Unlike most books on the "crisis of masculinity," this call to action by lawyer and environmentalist Kimbrell (The Human Body Shop) is neither an attack on nor a reaction to feminism. Rather, it advances the proposition that men, no less than women, have been victims of social change since the advent of the industrial revolution. The effect of such changes, Kimbrell argues, has been to turn workers into machines whose only concern is to turn out more products and for whom feelings are nothing but excess baggage. Thus the modern masculine mystique presents a gender model who is competitive, aggressive, violent, insensitive and hyperrational, a portrait accepted by sociobiologists, who maintain that these qualities are in the genes. Not so, says Kimbrell, who asserts that the resultant misandry has damaged men in their relations with women, their children and other men. After exploring precisely how men suffer from this stereotype, he issues "a manifesto for men" with recommendations to remedy the situation, none of them antifeminist and all of them achievable. An important analysis that recalls The Feminine Mystique (1963) of Betty Friedan. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Do you want to know why men die seven years earlier than women, are more likely to die of hear disease, cancer, alcoholism, and ulcers, commit suicide at four times the rate of women, only have 20% change of gaining custody of their children after divorce, experience a dramatic drop in real wages, while those of women are increasing and are less likely to graduate from college than women? Then read Kimbrell’s book, "The Masculine Mystique."
American men are in a crisis. We see the consequences all around us: the alarming increase in male unemployment and homelessness, punitive custody laws that deprive men of their children, and high-pressure competitive jobs that leave men vulnerable to stress-related diseases and substance abuse. Kimbrell brilliantly shows these are not the problems of "fringe" groups or misfits, but of every man living and working in our society. From the laws of enclosure to the steep decline in real wage, Kimbrell shows how men have been steadily undermined and a destructive masculine mystique created.
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