Women of the (Business) World - Take Over!
Are we witnessing a deep change in the patriarchal structure of the Western society and the end of male dominance in the business world? The controversial book The End of Men by American author Hanna Rosin suggests that these changes are inevitable and offers a number of reasons for the future female dominance in the business world.
During the ongoing recession period in the global economy, more male employees lost their jobs than female employees. Today, female workers make up more than 51 percent of the work force. Women contribute an average of 42.2 percent of the household income (as opposed to only 4 to 6 percent in the ’70s).
Rosin explains that women have a set of skills that make them more resourceful in the modern economy than men. In her book Rosin divides humankind into two types: Cardboard Man and Plastic Woman. Cardboard Man is set in his habits; he is insistent and struggles adapting to change. Cardboard Man is the typical lower-middle-class worker of the manufacturing economy who struggles to find his place in an economy that no longer depends on factories, and he often finds himself made redundant in the present economic climate. Plastic Woman, on the other hand, is flexible, empathetic, patient, and very adaptable. Plastic Woman has the perfect skill set for a service-providing economy.
A big part of the change is the change in women’s aspirations. Many women delay their marriage and no longer see their calling in getting married and starting a family. Whereas in the past the dream of working and raising a family simultaneously was seen as the primary goal of all women, modern women in the workplace understand that such an aspiration is impossible to obtain. Leading women executives like Facebook’s Cheryl Sandberg and Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer set a new role model for the new woman; they are among the market’s leading executives, and their success did not prevent either of them from raising a family, but it caused their role in the household to be different than the woman’s traditional role.
Unlike other female writers of the past decade (Babcock, Frankel, Laschever) who claimed that women don’t get raises and promotions because they lack the aggression and self-promotion required to succeed, Rosin claims the world is not ready for aggressive women. The women who get promoted are the ones who have developed social abilities and tend to use a calm tone of speech.
The only industry where men have an advantage over women, according to Rosin, is the high-tech industry. The high-tech industry requires entrepreneurs to block the signals they get from others and focus on their own beliefs, even if they seem unusual. Rosin admits that women are not as good as men to doing so. Rosin believes that future generations of women, who will be taught to be more aggressive and strong-minded, may overcome this current shortcoming.
In conclusion, Rosin’s book The End of Men suggests that women’s innate skill set makes them more suitable to the modern economy than men. This will lead to an inevitable change, wherein women will assume dominance in the workplace and put an end to the patriarchal society as we know it.
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