The Passing of Working Class Masculinity

Don Wassall

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Article from a British paper detailing approvingly how (white) men, as always, are the big losers in the Cultural Marxist NWO. In general, women make better worker drones than men for most present day occupations, which is one of the reasons feminism has been pushed so hard.

We Are Witnessing the Passing of Working-Class Masculinity

Jobs in the new economy require emotion labour, not manual labour
As the General Motors plant in Oshawa shut down for good last week, people wept. "It was a beautiful life,"Â￾ said Sue Stewart, whose husband, Bill, had spent 31 years working at GM. Bill wore a T-shirt that said: "Pride and Dignity - The Last Truck Rolls Off the Line."Â￾


No matter what you think of the auto industry, the poignancy of these scenes is undeniable. It's the end of an era, not just for Sue and Bill, but for an entire way of life, when a man with a high-school education could raise a family, have a house with a backyard pool, and buy his-and-hers motorcycles so he can tool around the countryside with his wife on weekends. Bill is not to blame for what has happened to him. He's simply been flattened by history.


We're also witnessing the passing of something even more profound - a culture of working-class masculinity that has become an anachronism in the modern world.


I have a dim memory of this culture. It flourished in the shop at the back of my father's heating and air-conditioning business back in the '50s. The shop was behind the office, and it was where the real work got done. It was dark and noisy. There were girlie calendars. There were uncouth guys who yelled and smoked and swore and used bad grammar. They wore dirty coveralls, told filthy jokes and reflexively disliked the boss. They were not very good at customer relations.


A lot of us would say: Good riddance. Working-class culture was sexist, homophobic, casually racist and exclusively male. Not even auto plants are like that any more. At Ford's state-of-the-art plant in Brazil, half the workers are young women. The muscle work is done by robots. Everyone is flexible and works in teams, and the emphasis is on good communication. No one in my dad's shop would be remotely qualified to work there.


As low- and semi-skilled manual jobs disappear, working-class men are getting hammered - and so is their masculinity. "Manual labour has been a key source of identity, pride, self-esteem and power for working-class men,"Â￾ says a recent British study, which set out to probe a fascinating question: What makes these men so unemployable?


The conventional answer is that their education levels are too low and their skills are too poor. But the more accurate answer is that they're psychologically mismatched to the seismic shifts in our economy. The new economy (over the long term) is creating tons of service jobs in retail, customer support, and personal care. The trouble is that these jobs require temperamental attributes that are stereotypically feminine - things like patience, a pleasant demeanour, deference to the customer and the ability to empathize and connect. Another way to put it is that these jobs require emotional labour, not manual labour. And women, even unskilled women, are much better at emotional labour than men are.


The author of the study, Darren Nixon, did his field work in Manchester, where he interviewed dozens of long-term unemployed men. Once the embodiment of proud working-class culture, Manchester has had its guts ripped out by deindustrialization, and is trying to reinvent itself through the arts and tourism. Some of the men he interviewed had tried their hand at retail or other service jobs, but none had lasted long. "I've got no patience with people, basically,"Â￾ one subject told him. "I can't put a smiley face on."Â￾ Or: "Telephone sales, no. Too much talking."Â￾ Another man said, "If someone [a customer] gave me loads of hassle, I'd end up lamping them."Â￾ Several of them, in fact, had lost their jobs when they lamped the boss.


"Responding to the demands of customer sovereignty unquestionably is antithetical to young working-class men whose culture valorizes sticking up for yourself,"Â￾ writes the author in awkward academese. But his point is clear. The defining value of working-class masculinity is the ability to stick up for yourself when someone tries to give you sh*t. The defining requirement of service work (in their view) is having to eat it. Service work is a fundamental challenge to their masculine identity.


There used to be a lot of room in the world for men with muscle who didn't relate all that well to books or people. There was lots of dangerous and dirty work to do. They were the men who manned the ships, fished the seas, chopped down the trees and supplied the cannon fodder for countless wars. They mined the coal and made the trucks and bashed the metal in the mills. They worked exclusively alongside other men in jobs that did not require them to put on a social mask, and did not call for aptitude in managing their emotions.


This identification of masculinity with hard physical work (no empathy required) is deeply embedded in the history of the human race. For eons, it has been the most common way to be a man. People are pretty adaptable, and education can work wonders. But no matter how much education and retraining we offer, we are not going to transform factory workers and high-school dropouts into customer-care representatives or nurses' aides any time soon. It's their wives and daughters who will get those jobs. And in a world where even trash hauling has become tightly service-oriented (check out 1-800-GOT-JUNK), many of these men will be permanently stranded.


