[ravenstine]

> Men -- long America’s economically privileged gender

It depends on how you look at it. Don't get me wrong, men have had lots of privileges, but they have long been expected to work. Those social expectations are rapidly disappearing, and somewhat shifting to women, and we're seeing rates of depression and suicide rise for women in roughly the same time frame. Calling it privileged is a very one-sided way of looking at it, as the "privilege" comes with lot of responsibility that quickly becomes burdensome. With affordable home appliances, online services through your phone, video games, Netflix, and PornHub, the house wife/husband is obsolete. Why take on the same burdens your fathers did when little to none of that existed?

With wages being stagnant since the 1970s, the ridiculous housing market, the materialist debt-slave culture, the decline of marriage, and the decrease in sustainable jobs, why exactly should millennial(and increasingly Gen Z) men bother working as much as their fathers? I come from a very wealthy area and only one of the dozens of men my age, with whom I grew up with, own what their fathers did when they were their age. Millennial men are rife with disenfranchisement that flies under the radar because the economy has enough shit jobs to allow them to scrape by, and the media is generally not compassionate to the issues of men. I mean, just look at this article which is clearly written as an underhanded criticism of young men.

Let me repeat the question in the last paragraph:

Why exactly should millennial men work as much as their fathers?

[LyndsySimon]

> Why take on the same burdens your fathers did when little to none of that existed?

I can only offer my perspective - I take on those burdens because I want what my fathers had. I want a stable family, a wife who is able to stay home and care for and teach our children, a comfortable retirement, and the ability to help both my extended family and my community at large.

Still, I don't disagree with your comment overall. It seems that I am a bit of an outlier among my peers to want those things. I don't blame people for deciding that this path in life isn't worth it to them, and that they'd prefer to walk another.

For that matter, if hadn't met my wife so early in life, I'm not sure I'd be looking to get married and start a family now. I'd probably be living a minimal existence in a van or small RV in California, working at FAANG, and putting back as much of my pay as I could. A few years of that and I'd be financially able to move back to rural America to live a comfortable life and never have to work again.

[ben_jones]

I'm looking at a $400 bill after insurance for a 15 minute doctor's visit. Nothing fancy he took my blood pressure and listened to my lungs and sent me on my way. I'm fortunate that I can easily pay this, but what if I was living paycheck to paycheck? It would crush me. When wealth is so fleeting as to be taken away by such a minuscule stroke of bad luck, why would people bother chasing it?

I'm literally going to have to "shop around" for my next appointment should I need one.

[lordnacho]

I think what you're getting at, and several others, is that every opportunity has been squeezed out.

- Go to college? Get massive debt, insecure about losing whatever job you get after. Lots of other people have paper too. Oh and they also want to live near where degree jobs are, just like you.

- Start in the mail room? They don't promote from the mail room anymore.

- Work minimum wage? Everything costs what it needs to cost for you to have zero saving or extra time.

- Buy a house? Houses already cost a lot. In fact every investment asset costs a lot.

- Start a business? Even starting a restaurant is different from a couple of decades ago.

- Learn a trade? This one sounds reasonable to me actually. All that "you must get a degree" has left a hole that plumbers and electricians can fill. But you have to get used to being looked down on. Plus many people use prestige as an indicator of income, so they might not discover there's a reasonable living to be made. Still requires you to apprentice for a bit though.

[woodpanel]

-> Learn a trade? ... you have to get used to being looked down on.

What is even more striking about that is that among many economists and policy makers trade-schools are seen as a good recipe, last and maybe only hope to counter the effects of graduate-inflation. But yet, what parents make that bold move and tell their kids to cancel their Ivy League dreams and instead become a welder?

It is one of those moments that lay bare what prohibits us from progress: The solution is already there, is affordable and doable for most individuals. Plus approved by all the smartest people. Yet nobody seems willing to go that way, including all of the smartest people.

