Where Have the Good Men Gone?

Chris pointed out an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal to me today titled Where Have the Good Men Gone?. It essentially argues that the rise of womens' economic status, the difficult job market for early 20-somethings, increased disposable income, and the delay in marrying ages has created a growing generation of "pre-adulthood guys" who are not boys but who are also not willing to 'man up' to adult life.

As a female, I don't have much perspective as to whether or not the author has accurately delved into the male psyche, but Chris brought up some interesting points that he thought the author missed, which I will defer to as the resident male opinion :o) :

1. An education system that favors women: While the glass ceiling is still an issue for women rising in business/upper management (they represent only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs, and make 77 cents on the dollar to men in identical positions), early education tends to favor girls in the sense that it focuses upon visual/auditory learning in settings requiring sitting still for long periods of time. At least in the early years, this leaves out boys who are typically more active, and more commonly kinesthetic learners (those who learn by doing) than girls.

2. Lack of strong male role models: When a couple splits, the mother typically raises the children. Rising divorce and unwed parent rates mean that unprecedented numbers of children are raised in mother-only environments. This means boys are growing up without strong male role models, unless community members or other relatives will step up to the plate. Missing men from one generation means the next generation grows up not knowing how to act, perpetuating the cycle.

3. A "safe" society: political correctness is awash in our rhetoric, but there is a parallel movement to have a 'safe' society as well as 'safe' speech. Thus fewer risks are encouraged; gone are the days when boys could roam free outdoors a-la-Andy Griffith style - instead they are encouraged to stay safe, study hard, and shoot for a 'successful' job... which is usually defined as a well-paid desk job.

4. A services ecomony: Our society places a premium on 'intellectual' rather than physical work - the best paying jobs are in services such as lawyers, bankers, doctors. With the rise of outsourcing in a global economy, manufacturing and other industrial jobs are increasingly scarce and increasingly poorly paid. As men are statistically much more present in manufacturing jobs than women, economic globalization has hit them particularly hard. As Newseek noted this week, of the 15 industries projected to grow the most in the coming decade, 13 are primarily staffed by women.


So what do you think? Where have all the good men gone?

(Of course, I know where one good man has gone... I married him!)

A Narnian Approach to the State of the Union

Battling a sinus bug, I have been doing more couch-sitting than usual this weekend, and my inert pursuits included watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and reading Laurie Fabiano's Elizabeth Street. While one deals with the exploits of children rescuing Narnia and the other with the moving true story of Italian immigrants beginning life in New York City in the early 1900s, both surprisingly reinforce the danger of dwelling on what might have been.

In Prince Caspian, Lucy searches for Aslan and asks him if lives could have been saved if she had looked for him sooner. He replies:

“To know that would have happened, child? No. Nobody is ever told that. But anyone can find out what will happen. If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell that you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”

Elizabeth Street's main characters, a close-knit family of Italian immigrants, face deaths from construction mishaps, mob kidnappings ignored by corrupt police, and appaling living conditions in tenements. But unlike Lucy, they do not bother asking what might have been. They simply go on with their lives, through tragedy and hardship, starting over again and again in single-minded determination that their children will have better lives, that they will not have to 'scrape plaster from the wall to mix with the flour.'

The sense of looking to the future without dwelling on what might have been could better serve our generation than our typical reaction of passing blame as we face looming specters of swelling national deficits, stagnant employment, and weak economic growth. As a New York Times opinion article points out, 'it takes years' to make changes. But the only way to find a solution, is to look forward, trying solutions and seeing what happens. Simply wondering what might have been will get us nowhere.

Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution

"All I'm saying is simply this: that all mankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be - this is the interrelated structure of reality.

John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... And then he goes on toward the end to say: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution."

- Martin Luther King, Jr - Commencement address for Oberlin College

Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. day. More than a bank holiday, it is a celebration of what Dr. King stood for: unity of humanity, fought for through peace. Today I don't really have anything to say; King's words speak for themselves, more powerfully then I could ever hope to reword them.

While I am not what I should be, and you are not what you should be, let us take hope in God, and take hope that King's message will continue to be heard and remembered.

Is This the New Year?

