The XX Factor: What women really think.

When Men Suffer Job Losses, Women Suffer Abuse

A post from Double X writer Vanessa Gezari:

Emily, I think Reihan Salam is onto something in his recent piece on the end of male power, in which he notes that the recession’s disproportionate impact on men resonates in the world of politics, where women are gaining ground (at least in places like Iceland) in a backlash against male financial mismanagement. Salam is right that the recession provides one more lens through which to observe global power’s shift from men to women; he’s also right that the backlash against men can spark a sometimes-violent secondary backlash against women in places where they gain economic and political power ... (Read more in Double X.)

The Havoc Wreaking He-cession

In Foreign Policy, Reihan Salam is predicting that male dominance will be a casualty of the economic downturn (or the he-cession, as he calls it, since more men than women are being laid off). He writes:

The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power—the cult of macho—has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.

What will follow is not a femitopia, but rather ... (Read more in Double X.)