“Child-Man in the Promised Land”- Rhetorical Analysis
During the winter of 2008, Kay S. Hymowitz published an argumentative essay in the quarterly magazine City Journal. The essay entitled “Child-Man in the Promised Land” points out the lack of mature males presently available in today’s society. Vexed are a growing number of female suitors looking for their male equivalents to evolve in attitude and responsibility. Her essay criticizes the perceived life-style of today’s single young men, or SYMs, between the ages of eighteen to thirty-four and laments the media and social structures that have allowed SYMs to evolve, or devolve, to the current standard.
As a contributing editor to City Journal, Hymowitz writes extensively on issues of culture to include childhood, family, poverty and cultural change. According to the Manhattan Institute’s online biographical information, Hymowitz has written for many of the major publications in
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She compares present day males ages 18-34 to children who refuse to grow up. This demographic is then compared to males between the same ages during the year 1965, almost fifty years past. She goes on to describe the present day SYMs as underachievers who prolong the agony of the women in waiting. She describes these males as having their “big life priorities” in order such as jobs, homes and financial security yet lack the desire to settle down with women who have grown tired of being used for their sexual desires without the commitment. According to Hymowitz, the majority of blame rests with the media for creating these childlike males through the creation and mass distribution of adolescent type literature, movies, TV shows and video games. Ultimately, Hymowitz argues that males ought to grow up and accept that many women have gained equality in education and career, creating a new social and gender