Editor's Note: The Whole Truth

by Brian K. Mahoney and photographs by Ion Zupcu, August 27, 2009

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 80 percent of job losses in the United States since November of last year have been suffered by men. This aspect of the current recession has received little notice, writes Reihan Salam in “The Great He-Cession”, but it augurs a tectonic shift in gender relations. The declining economic prospects of men across the globe, argues Salam, combined with the increasing enfranchisement of women in social, economic, and political realms, will result in nothing less than a revolution over the course of this century. The tension between alienated men—on the downswing as traditional high-paying blue-collar jobs decrease and white-collar managerial work disappears—and empowered women—is it any wonder why Hillary Clinton is so violently disliked by male-dominated conservatism?—will not result in open warfare. But Salam believes the battle for power, as patriarchal structures weaken, will be the defining conflict of the 21st century.

Which seems to be a stretch, doesn’t it? What about the coming Water Wars we’ve heard so much about? Or the conflicts that will be brought on by forced migration in the face of environmental cataclysm? Or the further Balkanization of former nation-states into smaller, warring neo-tribal enclaves? Or the Clash of Civilizations, for goodness sake?

Salam’s argument, however, is exaggerated for effect; it’s not the whole truth. (Making bold pronouncements which may not extend with perfect clarity from their original argument is something males are known for.) But there are many kernels of insight to be mined here. There is no denying the world is being remade as we switch from risk-seeking, get-rich-quick, aggressively macho financial strategies (bundled derivatives, anyone?) into a more communal, supportive economic stance (government bailouts). Don’t expect to see Hillary Clinton, with a frying pan in her hand, calling for a general strike, but don’t be surprised if she’s elected president in 2016 either.

The whole truth is tough to come by. We are usually left to seek it out in small doses that point toward the inscrutable revelation that is never revealed.

Eric Francis Coppolino, in “Inner Goddess, Inner Gaze”, approaches the gender divide from the angle of internal archetypes, and understanding the truth about ourselves. In his column this month, he makes the point that we contain masculine and feminine aspects within us, and how we project the tension between them outward is the result of our internal ordering. Which suggests a different kind of truth about the gender battle—that it rages within (most fiercely within macho males), and that it contains the seeds of its own detente, if we could just make peace with our inner feminine.