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It may be that this condition manifests itself more in younger men because the old farts are too conditioned to adjust. Feminism has been a gradual process, and the ripple of unanticipated consequences has expanded at similar rate. Men raised to provide may feel uncomfortable outside that role, but less so a younger generation of males that hasn’t been treated to the same level of conditioning. Schools now work on the expectation that women are supposed to do well. To a much greater degree, society is set up to move them along the path to success and achievement. They still have the option of motherhood if they prefer, but there’s much less stigma (perhaps none at all) in choosing career over mothering, or vice versa. What’s important is self-esteem, and the assurance that, whichever path you choose, society fully embraces the choice as valid.

Men, on the other hand, have largely been ignored, on the apparent assumption that they had what they wanted and didn’t need any special care. As long as you taught them to read and write, and maybe do a little math, they were set. They’d reach working age and automatically set out to earn a living, because it was in their nature. It’s what they wanted.

Except maybe not. While the little girls have been getting lessons in striving, the little boys have been absorbing the message that they no longer have to. (They may look like they’re not paying attention in class, but, really, they do pick up on these things). If there’s no stigma to little Betty growing up to earn a fat paycheque, maybe there’s also no shame to little Billy refusing to do so. In the old days that would have been seen as a failure: litte Billy would have been a deadbeat if he didn’t pull his weight in the workforce. Now it’s a choice. Since Billy married Betty, and Betty is absolutely coining it, Billy gets to paint houses, which doesn’t pay much but which he really enjoys. It’s possible that men didn’t strive to keep women from the workforce because they were chauvinist pigs, but because they feared for their jobs. Maybe they didn’t monopolize the workforce because it was in their nature, but because creating that expectation was the only way society could get them them to drag themselves out of bed every morning and head off to the quarry. You think Fred and Barney put up with Mr. Slate because they enjoyed it? Fred could hardly wait for that whistle to blow at five o’clock so he could get home to Wilma and Pebbles Yabba-dabba-dooooo!