Friday, March 18, 2011

Men into Boys

Yesterday we talked about pitching star Tim Lincecum and how this 26 year old, 13 million dollar a year star spent his off season, hanging with his buddies and playing video games. In so many ways he is simply reflective of young men today who see themselves not on any kind of scripted path to adulthood, but rather stuck in a conflicting state of both success and financial independence on the one hand and extended adolescence on the other.

Is it simply the fact that we are living longer that allows these young men to delay the onset of adulthood, or is it some more profound cultural shift? As women become more independent, as the number of women graduating from college, medical school and law school exceed the numbers for men, as women earn more in some cities; are these men simply finding themselves increasingly threatened, insecure for even irrelevant? How is it that Don Draper been replaced by Owen Wilson and does it matter? Author and journalist Kay Hymowitz, in her new book Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys, has stirred up quite a controversy on this this topic.

My conversation with Kay Hymowitz:


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