Tag Archives: Workplace

Commentary

Where have all the good men gone, and why aren’t men marrying?

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I read this annoying article by Kay Hymowitz in the Wall Street Journal, which is completely ignorant of the causes of men’s decline in education and work, as well as their refusal to marry as often as they used to.

Captain Capitalism responded to the article here, explaining why men aren’t giving women what they want.

Excerpt from his massive bullet-point list:

  • Did you hear of this “divorce fad” going around? Apparently men get to pay out the majority of the time be it alimony or child support.
  • Did you hear about this “divorce fad” going around? Apparently 65% of the time it’s women who initiate divorce.
  • Kids cost around $500,000 each to raise. given employment prospects we can’t afford that. Much rather buy a boat or frankly work all that much less.
  • Hey, you hear about this federal budget deficit and debt? Apparently we elected this guy “Barack Obama” and a bunch of democrats into office who are now mortgaging the future. This means our expenses in the future will be higher. Well, of course us “foolish, immature, pooping, farting boys” were too “immature” to vote for him like you wise women, but then again we’re too busy flinging poo at each other to ponder the future macro-economic ramifications of a collapsing dollar.
  • Hey, you hear about this social security medicare thing? Apparently enough “smart wise women” disproportionately kept voting for democrats to essentially have those immature 20 something men pay for the livelihood for these aging people. This added expense on our futures make’s it that much harder economically to commit to a wife and children.
  • Hey, you hear about this “welfare state” “medicaid” thing? Apparently enough “smart wise women” disproportionately over the years voted in enough democrats to essentially replace the role of fathers with government programs making fathers not only unnecessary, but an increasingly risky and unrewarding proposition, not to mention, making it easier for women to just up and leave their husbands, because well, “they needed to find themselves” and the government will take care of the kids while they go pursue their EPL fantasy.
  • Hey, did you hear about this “welfare state” thing? Apparently because we’ve now outsourced bringing up children to the government and have to create government jobs for all the “sociology majors” and “education majors”and “communications majors” our tax bill will go through the roof. Oh! Wait!!! No it doesn’t! I forgot! I’m a guy! I can live on very little, work a crappy job, work part time, live in a crappy apartment with my buds and STILL have enough disposable income to play video games and buy booze.

Remember that 77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama (70% of unmarried women, but 77% of young unmarried women). And research shows that women consistently vote for bigger and bigger government, more wealth redistribution for the “poor”, and more intrusion into the family by the state. Men don’t like paying more in taxes and getting less liberty. It makes it harder for us to justify marriage rationally. We want to get married, but the numbers don’t come out in the black. We can either afford marriage and family or government social programs, but we cannot afford both.

I think the problem of men not wanting to marry is caused by women actually believing feminism – that men and women are identical. Once you believe that, there is no special role that men are supposed to play, and no way to distinguish a man who fills that role from one who doesn’t. According to feminism, which most young women believe, men aren’t meant to be providers, protectors or moral/spiritual leaders. Chastity is out. A boring, good-paying job is out. Morality is out. Sobriety is out. Apologetics and theology are out.

What’s in? Being good-looking, inoffensive, and entertaining. Women are not selecting responsible men because they think that the men can be changed to be responsible, through sex, or maybe through nagging, and eventually through the threat of losing all his money and custody of his children. Men aren’t stupid. They’ve noticed that responsibility and morality are out, and they’re acting like clowns because that’s what women prefer when getting drunk and hooking up, the Duke University student and her report on all the men she slept with – they were graded by physical attractiveness, sexual technique, popularity and athletic ability.

Men do what women expect them to do in order to get sex. Just read the peer-reviewed studies on hooking up. If women don’t select men who can do specific things as husbands and fathers, then men won’t prepare themselves to do specific things. If they are already getting sex for playing the fool, then why should they do more than play the fool? If women obsessed over Paul Ryan and William Lane Craig, then that’s what men would aspire to. They don’t, and so men don’t. Mature men intimidate women with their strong opinions, moral judgments, and exclusive theological claims. Much better to have an immature man who is shallow and politically correct.

There is a way for women to get what they want from men, but they actually have to engage in conversations with men and find out what men want from women. And what men want from a marriage. What they want from children. What they want from government. What they want from schools. What they want from the workplace. What they want from the church. You can’t take away everything men need to marry and then expect them to marry. Nagging, belittling, withholding sex and controlling are not incentives for men to marry. Every time you break a man down, that is one less husband and father candidate. And eventually, the money flow dries up for the sperm-banks and social programs that substitute for men. What will women do then?

For myself, I am NOT on the same track as secular men (video games, alcohol, girlfriends an TV). I’m earning and saving to support Christian scholars and apologetics events in churches and universities. That’s my role right now until women destroy feminism with their own hands. Marriage is only good for me if it is good for God. And I need to be convinced that it will be good for God by whoever is applying for the job. I would like to see the reasons why I should marry in a woman’s moral decisions, her studying of difficult apologetic topics, and her political and economic conservatism. I would like to see that she understands men and marriage and understands how marriage and parenting can serve God, if done in an unselfish, moral and disciplined way. No pursuing happiness. No reducing moral obligations to “legalism”.

