Customer Reviews

The New Man: Masculinity after Traditionalism and Feminist Reaction

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had the luxury of taking Dr. Schneider's sociology of the person class and even giving a presentation about sexism in his class against both men and women. I stumbled across this book later - even though it would have helped immensely. This book, rare in today's world, points out the problems with the battle between traditional views of gender and anti-traditional views of gender. Although the author does often point to feminism as an anti-traditional view, there are many feminists who fall in the egalitarian category like myself and the author. Sadly, many of these feminists who hold egalitarian views often don't speak up when their colleagues go beyond that which is egalitarian. In this sense, the book deals with these two views that are at war and presents a intellectually solid, egalitarian alternative for these two extremist ideals.

What I found most fascinating in the book itself, however, was the author's view that we must learn about ourselves to find out about what is moral for ourselves and our relationships. Again, after having his class (Sociology of the Person), he remains to be one of the few professors who do an excellent job putting forth symbolic interactionism and this book is filled with applied examples of it. The concept is truly an empowering idea and when applied - like within this book - it teaches us so much about ourselves and others.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gender studies, sociological theories or philosophy in general (symbolic interationism is often used by sociologists, but in its own way is quite philosophical). If you ever find yourself attending Texas Tech, his class I would rate five stars as well. Dr. Schneider definitely has solid insight that can serve useful to any person.