Christine Emba wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled ‘Men Are Lost.’ That, arguably, is self evident but then she apparently goes on to suggest a way out of the wilderness for these poor souls burdened with a Y chromosome. But I stopped reading when she transitioned to her message of hope, assuming it was merely babble put in as a sop to the male readers in the crowd. I have no idea why she was trying to spare our feelings. Those of the male persuasion are on the way out, becoming obsolete. That is a done deal. Time to get our heads out of the sand and accept reality.

Lets look at a few numbers. Men today earn 70 Bachelor degrees to every 100 earned by their female counterparts. In 2020, half of all females outearned their marital partners. That may not sound impressive until you realize that the figure in 1960 was only 4 percent. My late spouse clearly outearned me except for several years early in our marriage. It was a good thing that I had no problem being a kept man. In fact, I personally rather enjoyed it. But many men do react badly to falling behind in the gender race, especially in what had been their traditional roles like provider and protector. Emba suggests that some 75 percent of all ‘deaths of despair’ are males … presumably because those traditional roles are disappearing rapidly.

Hmm, I wonder how many females now bring an AR-15 with them on a Saturday night out as opposed to being escorted by a useless and inconvenient male protector. Well, I know I would have been totally useless in that role. No matter, the trends have been so obvious that, in the last decade, a few laws have been proposed to intervene with young males who have lost their sense of purpose and direction. They should have had one of these services back in my day when I was a baffled and hopeless young teen.

Emba asserts that she raises her sons to 1) politely ask a woman out on a date if he is so inclined; 2) accept rejection without fuss; and 3) always make sure the female returns safely home at the end of the evening. I went amiss somewhere. I was paralyzed at the thought of asking for a date, hid under my bed for months if I were rejected (excuse me, when I was rejected), and (on those rare times I managed to secure a date) the female always got home safely. I offered absolutely zero threat to any woman, nor any excitement whatsoever.

Anecdotal evidence has long supported my strong impression that males are in the twilight of their careers as the provider. I recall looking at the pictures of the Docs at the clinic where my internist works, a place called Associated Physicians. When I started as a patient there, the medical staff was predominantly male with, as I recall, perhaps a single female or two thrown in. Today, there are something like 18 female docs with only 3 males remaining. On cannot generalize from one example but the trend is unmistakable. While 62 percent of practicing docs today are still male, more than half of all medical students now are are from the other side of the gender gap.

The new reality is even more apparent among those healing our animals. I also recall looking at the class pictures of the UW Veterinary School grads over the years. I was waiting for while my dear dog was being treated by the cardiac specialist at the school (a female naturally). The annual graduation pics indicated that 80 percent of class compositions were male when the school was built sometime in the late 1970s (I believe). Going down the row, you could see more and more females each year until recently when some 80 percent of the graduating new vets are now women. The U.W. numbers reflect the national situation. Across all accredited Vet schools in the U.S. and Canada, some 80 percent of the students are now female.

The same goes for other higher level educational programs. Some 55 percent of law school students are now female. I recall a colleague of mine at U.W. sharing her early experiences. She was the first female hired on the law school faculty at U.W. However, when she graduated (late 1950s?), she was one of only two women in her class. The Law School Dean told her at that time that no reputable law firm would hire her simply because she was a woman. Lacking other options, she became an outstanding academic and scholar. One might also note that our highest courts are quickly reaching gender parity.

In addition, some 53 percent of all doctorates granted granted by American universities in 2020 were to females, though this may be a bit misleading. They yet lag behind in the STEM disciplines like Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Engineering, and Business (though they have almost reached parity in this last arena.) If these trends continue, males will become an endangered (or rarely seen at least) species on college campuses and in graduate schools. Long gone are the days when young women saw college as a way to snag the all important MRS label. It is all too clear to current cohorts that they must be self-sufficient and independent. They cannot depend on a man (always a bad bet) for support through life. Even if they had any interest in snagging a husband, the pool of acceptable characters (those with a high earning potential and future prospects) is shrinking rapidly.

This raises a salient question. What good are men in the first place. In the old days, women were mere legal appendages of their fathers and then their husbands. Those binds were loosened slowly but even into the early 1970s, women would experience difficulty opening up credit in her own name. Husbands were often required to sign loans or other legal documents. Women simply took their new husband’s name, a hold over from earlier patriarchic societies (my spouse never considered taking my name in 1972).

