Essay on “The End of Men”
Since the beginning of time, men have been the dominant gender. The so-called patriarchy has been oppressing females and violating their human rights. The late 20th century however has been characterized by the redstockings movement and feminism in general. Now in the 21st century the world is finally starting to meet the demands of the feminists. In her article “The End of Men” from July/August 2010 in ‘The Atlantic’ Hanna Rosin addresses how the world is adjusting to the wave of dominating feminists, and how a matriarchy could be starting to occur. But could this change in the end be “The End of Men”?

Rosin sets of her article with statistical facts stating that for every 2 men that achieves a college education, 3 women achieve the same. She uses these facts to prove with logos that equality for women is actually starting to come through, after saying this she asks the rhetorical question: “But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?”(p.1 ,ll 4-5). This rhetorical question could have been the question in Rosin’s head that made her write this article, because the article keeps coming back to this issue. By putting this rhetorical somewhat provoking statement in the beginning of the article, she also catches the reader and set the agenda for the article.
Moving on she introduces the reader to the male chauvinist Ronald Ericsson. As Rosin states, Ericsson was the biologist that figured out how to isolate the male chromosome in semen, making it possible only to spawn boys. The fact that Ericsson on top of this discovery was a radical male chauvinist, had feminists worrying that they were headed for a male dystopia, as the article says.
“Ericsson now 74, laughed when I read him these quotes from his old antagonists. Seldom has it been so easy to prove a dire prediction wrong.”(p.2 ,ll. 19-20) Rosin’s uses her interview with Ericsson to give the reader a historical perspective on how the patriarchy ones was the only social norm. One might even call Ericsson an allusion in this text, because of his past as a male chauvinist and his hindsight after growing old.
He says: “Now they just call and say outright ‘I want a girl.’ These mothers look at their lives and think their daughters will have a bright future their mother and grandmother didn’t have, brighter than their sons, even, so why wouldn’t you choose a girl?”(p. 2, ll. 33-36) Rosin repeats the last sentence to emphasize that this is a revolution, a retired male chauvinist asking that question. Rosin starts explaining how the patriarchy has dominated all time, just to point out that this one sentence is a clear example of how far, feminism has come.
Rosin continues to find examples that prove how women are becoming more dominant as men using logos as her main appeal for example: “Women live longer than men, they do better in this economy, more of ‘em graduate from college.”(p.2 ll.58-59) Rosin states these facts in order to prove herself right, when she claims that women are taking on a more dominating position compared to men.
She states that these improved living standards for women, are for some feminists only a catch-up on a long awaited equality, but she asks a an interesting rhetorical question: “What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than to men? […] what if the new economics are better suited to women?”(p.3 ,ll.83-84) The interesting part of this rhetorical question is how she expresses doubt on the feminists fight for equality. What she is asking is, what kind of equality is it if women are better off than men? The short answer would be, it is not equality and her rhetorical question can therefore be considered as a criticism towards feminists that fight for equality, without considering how their fight for equality might violate men’s equality.
Then again she turns back to the logos appeal explaining the downsides by for example the great recession mostly hit males. She does this to support her argument that men might end up on the losing side of the fight for equality.
“The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today – social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus – are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true.”(p.3, ll. 102-105)
Rosin is trying to use a pathos appeal by referring to the recession and how to society sets itself on a course not suitable for men. She does this to make the reader focus on equality not just as a thing reserved for women, but for men as well.
Rosin rounds up her article firstly by mentioning ‘the cougar’ older women acting like Hugh Hefner, and then she starts talking about female serial killers. A phenomenon that according to Rosin have skyrocketed since the 80’s and the last sentence in her article gives a sarcastic twist to the subject:
“We did it, honey B”(p.4, ll.146) The quote comes from Lady Gaga from a movie she played with Beyoncé as serial killers that slaughtered ex-boyfriends. The sentence is a reference to the title as well; ‘The End of Men.’ It creates a morbid controversial thought of how women’s’ fight for equality is going to end in the slaughtering of the male gender. Rosin takes it to the extreme to emphasize that it is important to consider equality between the genders from both sides of the genders, or else we might have a matriarchy down the road, just as oppressing for men, that the patriarchy was for women.

Rosins article is a modern view on the debate on equality between the genders. She approaches her readers with mostly logos appeal and historical allusions. In some cases she uses rhetorical questions to provoke certain opinions, and use these provocative questions, to make people consider that feminism might leave men behind in the dust, while women takes over the all the jobs.