[dorchadas]

Maybe it's different because I live in a rural area, but a lot of my students want to go into welding or mechanics, etc. They know they can make a good living, and some of the more ambitious want to do underwater welding or work on airplanes (and one even has an "in" through his father, who does that) and retire early, or just live large.

But, overall, I do agree with your points. What I mostly see in high school here is kids who don't have a fucking clue what they want to do. To be honest, I'm 26 and I'm not sure if I know what I want to do either. I think a lot of the issue is that we force kids to make decisions impacting the rest of their lives before they've ever had a chance to really find their passions and such.

I hate our culture.

[lawn]

There surely is a middle ground here between living paycheck to paycheck and not making work the most important thing in your life.

[geezerjay]

For those that don't have the luxury of having an education combined with training in a relevant skill, that middle ground is just wishful thinking.

[ravenstine]

Or minimalism, which is becoming a trendy topic on places like YouTube for that reason.

[geezerjay]

> Or minimalism

No, not really. Economic constrains are the real issue. It makes no difference if a person decides to live spending less if he is never constrained by what he can afford. On the other hand, if someone needs something (say medical care) but can't afford it then there's a problem.

[sli]

Minimalism doesn't really buy you a whole lot when just rent is already half of your paycheck, anyway. There likely just isn't much left to cut. The things I already own don't add to my cost of living, I already own them.

[forgottenpass]

Conceptually possible, but in practice what market forces ensure that such a group exists?

I know a non-zero number of people that both work paycheck to paycheck and also make work the most important part of their lives. That's not to say it's mutually exclusive with 'neither' group, but I don't think it's impossible for the 'neither' group to shrivel into non-existence.

[justinator]

Are you arguing against white men's privilege compared to whom, exactly? Their past selves?

I think a lot of the challenges you list apply to most people, and even then white males have a big leg up on most anyone. Times are tough all over. Tougher for those more disenfranchised, already.

[ravenstine]

I'm not arguing against white men's privilege. And by the way, the term "white men" can be found nowhere in the article or in my comment, and I don't know why you are dragging race into this.

And no, I'm not arguing against the privileges of men. I'm criticizing the use of that word, in comparison to the rest of the article, as a covert gendered judgment. Just because men continue to have a "privilege" doesn't mean they will continue to want that privilege. When there's no incentive, why exactly would a man or a woman want the responsibilities that come with a high-flying career, dating, marriage, having a family, home ownership, retirement planning, et cetera et cetera? What this journalist sees as "perplexing" is hardly inexplicable.

Yes, those challenges indeed apply to most if not all people. Just because other people have things worse than others doesn't mean that one privileged group's behavior can't be explained by their own disenfranchisement. The fact that nobody can answer the question I've repeatedly asked demonstrates my point; the benefits of the man's privilege is in decline, hence men aren't going to participate in the economy the same way they used to. Why is it that you are redirecting the discussion to those(unnamed) with relatively worse privation?

[justinator]

> I'm not arguing against white men's privilege. And by the way, the term "white men" can be found nowhere in the article or in my comment, and I don't know why you are dragging race into this.

Because in the United States, "black male privilege" isn't a thing. "Male Privilege" = "WHITE Male Privilege"

Do please give examples of the, "benefits of the man's privilege is in decline" when compared to the population in whole. Please do so without seeing this as an adjustment in overall equality.

[ravenstine]

No, because that has absolutely nothing to do with what anyone here is talking about. Everything I wrote previously answers your question, but you're trying to apply racial conflict theory to a phenomenon that doesn't require it. Frankly, I'm not going to spend time explaining why black men have male privilege over black women, as I can hardly believe that you've seriously considered even the most basic of arguments against your overly reductionist and unnecessarily divisive definition of male privilege. This wasn't even specifically about general male privilege, but about the "economically privileged gender."

[Impossible]

Black male privilege is a thing...

https://projecthumanities.asu.edu/content/black-male-privile...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/black-male-what-the-blac...