MANCESSION

Quickly, feel sorry for all the men, for they are being persecuted by economics!

Yes, this is the story that men are bring downgraded in the employment stats, almost to the level of women! By 2008, less than 1% separated men and women on US employment statistics.

This terrifying situation has caused an outbreak of consternation amongst the media, who have labelled this gender-disparate trend 'The Mancession'. While characterising one of the most significant recessions of the western world (by this I mean the USA and Europe) as if it only affected men, this term perpetuates patriarchal hegemonies by obscuring facts to perpetuate misleading narratives.

The graphs below show that while male unemployment works with slightly larger numbers than women's (presumably due to a much larger number of women being designated housekeepers and thus not actively looking for work, though there are probably a wide range of factors that contribute to this), the overall trends within each graph are pretty similar. Unemployment rates across both genders have roughly doubled.

Unemployment rates:

Men

Women

From the excellently malleable Bureau of Labor Statistics One Screen Data Search

So stories like this may be somewhat misleading. Why are redundancies concentrated amongst men? Because employment is concentrated amongst men. Whilst it may be true that certain industries are taking more of a hit than others, and it may also be true that women are less likely to work in those industries, can this account for the 82% of job losses being men's? It doesn't seem sufficient. What about women earning on average 20% less than men? I know which employee I'd cut...

Women are more likely than men to work part time, as they are more likely to share their career with family chores. This means they tend to do different jobs - with lower wages, security and benefits. Such jobs are less likely to face large-scale cuts. Having said that, women are not 'safe' because they're all working as primary school teachers for the state. 39% of employed women work in management, professional and related occupations and they account for 51 percent of all workers in such roles. As we have already seen, unemployment is actually hitting the sexes fairly evenly, in terms of the rise of unemployment as a percentage within each gender. So why focus on the percentage of job losses by gender, instead of the percentage of job losses within each gender? For the narrative. Shocking figures are an excellent way to make stories like this look factual, nay scientific, when in fact they are pure commentary. By spinning the story as a patronising congratulations, it is easy to discuss, and thereby reinforce, gender roles. When we talk about a Mancession, we can talk about Men's Jobs and Women's Jobs, we can say that women aren't doing as much about the home as they used to (and men are incompetent), we can raise childbirth and the impossibility of choosing between kids and a career. Hey, we can make it 1994 again! Before you know it, we'll be back in the nice cosy 50s.

Well, that's one way you can spin the narrative anyway.