男人过时了？

    如今，许多黑人女性似乎都很难找到一位合适的伴侣。罗森认为，类似于亚历山大市的经济困局也将导致接受过高等教育的白人女性出现类似的趋势，她们或许“会与黑人女性一道，形成一种新型的中产阶级，结婚正逐渐成为一件稀罕事。”

    罗森的理论并不牵强。毕业于大学的女性多于男性。有关方面列举了30个有望成为未来10年最具就业前景的专业领域，女性在其中20个领域的就业人数占据了压倒性优势。男性（特别是在类似于亚历山大市这样的地方）卡在了就业方式的旧有格局及其未来发展趋势之间。“现代经济正逐渐变为一个女性制定规则，男性紧紧追赶的场所，”她这样写道。

    非常令人遗憾的是，罗森并没有使用整本书的篇幅来研究类似于亚历山大市这样的地方。在这些城市，“男性的终结”似乎正在成为一个切切实实，令人不安的现象。在每个篇章中，她对场景及其采访对象的描述似乎跟用于实质性内容的着墨一样多。这本书读起来令人愉悦，但无论笔触多么动人，她的整体描述并不令人信服。

    比如，罗森在书中提到玛丽莎•梅耶尔时，说她是“谷歌公司（Google）职位最高的女性”。但其实并非如此。任职谷歌公司期间，梅耶尔确实是曝光度最高的女性高管【她现在是雅虎公司（Yahoo）掌门人】，但谷歌公司高级副总裁苏珊•沃西基的职位排名始终比她高。虽然这是一个小失误，但沃西基的职位是众所周知的，罗森无意间犯下的这个错误使我不由得对书中许多总括性的陈述产生了质疑。

    此外，罗森还指出，在与科学和工程相关的研究领域，年龄在25岁至39岁的女性多于同一年龄段的男性。虽然这个陈述本身没错，但读者觉得她是在有意操纵这些数据，以进一步佐证她的整体论点：受过更好教育的女性正在促使劳动力群体的女性化。现实情况是，大学毕业后，女性在医学、法律和商业领域表现得非常优异。但在科学、技术、工程和数学等领域，女性的优势就没有那么明显了。

    另一项值得商榷的观点是：“也许我们正在接近这样的时刻：男性不再追忆过去，不再为所有的‘真男人’已经死了感到烦恼，而是任由自己被一种全新文化重新塑造，尽管其方式或许不那么令人舒适。”我向一位好友朗读了这段话的内容——我们俩都23岁，刚刚在乔治城大学（Georgetown University）度过了4年时光，其间就生活在罗森所说的那些将在一个女性世界中展现“灵活性”的新一代男性中间。我的朋友笑出声来，他说：“但愿这是真的，然现实并非如此。”

    罗森似乎更擅长人物特写，而不擅长宏大叙事。相较于每个章节包含的动人的个人故事，她对宏大性别议题的描绘似乎要逊色得多，关于种族、社会经济、宗教和代际转移等方面的陈述往往给人浅尝辄止之感，这也使得罗森的“男性过时论”很难让男性读者接受。与那些探讨探讨女性暴力和单身母亲现象（为了量入为出，这些妇女不得不长时间工作）增长的文字比较起来，书中对大学校园“逢场作戏”文化、视婚姻为奢饰品的现象，以及富有权势的女性高管（特别是硅谷中的女性高管）的分析就显得非常琐碎。

    罗森在书中为韩国单独设置了一个篇章，试图以此说明全球经济正变得越来越“依赖女性的成功，尽管这个进程受到了韩国本土大男子文化的阻挠。”这个章节虽然读起来挺有趣，但却让人觉得有些格格不入——特别是当它出现在本书结论之前的时候。罗森是否在暗示，在任何地方，无论其制度、宗教文化、家庭结构和经济地位有多么不同，男人的霉运都已经注定了。就如同凌晨3点钟饮下的美酒一般，这段针对亚洲女性的短暂陈述非常引人入胜，但或许会让读者感到头晕目眩，百思不得其解。

