The Myth Of Men Stephanie Coontz Summary

Initially in “The Myth of Male Decline” Stephanie Coontz points out recent tendencies regarding the discourse of gender roles. The books she highlights all indicate that women are taking over the traditional roles of men, and this in a dominating fashion as the title of the book “The end of men” suggests. However, she seems to be unsatisfied when it appears not to be a reality in what she considers some of the most important fields of society such as technology and politics. Though it might seem absurd that she wants women to be superior, underlining the hegemonical discourse for thereafter to argue against it is a great way to start a discussion about whether the male decline is a mere perception or it really is happening. Thereafter she uses …show more content…
She does so without ground, which weakens the argument, as it is not an obvious or generally accepted claim she puts forward. The following section is then used to praise the progress men’s behaviour has undergone, although it is done in a condescending way since she describes the behaviour as less destructive. Thus yet again her subjectivity becomes apparent, which can also be seen during the part, where she talks about discrimination on the labour marked. Coontz does this by drawing her own conclusions based on statistic and again attempting to appeal through logos. Unfortunately for her, she is unaware of the underlying factors of the stats – as an example, the reason employers prefer men who do not ask for family leaves are that they will be more reliable and have more work hours, not because they think of them as weak. And men who have never quit for family reasons are probably more ambitious and focused on their career. Generally, the argumentation of the text is negatively affected by the writer’s eager as she tends to try to force grounds to back up her arguments, even in cases where they don’t