Hanna Rosin turns her new book into another magazine cover story. Reuse, Recycle! She looks at the impact of the new economy on gender roles. 

It's a very well written portrait of families in a town in Alabama that was devastated when Russell Athletics moved its factories out of the country. The men who worked at these factories or helped service the company in other ways were laid off. Their wives found work in the education, nursing, or public service and paid the mortgage, while the guys drank coffee at Burger King. The gender reversal has upended the traditional culture of the town. 

This article was badly in need of a conclusion. Wonderful description, but I don't know where Rosin was going with it. I wanted her to weigh in on the subject or offer some statistics to give us some perspective on the scope of the problem, if it really is a problem. 

Is it really a bad thing that men are doing the housework, instead of women? No. Why should I care if men are making less money than their wives? Perhaps men are having a hard time adjusting to the new economy. Are all men having this problem or just the old farts? I don't know, because Rosin didn't give any numbers. Is this problem confined to this one town or is it a nation-wide problem? Is it a problem for men in certain education/income brackets? Is this a new problem? We have family in rust-belt states and the steel mills closed a long time ago. 

I'm sure the good bits are in the book and they were cut out of the article to save space. I look forward to checking it out.