The End of Men.

The books by author Steig Larsson are a global sensation - - a trilogy of books set in Sweden tracking the exploits of Lisbeth Salander. Salander is the contemporary heroine for our postindustrial economy - - an economy indifferent to men’s size and strength. Her strength comes from her braininess, spunky instinct for survival, and focus.

After completing the third book (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest), I happened to read the cover story of The Atlantic (July/August 2010) by Hanna Rosin - - The End of Men. How Women are Taking Control of Everything. Please note the punctuation in the title of the magazine - - “The End of Men.” - - period versus a question mark.

Rosin does a great job of placing the fictional realities of Salander’s world in the context of our Great Recession. Rosin writes the following - -

What if the modern, postindustrial economy is simply more congenial to women than men? For a long time, evolutionary psychologists have claimed that we are all imprinted with adaptive imperatives from a distant past: men are faster and stronger and hardwired to fight for scarce resources, and that shows up now as drive to win on Wall Street; women are programmed to find good providers and to care for their offspring, and that is manifested in more-nurturing and more-flexible behavior, ordaining them to domesticity. This kind of thinking frames our sense of natural order. But what if men and women were fulfilling not biological imperative but social roles, based on what was more efficient throughout a long era of human history? What if that era has how come to an end? More to the point, what if the economics of the new era are better suited to women?

Once you open your eyes to this possibility, the evidence is all around you. It can be found, most immediately, in the wreckage of the Great Recession, in which three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men. The worst-hit industries were overwhelming male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance. Some of these jobs will come back, but the overall pattern of dislocation is neither temporary nor random. The recession merely revealed - - and accelerated - - a profound economic shift that has been going on for at least 30 years and in some respects even longer.

The trend is in the numbers. The evidence is deep and global - - the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success. Women dominate today’s college and professional schools - - for every two men to receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same. The projected top 15 future occupations, except for two, are dominated by women. Women own 40% of all the private businesses in China. Women hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs in the United States - - up almost 30 percent from 1980.

Female engineers, with a raw instinct for intellectual horsepower, better communication skills, and greater social skills, are going to knock down the walls of the engineering professions. The old, the embedded, the “long in the tooth” power structures based on profoundly male (and profoundly Caucasian) organizational and business models are going to get left out. We are watching a transformational or tipping point - - women with dominant roles in politics, cultural development, and business management - - this is not a feminist nirvana, all of this is being directed by the mysteries of the marketplace. The market is usually correct - - we need to listen, watch, and embrace all of this. Look into the mirror and repeat after me - - “I will put the seat down, always.” Lisbeth Salander might just be watching