They’re saying you’re obsolete, frat boy, so put down the Keystone and listen up before the world passes you by.

Twenty-odd years ago you lost the biological lottery. You had a 50 percent chance, but blew it and wound up with one Y-chromosome too many. You were born a boy.

In almost any place in the Western world during almost any time in history, that would’ve meant huge economic advantages. But this isn’t 1947, or 1848, or 1300 B.C. The world is changing, and you have every reason to worry that it’s leaving you behind.

You probably didn’t see the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly that declared “The End of Men”—probably too busy throwing back Old Style in the Wrigley Field bleachers or watching “Con Air” for the twelfth time—so I’ll sum things up in a way that will make sense inside the testosterone-soaked brains that you and I share. If economics in the global marketplace was a high-stakes game of baseball, Team Adam would be batting somewhere around the Mendoza Line.

Women hold 51.4 percent of professional and management positions for the first time in history. They also hold the majority of the positions in 13 of the 15 jobs expected to grow most in the next ten years, although we’re still clinging to majorities in janitorial work and computer engineering. A 2008 U. Maryland study found that firms with women in top positions were more profitable than their counterparts. And profit trumps any old-boy network.

It seems that maybe women are socially, developmentally or genetically wired for the patience and social dexterity necessary in the modern workplace. You, macho man, were genetically engineered to throw javelins at saber-tooth tigers and hit the two-seam fastball. Turns out this is surprisingly unimportant to today’s employers.

The writer from Atlantic makes the point that male culture has failed to change with the world. Barbie has traded in the pink Corvette for a doctor’s lab coat, but GI Joe looks the same as he did in 1965. We still all want to be John Wayne, even though in this recession no one is looking to hire a cowboy.

All of this is a little scary, even if I’ll be one of the lucky males with a college education in a country where women earn almost 60% of all bachelor’s degrees. But the truly frightening fact is that I know all of this, I see the writing on the wall, and I’ll still probably raise my son like I want him to grow up to be Charles Bronson.

And you will too, meathead, because that’s precisely our problem—we’re so deep into this macho mess that we can’t imagine life any other way. I can’t say whether its genetics or society or Bruce Willis movies, but we can’t seem to convince ourselves that it’s more important to be people than men. And if paying attention in class, or working in a growing field like nursing, or taking the lead in our children’s lives gets in the way of that manly ideal of manhood—well what would James Bond have done?

Until we can convince ourselves that we can be productive members of society without cashing in our manhood, we’ll keep falling behind the world that we feel we should be trying to conquer. Women have caught up fast since the world gave them a chance. And they’ll keep making strides because of their willingness to adapt.

So until we learn to do the same, cowboy, better turn up the Hank Williams and crack the 90-proof. Because unless we can find a way to change, the worst for dinosaurs like us is yet to come.