男人过时了？

    在耶鲁大学商学院（Yale Business School）举办的一个宴会上，萨布丽娜一边品尝着手中的鸡尾美酒，一边聊着她喜欢（红酒、Lady Gaga和安格拉•默克尔）和反感的事物（矮个子男人、金融白痴，以及遭人蔑视的高管撰写的不够成熟的文本）。这位绿眼睛美女可以被很容易地归入《欲望都市》女主角凯莉•布雷萧那种类型：单身、镇静自若、事业有成且魅力四射。她是“独一无二的”，一位旧情人这样形容她。

    31岁的萨布丽娜在不同的银行工作了数年；她谈过几场恋爱，并没有真正感受过成家的紧迫感：“我为什么要找个男人？我又不靠他养我，也不需要他干活。我有很多朋友。去他娘的。”

    千里之外，失业的卡尔文正在竭力寻找自己在后制造业时代的坐标。他的前妻，29岁的贝辛妮经营着自己的日托生意，似乎并不依赖他做什么事情。两人有一个女儿，但卡尔文并不是这个家庭的重要一份子。贝辛妮若有所思地说，外出购物时带着他不过意味着“我俩少吃一个格兰诺拉燕麦卷而已。”卡尔文似乎仅仅是一个只会在花钱方面增添麻烦的人，贝辛妮选择让他离开自己的生活。

    以上就是汉娜•罗森的著作《男性的终结与女性的崛起》（The End of Men: And the Rise of Women）一书的开篇。这本书探索的主题是现代职业女性及其对经济、性别规范和男性自尊的影响。2010年，罗森曾在《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）上发表过一篇同名文章，希望回答她自己提出的一个问题：如果后工业时期的现代社会更适合女性，世界将会怎样？

    她的研究发现，“经济和文化已经发生了某种地震级的转换，不仅是对男性，对女性也是如此。男女双方必须进行调整，以适应一种完全新型的工作、生活，甚至恋爱方式。”在这本书中，她竭力诠释了我们怎么一步步走到了目前的境地，以及对于我们所知的生活，这究竟意味着什么等问题。罗森均等地使用轶事和社会学分析（附加以少量统计数据）等手段，得出了一个男性或许很难接受的推论。尽管这本书的书名暗示这是一个“女孩当道，男孩艳羡”的故事，但实际情况并非如此。这本书涉及的主题非常广泛，所有主题均与性别、金钱和爱有关。罗森的座右铭是什么？“没有所谓的‘自然’秩序，唯有事物的本原模样。”

    书中最有趣的故事发生在运动装备制造商拉塞尔公司（Russell Corporation）昔日的大本营：阿拉巴马州亚历山大市。作为重组的一部分，这家公司将工厂迁至美国境外。2006年，伯克希尔哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）收购了该公司。数千名居住在亚历山大市的拉塞尔公司员工（其中绝大多数是男性）突然失去了工作。

    美国各地的工业城镇都在经历类似的创伤，罗森写道。就在男性为逝去的黄金岁月满怀感伤之际，女性们却将怀旧情绪搁置一旁，担当起养家糊口的角色。“男人逐渐熄火的时候，妇女不得不自食其力，肩负起抚养小孩的责任，”麻省理工学院（MIT）的经济学家大卫•奥特尔说道。“她们不愿嫁人，因为所谓的丈夫仅仅是另一张需要喂养的嘴而已。”

    我们此前目睹过这样的场景。罗森提醒我们，从上世纪70年代开始，非洲裔美国男性开始离开制造业。到了1987年，仅有20%的黑人男性在工厂工作。她写道：“随着时间的推移，小家庭开始分崩离析，吸毒率上升，社会机构开始瓦解。”这时，妇女们站了出来。在过去20年中，黑人社区已经迎来了女家长制社会。罗森指出，父亲身陷囹圄的非洲裔美国男孩的毕业成绩往往优于那些父亲陪伴在身边的孩子，这种状况显示，“父亲已经成为孩子成长过程中的负面影响因素。”

    With a cocktail in hand at a Yale Business School party, Sabrina chats about her likes (red wine, Lady Gaga, and Angela Merkel) and her dislikes (short men, FDBs -- financial douche bags -- and immature texts from scorned exes). The green-eyed beauty could easily roll with Carrie Bradshaw's posse. She's single, poised, successful, and attractive -- "one of a kind" is how an old flame describes her.

    Sabrina, 31, spent years working at various banks; she's been in and out of love and feels no real urgency to settle down: "What do I need a man for? I don't need him financially. I don't need him to do activities. I have lots of friends here. So fuck it."

    A thousand miles away, unemployed Calvin attempts to navigate the post-manufacturing age. His ex, Bethenny, 29, runs her own daycare business and doesn't seem to rely on him for anything. The two have a daughter together, though Calvin isn't an important part of the equation. While grocery shopping, Bethenny muses that having him around would just mean "one less granola bar for the both of us." It seems Calvin is nothing more than a financial hassle -- one that Bethenny chooses to keep out of her life.

    And so begins Hanna Rosin's The End of Men: And the Rise of Women, an exploration of the modern career woman and her effect on the economy, gender norms, and masculine self-worth. In 2010, Rosin published an essay of the same name in The Atlantic, hoping to answer her own question: What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?

    Her research uncovered that something "seismic had shifted the economy and culture, not only for men but for women, and that both sexes were going to have to adjust to an entirely new way of working and living and even falling in love." In her book, she works to explain how we got to where we are -- and what it may mean for life as we know it. Equal parts anecdote and sociological analysis (with a dash of statistics), Rosin serves a dish that may be hard for American men to digest. Though the title suggests it's a "girls rule, boys drool" tale, that's untrue. Rosin covers a wide range of subjects, all relating to gender, money, and love. Her motto? "There is no 'natural' order, only the way things are."

    Rosin's most interesting reporting occurs in Alexander City, Alabama, the former home of athletic gear manufacturer Russell Corporation. As part of a restructuring, it moved its plants outside of the United States and in 2006, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA)acquired the company. Thousands of Russell employees living in Alexander City (the majority of them men) were suddenly jobless.

    Industrial towns across America are experiencing similar trauma, Rosin writes. As the men pine for the golden days, the women push nostalgia aside and take on the provider role. "When men start to flame out, women by necessity have to become self-sufficient, to take care of the kids," says MIT economist David Autor. "They don't marry the men, who are just another mouth to feed."

    We've seen this movie before. Starting in the 1970s, Rosin reminds us, African-American men began leaving the manufacturing sector. By 1987, only 20% of black men worked in factories. "Over time, nuclear families fell apart, drug addiction shot up, and social institutions began to disintegrate," she writes. Women stepped up, and over the past 20 years, the black community has embraced matriarchy. (Rosin notes that African-American boys whose fathers are in jail graduate at higher rates than those whose dads are around, suggesting that "fathers have become a negative influence.")