Solving America's Masculinity Crisis (ft. Kathy Gilsinan)
Introducing THE SHVITZ, The Crunchwrap's new audio feature
Dear Friends,
Here at The Crunchwrap, we believe in being cutting edge. After all, that’s what a Crunchwrap is: The product of forward-looking and deeply considered innovation…inside a lightly toasted tortilla.
And so that’s why this week, we’re trying something new out. Never been done before. It’s called audio. (Specifically, I’ve named it THE SHVITZ.)
For the first Shvitz, I wanted to talk about a wonderful piece of good old longform journalism written by Kathy Gilsinan for Politico earlier this month. In addition to being a Friend of The Crunchwrap (FoTC), Kathy is an excellent writer and karaokeist as well as the author of a very moving book called The Helpers, about some of the unsung U.S. workers who helped save lives during the pandemic.
Her latest story, “Portrait of a ‘Pink-Collar’ Working Man,” is a profile of Eric Cromer, who got into the nursing profession after General Motors closed up shop in Ohio and Cromer lost his job as an autoworker. More broadly, it looks into the American masculinity crisis – turns out, there is one! – which is being both studied by experts and exploited by politicians. Here’s a ‘lil piece of it, but also set aside time for the whole thing:
The forces that would one day derail his career — automation, trade, outsourcing — were growing stronger even as Eric took his first job as a welder and then followed his dad to GM and got involved in the union and its politics. He was a pro-labor moderate Democrat like his dad; he was a big fan of former President Bill Clinton’s. He was welding in 1994, when NAFTA was signed…; he was driving a forklift at the Chevy Blazer factory in 2000, when China joined the World Trade Organization. The changes soon caught up to both Eric and his father [Sherman]. The Norwood plant where Sherman spent much of his career, which at its peak employed close to 9,000 people, shut down in 1987. A red Camaro that rolled off the line one August day that year was the last car it ever produced. About two decades later, Eric’s Moraine plant, already down to about 2,000 employees from a peak of about 5,000, produced its last Chevy Trailblazer and shut down too, two days before Christmas. The period of mass migration that had brought Eric’s father to Ohio was over, and so was a kind of blue-collar standard of living — comfortable house, a few cars, some kids he could afford to send to college — that he had grown to expect.
I wanted to highlight this piece for a lot of reasons, but largely because I liked the story and its wild(!) details, because Kathy is my talented pal, and also because Kathy is way too polite to say no to chatting with me.
She agreed to let me bother her over lunch to talk a bit about the story for a few minutes. This Shvitz includes … you’ve been warned…:
A reporting masterclass on how to track down a subject for a story
Thoughts on the merits of fusilli
Vital insider details about a man who visited the ER with a padlock around his testicles
Two swear words by me
One absolutely abominable pasta joke at the end
Please enjoy! And check out Kathy’s book!
Got some suggestions for who’d be good for The Shvitz? Have you ever gotten into bizarre predicament with a padlock? Let me know!
Till next week (inshallah) and thanks as always for reading/listening,
Adam