I'm male and straight but I've never been much of a "guy," so I appreciate this Barbara Ehrenreich essay at the Huffington Post; I think she's on to something. She's read that fewer young men than young women are attending college, and that women are trying harder:

...The trend has occasioned some predictions of a coming matriarchy in which high-achieving women will rule over a nation of slacker guys....

But it may be that the boys still know what they're doing. Among other things that have changed since the '60s is the corporate culture, which once valued literacy, numeracy, high GPAs and the ability to construct a simple sentence. No doubt there are still workplaces where such achievements are valued, but when I set out as an undercover journalist seeking a white-collar corporate job for my book Bait and Switch, I was shocked to find the emphasis entirely on such elusive qualities as "personality," "attitude" and "likeability." Play down the smarts, the career coaches and self-help books advised, cull the experience and exude a "positive attitude."

...So the best preparation for that all-important personality test may well be a college career spent playing poker and doing tequila shots....

In addition to (perhaps) your own workplace, does this remind you of anything? Another workplace, possibly -- in Washington, D.C.? Where there's a lot of turnover at the top (once every four or eight years), but no one can ever become boss who isn't at least somewhat like this?