Thursday, December 16, 2010

Rise of women, fall of men - inequality again

Most of the time, in most places of the world, I think, women are still discriminated against. The inequality mostly still is at the expense of women, yet, in the TED Talk I embed below, Hanna Rosin presents data of the rise of women in the modern age, in the modern world and the extent seems to not go towards equality, but rather show a flipped reality, in which women are the better performers, the better earners, the ones in power. And Rosin seems to also ask: was this what Feminism was aiming for? (feed)



I have been aware of some elements of what Rosin makes visible. For example, I have been seeing for decades that there is an especially underpriviliged chanceless class of uneducated poor young men. These days, for a man to be without education is worse than for women. Rosin adds the next nail to the coffin: men have been underperforming in the educational system for a long time. Consequently, this class of male drop-outs is only growing. Consequnetly, as Rosin has made me realize, our culture will change and within it our stereotypes of men and woman. We both fear that the next inequality will be just as bad as the other and most of all worse than the equality we had hoped for.

A last point to make is about this show being a videocast. I prefer podcast; my listening time lies especially in moments when my hands and eyes need to be somewhere else. Ted Talks are great videos to look at, but this specific talk I tested listening while not looking and there is very little you miss. I have experienced that this goes for many videocasts and so, if you are inclined like me towards audio alone, do not discard the vodcasts off the cuff.

More TED:
Rory Sutherland,
Dimitar Sasselov,
Sir Ken Robinson,
Photos that changed the world - Jonathan Klein,
Karen Armstrong on The Golden Rule.

1 comment:

Julie D. said...

That inequality is one that has frustrated me for a long time so I'll have to get that talk.

I've been listening to TED Talks videos for some time (selected ones as they have such a prodigious output that I am not usually interested in about 2/3 of the subjects). However, the ones I do sample are always excellent.