R.A #3

The essay, The Death of Macho by Reihan Salam takes an in-depth look at the underline characteristics of man. This essay demonstrates just how men make “macho” decisions in life and how these decisions affect society. Reihan Salam has witnessed huge financial decisions that has put America and the rest of the world in a financial crisis.  His first hand experience has made it clear that men are really aggressive risk takers that don’t belong behind the scenes of potential life changing financial decisions.

He wants the public to realize just how dangerous men can be when millions of dollars are at stake.  As America begins to pull out of the recession, the era of male dominance will fade away. 

Salam states that the recession is called the “he-cession”(630) because it has affected mostly men. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “more than 80 percent of job losses in the United States since November have fallen on men”(630). Not only is there less work for men because many jobs are being outsourced, less men are qualified with a college degree by one third(630). Pretty soon there will be a gear shift of power from male to female in the near future. Society can not take another financial crisis that mostly men caused based on risky loan selling and buying. Salam sums up that “as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power-the cult of macho- has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world”(630-1). This evidence of how men use their natured and nurtured behaviors to make unsafe financial decisions in our society will persuade the people of America to accept that there needs to be an equal number of men and women working together to find safe and balanced decisions for our society. 

Consequently, the outcomes of male macho behavior has caused a huge financial crisis in America. Salam uses the strategy of cause and effect to demonstrate how men drove America into the ground. The housing bubble was one example of how men used their risky behavior to generate money that was never even existent. All the jobs that stemmed from making and selling houses was a huge money maker and if any political figure wanted to get to the bottom of the housing bubble’s inflation, it would “have been political suicide”(632). How long could people continue to make money from the housing market before it would collapsed? Greed and ignorance caused the bubble to finally burst which was a huge contribution to the financial crisis we experienced. 

Salam logically used an abundance or facts and real life situations to bring his opinions to life. He used success stories from other counties such as Iceland that threw out the male-elite and elected the first openly lesbian women as their prime minister(630). As a reader, I know the potential women have to change struggling economies into well balanced working systems. He also used failure examples of how macho ruling men can neglect and unfairly treat women in countries like Russia and China. I can image these countries with high poverty rates and high crime rates because of the lack of education women receive. Women are oppressed and don’t have any power to change their powerful, male dominated rulers. With the many examples explained in the text, it becomes clear that the male macho behavior fails to equally distribute wealth and equality to all people. I agree with his opinions because of his well detailed examples and how he shows two sides of what works and what doesn’t.