There's a whole constellation of data that points to the idea that men, and white men in particular, are losing ambition — "drifting." But what if men have never really been ambitious? annehelen.substack.com/p/why-are-whit…
What if they’ve never really had to cultivate ambition because a modicum of success was, by some measure, their birthright? What if the “decline” of men’s ambition is just less unquestioned access to power and privilege? annehelen.substack.com/p/why-are-whit…
@annehelen If success is due to privilege and failure due to entitlement, the logical conclusion is that (white) men can’t legitimately be successful. Is there any success that (white) men can obtain that you would consider legitimate?
@annehelen This framing rings true to me. The structure of school/college has not changed very much, so it never made sense to panic about the relative lack of success of men in these environments when the only rule that changed in the game is that everyone else gets to play too.
@annehelen It’s the “be your own wife” model. Men have needed moms—>wives to make their lives run smoothly. Women have never had that, and ambitious women adapted better to playing both roles than men did.
@annehelen Every time I hear Richard Reeves on another one of these podcasts I wonder if anyone's going to ask him about the reality that while women have been outpacing men in education for decades, nearly none of those gains are reflected in long-term labor market outcomes
@annehelen I wonder if what you call “ambition” in this essay could also very well be termed “hyper vigilance”
@annehelen The “old way of academic life” is unfortunately still true. I see it all the time. PLUS it brings forth who wants to “return to work,” the men who have all of their domestic responsibilities taken care of by a partner. I wish I could print this out and hang it on my office door!
@annehelen This is exactly the reaction i had but was having difficulty expressing in words. Thank you