Female Superiority:

I was reading an article by Jonathan Rauch of Reason Magazine. In it is referenced forecasting by the federal agency National Center for Education Statistics (a division of the Department of Education), which indicates an inescapably clear trend. Women are outnumbering men in conferred degrees. This is inclusive of both Bachelor’s and Master’s. By 2017, the trend holding, there will be 50% more women than men obtaining post-highschool degrees. This is staggering to consider.

There are male chauvinist on the internet who consider this to be a subversive conspiracy which is coming to fruition. I find that to be silly. In my view, the pervasive egalitarian expectations society has placed into daily life have allowed the innate abilities that women have an upper hand with to bear fruit. Women are showing the skills Hanna Rosin so eloquently portrays in her TED:Talk video (linked below) and are simply flourishing more so then males can in the same environment. There is no conspiracy. It is simple free-market capitalist forces at work. When the principle skills in demand were associated with physical strength, men held the upper hand. In a post-industrial egalitarian society, women are able to succeed more so then men. Physical strength is no longer a bread winning skill.

In a macroeconomic view, human intellectual capital resting increasingly in the hands of women will undoubtedly change the fabric of society. This is not a submissive man making a fairy tale about a utopian matriarchal parallel universe. These are real Department of Education statistics which the federal government maintains over decades, using objective, industry accepted practices. We are now in the shift away from working moms coming home for their “second shift” into increasingly accepted domesticated fathers/husbands. My dad never changed a diaper. I know of no peers who can claim the same. In the coming years, subservient husbands will almost certainly become so common as to be often expected by society. I just do not see how our changing society will end on an egalitarian fulcrum point when economic power will increasingly rest with women. There will have to also be changes where men come to accept subservient roles. For me, this is a welcome change I look forward to.

In 1950, Mr. Rauch indicates in his article that fewer than half of Americans obtained high school diplomas. During this time physical skills were at a premium and advanced education did not have the same value it does in our post-industrial society. Men were able to earn good wages in the vast agriculture industries or manufacturing. There were also the trade unions for an avenue to meaningful employment. Those days are gone. Physical skills men hold an upper hand with are primarily limited to use in the construction and military sectors. It is unlikely those will ever change and become sectors where women are employed in great numbers. However, in the rest of the post-industrial economic sphere, intellectual skills demonstrated by obtaining degrees will be held by women and therefore the bulk of the economic decision making will rest with them. The fabric of society will quickly adjust. When men outnumbered women three-to-one in obtaining degrees, women were often expected to marry a man with high earning potential and then learn to live as his dutiful wife. The converse will invariably become true when the numbers are reversed.

Mr. Rauch uses the colloquial phrase, “Wake up and smell the coffee” to jolt the reader into understanding. He goes on to explain the globalization of the workforce makes an even higher premium on human intellectual capital, which women will hold in increasing disparity. The cost associated with keeping the college-educated mom at home while the high-school educated dad works will simply not make economic sense. Enter the increasingly popular subservient husband. This lifestyle will continue to move out of a kink phenomena as macroeconomic forces will force it instead into common practice. I simply see no other way to interpret the data in light of our present economic reality. I find the prospect of overt matriarchal elements in society to be a very real possibility. Not fantasy types of dominance as may be seen in a FemDom comic book, but instead women with expected authority roles over men and men glad to submit. To me, this is an exciting time in which to be living.


National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2020/sec6b.asp

Hanna Rosin Video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hanna_rosin_new_data_on_the_rise_of_women.html

Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a frequent contributor to Reason. The article was originally published by National Journal.