In the new world of work, the old values of working-class men are an anachronism. And what we are really asking of them is not to retrain or upgrade. We are asking them to abandon their very idea of masculinity itself.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/we-are-witnessing-the-passing-of-working-class-masculinity/article1150054/Edited by: Don Wassall
 

j41181

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The world kinda sucks these days. You have to be emotional to earn a living? That's just load of CRAP!!!!

I still prefer hands-on manual labor, it's so nice to sweat after a hard days work, rather is one's ass off in a boring office job. Th9is is one reason why so many people are so damn fat, lack of exercise and hard manual labor. You can't blame some people if they only have a high school diploma, they just don't have the cash.

People today are so judgmental when it comes to educational background, when it's more important to focus on character, and working experience. People who are just high school graduates often tend to be more dedicated and harder workers than college graduates, due to their greater need to earn a better living.

This article is pure nonsense, because in this ever tough world, it's still survival of toughest. That means you have to be masculine to survive in this tough world, being emotional does not get you anywhere. You still need NERVES of STEEL. Books aren't everything, experiencing the world as it is, still in some ways, better than the boring classroom.
 

white is right

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If you take the war context there will always be work for the working class male....
 

jaxvid

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Working class jobs are still around, how the hell do things get built? how does pipe get laid, wires run? infastructure get fixed? The difference is the lack of respect paid those jobs by the people who write articles like that. Turn off the air conditioning, cut the power, stop the toilets, and there will be new found respect for "working class masculinity". Auto factories are a small part of manufacturing in this country. Writers who write articles like the above are clueless.
 

DixieDestroyer

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This cultural marxist agenda item has been dove-tailed into the (intentional) dismantling of the U.S. manufacturing base (via fallacious "free" trade agreements such as NAFTA & CAFTA). For the Globalist Elite, it all rolls up under their nefarious master plan(s).
 

Freedom

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NAFTA and WTO have nothing to do with "free" trade. I don't know if CAFTA hurt us except to the extent that Canada's government might have been more eager to join a One World Government, but there are a lot of patriotic Canadians.

The reliance on labor unions was what killed manufacturing largely. Since the 1930s, union leaders such as Frances Perkins likely had substantial connections to China as well as socialist sympathies. Organized crime got to them too, frequently taking payoffs from overseas. By the 1990s, it was done.

That doesn't mean manufacturing has to die though. I think the loss of the DIY mentality and the increasing divide between engineers and technicians is plaguing us most as far as masculine virtues go.
 

Tom Iron

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Gentlemen,

Here's a good article to read. It lays out the idea of what happened.

Blacks and High Steel, AR Classic Article; 27 comments

I hope i did the link thing right.

Tom Iron...
 

Tom Iron

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Gentlemen, I'll try this one more time. If it doesn't take, then try Amren.com - May 22

Blacks and High Steel, AR Classic Article; 27 comments

Tom Iron...
 

Bart

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jaxvid said:
Working class jobs are still around, how the hell do things get built? how does pipe get laid, wires run? infastructure get fixed? The difference is the lack of respect paid those jobs by the people who write articles like that. Turn off the air conditioning, cut the power, stop the toilets, and there will be new found respect for "working class masculinity". Auto factories are a small part of manufacturing in this country. Writers who write articles like the above are clueless.

In truth, White working class men are the new lepers of society. Of course, our cities couldn't function a day without them. Noble Mexican, and black laborers on the other hand are still valued treasures. Our government can't spend enough money promoting them at every level OVER hapless white scum.
 

The Hock

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I've read that article several times, Tom Iron. Excellent. The real life experience stories really carry a lot of weight in my thinking.

Just out of curiosity, did you run across many Jews in that line of work?
 

Tom Iron

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The Hock,

Not many Jewish guys. One Jew(Billy G.)that I know is a great guy. Could really do the work and was one of us all the way. He was the only real good Jewish man I knew. The rest were run of the mill at best.

Tom Iron...
 

whiteCB

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jaxvid said:
Working class jobs are still around, how the hell do things get built? how does pipe get laid, wires run? infastructure get fixed? The difference is the lack of respect paid those jobs by the people who write articles like that. Turn off the air conditioning, cut the power, stop the toilets, and there will be new found respect for "working class masculinity". Auto factories are a small part of manufacturing in this country. Writers who write articles like the above are clueless.


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Yeah I'd like to ask this writer how do bridge decks get built, how are electircal polls put up? Who welds the iron beams for buildings or constucts wood frames for houses? Once again the MSM trying to paint a portait of a world where everyone is obidient and "in-line" with the game. They love to spread the pussification of men all over the place.

And I must say they're doing a tremendous job in making this country a bunch of pansies. I keep seeing more and more of these for lack of a better term "weiner" men around. You know the type that drive around town in their Subaru, with the Vegan Club bumper sticker, with their nicely pressed Banana Republic kakhis, and sipping on their Choco Latte Iced Coffee from Starbucks.
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The Hock

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Thanks for the answer Tom Iron. Even run of the mill iron workers must be exceptional people. I consider high rise iron workers to be the green beret of blue collar workers. You can count me out. Absolutely scared to death of heights...
 