At the time, Women were only beginning to reach for full independence. Even when legal restrictions fell, existing expectations and traditional roles persisted. When my spouse and I applied for our first home loan in 1972, the loan officer mentioned that they would take only 75 percent of our combined salaries. Since we were both professionally employed (with me making slightly more than her at that moment), they were taking all of mine and half of hers in their calculations. Despite our somewhat aggressive prompting, the loan officer would not explain the rationale for this practice. We believed they yet felt females did not stay in the work force. They were yet seen primarily as mothers and child bearers who dabbled in careers until they settled into their real vocations.

Let us be frank for a moment, especially since being Tom is boring (sorry, really bad pun). We should ask whether, given the new realities, men are worth the trouble for women. Most of the male contributions to the family and to relationships are rooted in the deep past when we ran around in small tribes. We guys were needed to gather, steal, or capture essential resources, to provide sperm for procreation, and muscles to protect the family unit. We must ask if such inputs are passe or easily replaced in a modern society that is way more technologically oriented.

Look at me (no, don’t). As a young man I had no money, nor any desire to accumulate any beyond what was needed to secure three squares a day and a modest roof over my head. Nor could I argue that my prospects for the future were bright … I had no freaking idea what I wanted to do in life. In addition, while I assume I was fertile back then, there was no way I intended to have children, getting a vasectomy early on to ensure against any careless mistake on that front. Moreover, I could not protect myself, never mind a female companion, unless I could bore an attacker to death which was a distinct possibility. Later in life, I put many a student into a coma with my lectures. And this commitment thing? I always thought Garrison Keillor (of Lake Wobegon fame) nailed it when he said ‘male monogamy is like seeing a bear riding a ten speed bike through the woods … it is possible but you are always amazed at the sight of it.’ [Note: That monogamy thing becomes a piece of cake when you approach 80 years of age and your testosterone level approaches zero.]

Not surprisingly, my feeble attempts to woo those of the fairer sex usually ended in disaster, I was shot down so many times I lost count. While it always hurt, I understood. Okay, I was funny, smart, and I thought pretty damn interesting (in my own warped mind that is). But what could I bring to a relationship besides a few stale jokes and some fresh, if useless, ideas and theories. Not much of any substantive value, or what the average female would find attractive. And yet, there were a few out there who surprised me. They were attractive, very smart, and had biting wits (I loved the give and take). Perfect, but totally shocking. I never could figure out why they did not immediately shoot me down. I still cannot figure that out. Oh well!

Seriously, what did women see in guys. I have no clue. It could hardly be companionship. Come on! Men are shallow and mostly uninteresting and smelly clods (to women that is). While we really don’t talk (among ourselves that is) much about sex after our teen years (most of us have given up by then), we can go on forever about sports, our jobs, and politics. Sure, women can wax eloquent about such things for a while but then want to talk about ‘feelings.’ They want to ‘process’ things. This is why I never pursued a therapist career after getting my Psychology undergad degree. I could not stand the thought of listening to people babble on about their stupid feelings. I just know I would whack them across the face after 15 minutes and tell them to ‘suck it up.’

Ever watch old married couples at a restaurant, if by themselves. They eat in silence. Ever watch two couples together. So often, the guys talk to one another and the gals have a separate conversation. Assuming God exists, he must be Don Rickles in disguise (the sarcastic comic who created much laughter with his twisted view of things). My image of God, or Don in disguise, is this supreme being who, being bored one day, decides to create these two genders. The males he created horny so they would chase females and the females he created foolish so that they would seek males in the vain hope of finding companionship. After his little joke, God sat back and laughed heartedly as the two sexes tried to relate to one another. On the other hand, just look at female friends together, talking and laughing (usually about the men in their lives) together. Now, that is companionship.

Bottom line, men are becoming (or are already) obsolete. The one exception might be that they provide sperm for procreation. But how many of thes pesky little swimmers do we need for that function? The insemination process can be done technically, no need for the messiness or distress of actual sex. Besides, how long will the species remain as it is today? The year when the singularity is achieved keeps getting moved up, some now say 2030. We simply don’t know what the future version of a ‘sapien species‘ will look like, but the procreation function likely will be far different than what we do today.

So, my fellow men, no need to whine about our fate. As in the pic below, mostly we have been pains in the asses. Still, we had a damn good run. But, like T-Rex and the Dodo bird, we just never developed useful attributes and now can easily be replaced. And so it goes.