Tonight is New Year's Eve, a famous moment for clinking glasses, looking back on the past year's triumphs (or regrets) and hoping that the new year is a clean beginning of fresh blessings to come. Along with said champagne and reminiscing thoughts usually also comes a resolution - that this will finally be the year we lose weight, are nicer to people, save more money, volunteer more, or __[fill in the blank]__. My office offers some relatively random but usually enjoyable training classes, and I took one earlier this month called "This Year I Will" (taught by M.J. Ryan who also has a book by the same title). The gist of the class was that we need to keep in mind a couple key items to actually succeed in those well-intentioned resolutions:

1. Be specific (this includes lots of annoying 'hows?' - like how will you save money? what are you willing to do to lose weight? how will you specifically measure accomplishing your goals? etc etc)

2. Positive feedback. Our instructor pointed out that after someone receives a job review in which the majority of items are things they need to improve on, their job performance typically drops by an average of 28%. Whereas people with largely positive reviews subsequently improve their job performance. Why? We are wired for positive feedback (or so says Ms. Ryan). Her point is, if we make a resolution to go the gym 5 times a week and we only go twice, we usually respond by telling ourselves how pathetic we are that we only went twice. Instead we should congratulate ourselves on successfully going twice, and consider next week a new start.

The moral of the story? Pick a resolution that is something you truly want to do. Then give yourself a break after the stumbles along the way. (After all, as Ryan explained, babies learning how to walk don't tell themselves "Stupid baby!" after falling, they just ignore the fall and keep going).

In a somewhat related tangent, my godparents introduced Chris and I to New York artist Ian Axel. One of his songs (sung with Chad Vaccarino) is "This is the New Year." Besides an appropriate title for this time of year, the lyrics are a good reminder of the true meaning of a new year - that in the end we have one another. So let's toast to a new year, a new beginning, ignoring skinned knees we may pick up along the way, and embracing who we are and who we find along the way.

Another year you made a promise
another chance to turn it all around
and do not save this for tomorrow
embrace the past and you can live for now
and I will give the world to you

Speak louder that the words before you
and give them meaning no one else has found
The role we play is so important
we are the voices of the underground
and I would give the world to you

Say everything you’ve always wanted,
be not afraid of who you really are,
cause in the end we have each other,
and that's at least one thing worth living for...

A 600 Turkey Day

Now that we are in the pre-Christmas winter months, people's thoughts turn to gifts, parties, and (hopefully) giving back to the community. My office is no exception, and since we get 2 days per year as paid time off to volunteer, five of us from accounting went for the day to help out at the Bowery Mission. Founded in 1879, the Bowery is one of the largest homeless aid organizations in the city.

A little known fact is that NYC is the only city in the country legally required to provide shelter for anyone who seeks it. Yes, anyone. The city is required to find a bed for each and every person who seeks it out, and on cold nights NYC has even rented out entire cruise ships to shelter people.

So what makes the Bowery so special, when the city would shelter the homeless? Besides the fact that Chris and I know the Bowery's president and his wife (whom we deeply respect), the Bowery has a unique approach to the city's marginalized by offering both short term and long term care. So yes, they do serve three meals a day, 365 days a year, providing clothing and shelter as well to meet immediate needs. But, crucially, they also have long-term programs where men and women stay between 6 months - 2 years and receive computer training, financial/spiritual/personal counseling, and have rotating jobs within the Bowery organization so that they have job experience on their resume when they leave. The womens' program, for instance, doesn't graduate a resident until she meets 5 criteria, including that they have a job, have a place to live (Bowery helps them save wages to afford a deposit while they live in the program), and are reconciled to their family.

All this as background to say that I deeply believe the Bowery has a powerful approach to helping those in need, and I was excited to help out in preparing Thanksgiving meals.

Still, I was totally astounded by the sheer scope of the work Bowery goes through to serve Thanksgiving. I had read they serve 3,800 people on Thanksgiving day, but it is another matter entirely to see volunteers working in shifts around the clock (literally!) to get 600 turkeys, 1,000 lbs of potatoes, 900 pies, and 800 pounds of stuffing prepared and cooked. My co-workers and I helped prepare turkeys, peel potatoes, make stuffing, organize the pantry and other odd jobs (below).








