Ignoring the politically incorrect victims

By Ed Lasky

Here's an interesting quote from today's Boston Globe:

Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.

This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the US economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Healthcare, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.

How will this go over when activist groups claim women are being discriminated against by big bad corporate America? What will be done when it is revealed across the nation in fundraising appeals that many more women attend college than men and how this bodes well for the future status of women in our services-dominated economy?

We will not see congratulatory triumphant letters coming from such pressure groups because their vested interest (as is true of all interest groups) is to perpetuate the view that a major problem (environment, global warming, you name it) not only still exists but is actually worsening. This was the point of view expressed by the late Michael Crichton in his book State of Fear about scientists and activists whose agenda is to create fear over “global warming."

However, we see the same myth-making manifested in many areas of controversy. Doomsaying sells. It creates jobs, give politicians a platform to run on and raise money from, and provides research budgets for scientists. It sells papers and books. Indeed, there may be a military-industry complex but there also is a “fear-creating” complex, as well.

Anxiety sells.

People may not be able to take the truth precisely because many in the activist community never expose them to the truth. This is why it is surprising that such a column outlining the disproportionate effects of the economic downturn on men is such a shocker. Just don’t expect such a story to achieve widespread broadcasting by self-interested “interest groups”.