Book of the week: The End of Men: And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin

(Riverhead, $28)

Hanna Rosin no longer lives in a man’s world, said The Economist. In her provocative new book, the author, an editor at The Atlantic, gathers substantial evidence to back her case that the era of male economic supremacy is gone for good. Of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the recession, we’re reminded, three quarters were in male-dominated industries. Meanwhile, women are outperforming men at all levels of education, and they’re doing so in many workplaces, too. One of the places Rosin visits on her global fact-finding mission is Alabama’s Auburn-Opelika region, where the median income of women is 40 percent higher than that of men. Yet try as Rosin might to prove that the world is embracing a new matriarchal order, “the data does not support her thesis.” Look at the executives running today’s Fortune 500 companies. They’re still overwhelmingly male.

But The End of Men isn’t focused on “the tippy-top of the corporate ladder,” said David Brooks in The New York Times. As Rosin’s “fascinating” book shows, women are leading or gaining everywhere else—and for good reason. She argues that women are proving far more adaptable to shifts in the job market than men. In finance, women perform better when they change jobs, and men worse. On the wider playing field, the fastest-growing professions in today’s economy are female-dominated. Men, meanwhile, seem stuck in neutral, clinging to old behavior patterns as if the old jobs, in manufacturing and other male-centric industries, will come back. Women in their 20s now outearn men in their 20s, and for many, men are becoming an afterthought. Rosin reports that more and more young women are embracing a “hookup culture,” as a way to enjoy sex without limiting their autonomy.

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“No doubt the American dream has gotten a makeover—with an extra coat of mascara,” said Colleen Leahey in Fortune.com. But at times, Rosin’s numbers “feel manipulated,” as when she reports that women are crowding men out of science and engineering jobs—fields they still lag in. Still, the bigger picture she sketches seems spot on, said Carol Tavris in The Wall Street Journal. This is a book loaded with “uncomfortable evidence” suggesting that, in response to changes in the nature of work, “many men are engaging in a sit-down strike.” Ultimately, this book could be a wake-up call, challenging half the population to adapt or be left behind. “Gentlemen, start your engines.”