Freedom

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The Hock,

There were a lot of Jews that worked in textile mills and garment factories for years making and repairing things such as sewing machines, screen printers, and dye cutters. They were mostly Jewish or Armenian. There were also significant amounts of Jewish brick masons.
 

Freedom

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There were also two heavyweight champions way back of significant Jewish extraction(Battling Levinsky and Max Baer.)

The steel industry was concentrated near the coal deposits probably for convenience originally. There were few Jews there though. In New York City, there are many Jewish construction workers. Outside of NYC, there are probably very few Jewish construction workers.
 

The Hock

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I was just curious. Thanks for the info Freedom.

By the way, Levinsky was a fine champion, but he wasn't a heavyweight champ. He was a lightheavyweight.
 

celticdb15

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My favorite jew: Adam Sandler seems like an average every day guy i would know who just happens to be frickin hillarious.
 

Freedom

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Oh yeah, you're right Hock, I didn't even think they had so many of those weight classes back then.

Not to change the subject, but one thing that has almost completely gone by the wayside has been people getting technical training as a precursor to getting a more theoretical education. Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the television, was a radio repair man. The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics. Even in the 1960s, tons of engineers were previously mechanics. Now, there are engineers who don't know how to use a screwdriver.
 

The Hock

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The Passing of Really High Paying Manufacturing Jobs in America should be the title of the article. The nature of the work and not the pay is what gives the work its masculinity. Most manual blue collar labor will always be masculine, in that most of the workers will be men. The heavier and harder the work, the more male it will be. Women just can't do it, and very few want to anyway. How often have you seen a woman working in an auto shop, for instance? Jaxvid is right, this chick is clueless.

In my younger days I had jobs where I came home looking like I'd been in combat. And not many pretty faces around to ease the pain either.
 

Kaptain

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Were now celebrating two parents working and getting less to show for it than the one parent working did in the past. My father and mother both only had high school educations. My mother worked part-time off and on my whole and life and my father was a small-time farmer (120 acres). He is on schedule to do better than me with me and my wife who both work full-time with Master's degrees. We have taken a dramatic step back in just one generation's time. In terms of real assests our parents had it much better than we did.
 

GiovaniMarcon

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Gentlemen, let me offer up a related (I hope) anecdote here:

Not long ago on a trip to IKEA with the wife, we had gone to a coffee-shop in a city called Toluca Lake, which is a few miles from Hollywood, CA, our place of residence.

This coffee shop features something called "open mic" during certain hours of the day, with certain days of the week being categorized as being different kinds of open mic (i.e., poetry one night, singing the next, comedy, etc.).

We happened to come in during a "shoot the breeze" venting type of night.

Some wussified college-age guy (one of those fruits who wears girl jeans, tries to comb his long hair in such a way so that it looks messy but "just so", wears punk rock pins from bands whose REAL fans would MURDER him if he even showed up to one of their shows thirty years ago, all while carrying a Macbook, etc.) was on the lectern in front of the customers, pontificating on:

"Why women make just as good soldiers as men in today's world."

He went on and on about increasing technology rendering the basic physical superiority of men moot, how this superiority itself was questionable in light of increased nutrition, how women "keep promises" better than men and so can give and follow orders better, how women are smaller and more intelligent and should make better operators of equipment like tanks, bombers and fighters, and finally (I loved this), how women's greater emotional balance and understanding will help wars become obsolete in the first place.

I was happily surprised how no one clapped for him when he finished, which bummed that kooky little attention whore out of course. It was a crowded house, too, and some people were actually shaking their heads in disagreement and saying things to him refuting what he said.

The next person who came up was a young lady (also college aged), but she made a much less annoying and crowd-entertaining rant about how she always buys shoes for full price a day or so before the department store puts them on sale.

By the way, my wife is usually incredibly docile, polite, and nice to people, but on the first guy's way off the stage, she tells him:

"That popped collar makes you look stupid."

Made me laugh a little, before I realized I had to assemble a bunch of cheap furniture in my garage later.
 

jaxvid

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Freedom said:
Oh yeah, you're right Hock, I didn't even think they had so many of those weight classes back then.

Not to change the subject, but one thing that has almost completely gone by the wayside has been people getting technical training as a precursor to getting a more theoretical education. Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the television, was a radio repair man. The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics. Even in the 1960s, tons of engineers were previously mechanics. Now, there are engineers who don't know how to use a screwdriver.

You didn't change the subject you got it back on track from "my favorite jew" back to the topic subject.
 
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