Let me add here that when I heard 1,000 lbs of potatoes and 800 lbs of stuffing, I imagined huge industrial boxes of potato flakes and Stouffer's stuffing getting mixed with hot water. Not so. The Bowery believes strongly in treating the homeless with with dignity, and as such everything was made from scratch. I believe the main thought going through my mind all day was "Holy moly!"... huge stacks of potatoes lined the pantry, and each was hand peeled, baked and mashed for mashed potatoes. Other groups of volunteers did nothing all week long but dice loaves of bread to be mixed with broth and spices for homemade stuffing. Wow.

After 8 hours picking turkey meat, hand mixing huge containers of stuffing, dicing bread, stacking pies, and unloading trucks of donated food, we were all exhausted to the bone - but it's great to be a part of such an exciting effort in the city!

How will you get involved to give back?

Our Debt to Dilbert

My company's employee intranet site posts a Dilbert comic every day alongside the lunch menu, and while most elicit a chuckle among myself and my fellow cubicle-dwellers, this one was downright eerie... mainly because it somehow reminded me of the national debt (my brain is a scary place, I know).

The deficit panel this week created a proposed list of spending cuts/tax increases in an attempt to cut our nation's debt (see WSJ article). Honestly, I am surprised to say that I actually think a lot of the suggestions make sense... for instance, lowering corporate tax rates, but eliminating a lot of loophole deductions. (Ditto for individuals, who would have some deductions eliminated, like mortgage interest, but whose base tax rate would go down). I think those moves could majorly simplify filing taxes, a process so complicated that even CPA's eyes cross (mine do, anyway). But the point here is that it comes back to Dilbert: many citizens wants the government to cut the deficit (myself included), but none want to deal with the practicalities of making it happen... sending the sort of mixed message I used to hear in my investment banking intern days:

Managing Director to me at 6pm on Friday: "We have a new project, but I don't want you here all weekend working on it. It should take about 25 man hours. I need it on my desk first thing Monday"

Uhh, ok.

Getting a politician to go anywhere near the Deficit Panel's suggestions will be essentially impossible, since political suicide is usually spelled: a) cutting spending to popular programs b) raise taxes on everyone (including the 'middle class') c) all of the above. So, as the New York Times asked today, 'how would you fix our budget'??

Mr. Deficit, I don't know how to get rid of you without a lot of painful measures. But I also know that our pain (and your grinch-iness) will only increase ten fold if we ignore you. So I would like to offer up some parting wisdom from our friend Mr. Seuss:

You're a foul one, Mister Grinch,
You're a nasty wasty skunk,
Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mister Grinch,

The three words that describe you are as follows, and I quote, "Stink, Stank, Stunk!"

Anything but a Plain Jane

I have been re-reading Jane Eyre this week. This would come as no surprise to those who knew me in college; I wrote my senior thesis on Charlotte Bronte’s works. But I have for several years been immersed in the financial realm, so it was an unexpected treat to revisit Jane Eyre. (My family and husband usually roll their eyes when they see me rereading books for the fifth or sixth time, however I continue undaunted in the rather strange habit of re-reading books).

One passage in particular struck me this week; Jane is leaving Mr. Rochester, whom she loves but is about to leave (spoiler alert!) because she discovered at the altar that Rochester already has a wife – a mad woman locked in the house’s attic. (And you thought classics were boring!) It rends her heart to leave, and Rochester pushes her to stay, offering to whisk her away to villas in France and Italy where they can live as a married couple with no one knowing they aren’t technically married. Jane realizes she must leave Rochester, reflecting:

I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation . . . They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.” -Jane, Chapter 27

It is Jane’s perspective that calls us to action. The call to remember in the darkness what we have seen in the light; to recall the whispering we heard from God when all that currently surrounds is silence.

How much better would our businesses and governments be if only we could all take this lesson? To reform because we believed in doing the right thing, rather than because we were blind to everything but the punishment of being caught. To put in place government principles we believe are beneficial, not push through bills for the sole purpose of trying to be re-elected. Business ethics classes usually teach students that they should be ethical because it will pay off monetarily in the long run – i.e., recalling you faulty product is cheaper than the lawsuits and bad press. But what about being ethical for the sake of it? Because we had glimpses of the right thing in moments of sanity?

The hallmark of the last two years of the financial crisis has been insanity; panic from investors, greed from bankers, mud-slinging from politicians. Caught up in the moment, it is hard to reach back in memory to moments of normalcy. But it is those who can see in panic the eventual return to calm that will rule the day.