its bright yellow cover, Hanna Rosin’s new book The End of Men focuses primarily on women. Her idea, she says, was to look closely at women in the public sphere, focusing on the workplace and delving into marriage and sexual relationships as a way of showing how public relationships blur into the private arena. According to Rosin, we are at a key moment in history, where women are beginning to outperform men economically and in higher education (in fact, they may begin outperforming men in elementary school). While much of this accomplishment has taken place within the grueling, at times inhumane, environment of the traditional workplace, women in the upper echelons of business have made some strides to change the workplace to better accommodate complex living and working arrangements. Problematically, however, these well-publicized advancements (such as the appointment of former Google executive Marissa Mayer at Yahoo!) also seem to mask need for more sweeping changes that could help lower-income women manage the demands of breadwinning and child care.

I interviewed Rosin over the phone, two weeks before her book was published at Riverhead. There was the sound of sawing from her end of the line. “Someone’s putting new windows into my attic and it’s very loud” she said. The added chaos seemed emblematic of the women she writes about: busy, perhaps too busy, and seeming to make it up as they go along. In her book, Rosin writes admiringly of what she calls a “Seesaw Marriage,” an arrangement that allows for high-achieving couples in an uncertain economic environment to take turns as breadwinner. [More at Guernica.com]