    女性新发现的经济自由是一条引线，防止本书一众随机性的描述对象坠入截然不同的方向，但这条引线还没有达到足够强大的程度，足以支持罗森就美国男性、女性和婚姻的未来发表的那些总括性结论。

    毫无疑问，美国梦现在已经改头换面——被涂染了一层睫毛膏。但罗森撰写的这部著作并没有表明，女性在受教育程度方面的主宰性优势和经济独立性意味着男子气概的灭亡。接受罗森采访的耶鲁大学（Yale）校友克莱尔•戈登认为，接受过高等教育的女性“需要花点时间仔细想想她们究竟想要什么，以及如何提出这些要求等问题。”面对令人震惊的经济和文化变革，所有的男士或许也应该这么做。

    译者：任文科

    Today, many black women seem to have trouble finding a suitable man. Rosin believes economic woes in cities like Alexander City will cause a similar trend among college-educated white women, who may "join their black counterparts in a new kind of middle class, where marriage is increasingly rare."

    Rosin's theory isn't far-fetched. Women graduate from college in larger numbers than men. They dominate 20 of the 30 professions projected to add the most jobs in the next 10 years. And men, especially in places like Alexander City, are stuck between the way things were and the way things are progressively moving. "The modern economy is becoming a place where women are making the rules and men are playing catch up," she writes.

    It's a shame Rosin doesn't dedicate the entire book to studying places like Alexander City, where "the end of men" seems to be a real and troubling phenomenon. She pays as much attention to the descriptions of setting and her interviewees as she does to the factual meat of each chapter. The book is an enjoyable read, but her entire portrait, no matter how beautifully painted, is unconvincing.

    At one point, Rosin refers to Marissa Mayer as the "highest-ranking woman at Google." That's not true. Mayer was certainly the most visible female Googler (GOOG) during her tenure at the firm (she now runs Yahoo (YHOO)), but senior VP Susan Wojcicki always ranked higher. Though a minor point, Wojcicki's position is well known, and Rosin's careless error made me question the reporting behind many of her sweeping statements.

    Rosin also notes that women aged 25-39 are crowding out men in fields of study related to science and engineering. While that's true, the numbers feel manipulated to further her overall thesis that better-educated women are feminizing the workforce. The reality is that women are doing well after graduation in medicine, law, and business. But science, technology, engineering, and math? Not so much.

    Another pause-worthy moment: "Maybe we are approaching the moment when men stop looking back, fretting that all the 'real men' are dead, and allow themselves to be molded by the culture in new if uncomfortable ways." I read that passage to a friend -- we're both 23 and spent the past four years at Georgetown University with the new generation of men Rosin believes will be 'flexible' in a women's world. My friend laughed out loud. "Wish that were true -- but yeah right."

    Rosin is better at close-ups than landscapes. Her attempt to cover gender at large -- with fleeting focus on race, socioeconomics, religion, and generational shifts -- detracts from the fascinating personal stories each chapter contains, and also makes Rosin's argument about the obsolescence of men hard to follow. Analyses of the college hook-up culture, marriage as a luxury good, and powerful women executives (particularly those in Silicon Valley) feel trivial next to those that discuss a rise in female violence and single mothers working long hours to make ends meet.

    A sole chapter about South Korea, representing a global economy becoming "dependent on women's success … despite resistance from local versions of macho culture," is interesting but feels out of place -- especially as it comes just before the book's conclusion. Is Rosin suggesting that men are doomed everywhere, regardless of varying regimes, religious cultures, familial structures, and economic statuses? Like a 3 a.m. nightcap, this brief excursion on Asian women is tasty but will probably leave readers dizzy and confused.

    Women's newfound economic freedom is the thread that keeps the slew of random subjects from falling in very different directions, but that thread isn't strong enough to support Rosin's sweeping conclusions about the future of men, women, and marriage in America.

    No doubt the American Dream has gotten a makeover -- with an extra coat of mascara. But Rosin doesn't demonstrate that women's educational dominance and financial independence spells the death of manhood. Claire Gordon, a Yale alumna whom Rosin interviewed, believes that college women "need a little time, to figure out what they want and how to ask for it." Amid shocking economic and cultural change, maybe that's all the guys need, too.