Making one woman feel happy with a diamond ring and an expensive wedding is not a good choice for me when I could spend a lot less money sponsoring a stack of debates over my lifetime on Christian topics, in front of hundreds of thousands of university students, or even in churches. There are ways that marriage could be a good deal for God, but I want to see the value proposition for marriage before I sign up. So far, most women seem to resent the idea that marriage should be have to be proven good for God. They resent the question itself. But everything we do is for God, and I have a right to ask what is in it for him? I think a lot of Christian men are asking the same question.

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Commentary

Do you ever wish that your co-workers took your faith seriously?

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This is a problem that I used to have in the very beginning of my career, when I was still doing my undergraduate degree and working summer jobs and internships with software development companies. I was just in my early 20s, and was having to deal with being a Christian in the university and in the workplace. It’s very difficult to do it when you are young – everyone thinks that they know more than you do just because they are older – whether they have studied the issues or not. Not only that, but you have deal with the pre-conceptions that people have about Christianity from watching anti-Christian movies and televangelists, etc.

What a mess. So what is the way forward?

The way forward is for you to take Christianity OUT of the realm of private faith, Sunday singing, emotions and feelings, personal testimony, miraculous healings, apparations (if you’re Catholic), end times, Bible prophecies, and other stuff that scares non-Christians. And then you put Christianity INTO the realm of science, history, analytical philosophy, social science, economics, politics, law, and other public, testable, areas of knowledge.

After you’ve studied Chrsitianity and how it relates to public, testable areas of knowledge, it is easy to communicate your knowledge of things like the galactic habitability constraints, amino acid sequence specificity probabilities, minimal facts criteria for the historicity of the empty tomb, the grounding objection to middle knowledge, and the Laffer curve to other people. You are an expert at dumping the burden of proof on your opponent, every attempt by your opponent to make self-refuting statements is met with a whistle blow and a yellow card, and you wield Occam’s Razor like a samurai warrior.

Great! It all works great on people who will give you an hour at lunch to listen to your case. But what about the people who have heard through the grapevine that you are a Christian, identify you with Joel Osteen, and are snickering at you behind your back every time you walk by?

Decorating your cube at work

The solution is to decorate your cube at work.

Here is what you will need:

  1. a peer-reviewed paper on from a scientific journal (like this one, free version here)
  2. a peer-reviewed paper on from a social science journal (like this one)
  3. a news article on some foreign policy issue (like this one)
  4. a publication from a think tank on economic or social policy (like this one)
  5. a textbook on economics (like this one)
  6. a schedule of events from an apologetics event (like this one)
  7. a DVD of a William Lane Craig debate at a big university (like this one)
  8. a debate book from a big academic press (like this one)

Just print these out and read them, and then put them on your desk. That should get you some attention and end the snickering.

News

It turns out there is a gender pay gap – and men are the victims

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Well, first of all, it’s important to note for those who didn’t know that salary differences are purely the result of individual lifestyle choices, not the result of sexist discrimination. Who says? The US Labor Department, that’s who.

Here are the details.

Excerpt:

Economists who have studied the pay gap have observed that numerous factors other than discrimination contribute to the wage gap, such as hours worked, experience, and education. For example, Professor June O’Neil has written extensively about how time out of the workforce, or years spent working part-time, can reduce future pay. Likewise, economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, in her book Women’s Figures, has written about the decisions that women are more likely to make to choose flexibility, a friendly workplace environment, and other nonmonetary factors as compared to men.

Recognizing the importance of unbiased research on the pay gap, the Labor Department recently contracted with CONSAD Research Corporation for a review of more than 50 existing studies as well as a new economic and statistical analysis of the pay gap. CONSAD’s Report, which was finalized on January 12, 2009, found that the vast majority of the pay gap is due to several identifiable factors and that the remainder may be due to other specific factors they were not able to measure.

CONSAD found that controlling for career interruption and other factors reduced the pay gap from about 20 percent to about 5 percent. Data limitations prevented it from considering many other factors. For example, the data did not permit an examination of total compensation, which would examine health insurance and other benefits, and instead focused solely on wages paid. The data were also limited with respect to work experience, job tenure, and other factors.

The Labor Department’s conclusion was that the gender pay gap was the result of a multitude of factors and that the “raw wage gap should not be used as the basis for [legislative] correction. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

It turns out that the pay gap, which was always entirely due to lifestyle choices, is now working against men. After Jennifer Roback Morse, one of the women I like the most is Carrie Lukas, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism”. Here she is writing in National Review, explaining the latest research on the pay gap.

She cites the radically left-wing Time magazine:

…according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%).

And then Carrie says:

As this new research shows, it’s women’s (and men’s) attributes and career choices that determine earnings. Yet there’s something troubling about Time‘s tone, which suggests that we should all be celebrating the idea of women dominating the workplace. To the extent that this trend is driven by men losing jobs and remaining out of work, and young men failing to attain the skills needed to meaningfully contribute to the economy, this is not good news at all.

Of course, we all want women to have the opportunity to compete and succeed in whatever profession they choose. But we want the same to be true for men. Furthermore, given that some women still wish to stay home or reduce their workload in order to spend time raising children, women’s higher earnings may actually be a symptom of hardship: More women are having to work more since the men in their lives can’t provide for the family alone or because they are providing for themselves.

You can read more about this whole story on Hot Air. Remember that in the traditional family, men get their authority to lead because of their role as primary earner. When they are not the primary earner, or when they are swapped entirely for a government check, then children have to grow up without that moral and spiritual leadership. Men are all about the moral standards, and women are all about forgiveness and compassion. Both are needed.