Proving Manhood: Reflections on Men and Sexism (Men and Masculinity , No 5) (Paperback)

by Timothy Beneke (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Beneke, an antirape activist, here sets out to explore the sources of sexism in American society. His general ideas build on the feminist neo-Freudian notions of Dorothy Dinnerstein and Nancy Chodorow. Boys, he posits, enjoy an early period of infantile identification with their mothers, from which they are forced by society's need for them to become men. The urge to return to this pre-Oedipal Eden, however, remains a strongly tempting but potent fear. Men need to denigrate women because they fear their power. While none of this is new, Beneke's discussion of pornography as arising from the adolescent's shame at being aroused inconveniently by glimpses of the women around him, and gay male sexism as resentment of women as objects of desire for most men, are useful additions to the discussion. Unfortunately, Beneke is overly apologetic and rather annoying at times. He is probably right in identifying his audience as primarily feminist women, but a more factual tone might win a wider audience. For women's studies collections.?Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Freelance writer and antirape activist Beneke (Men on Rape, 1982) here traces male chauvinism to anxiety and identity crisis, but the occasional insight is hard-sought in his vague sociological outlines. Drawing on the work of psychoanalytic feminists, such as Nancy Chodorow, and others, the author explores what he identifies as the disabling pains men take to prove their manhood--pains that will never be relieved, he argues, without their confronting sexism. Throughout, Beneke's superficial analysis is confounding as he wanders from point to point in his eagerness to simplify a complex and challenging landscape of ideas. Turning the tables on women, he says that the suppression of ``objectifying'' mediums such as pornography and other variant forms of sexuality that denigrate women (``whore sexism'' and ``Madonna sexism,'' which respectively reduce women to sexual objects and deny their sexuality altogether) represents a sexual threat to masculinity. Beneke writes from a personal angle in chapters entitled ``Reflections of an Antirape Activist'' and ``Reflections on Mothers, Grief, and Sexism,'' a mishmash of undeveloped journal jottings in which he seems to invite readers to consider how his reaction to the early death, when he was 13, of his mother might fit his own theorizing. This personal material, however, is completely out of place in Beneke's sociological study. He looks at the sports page as a realm of masculine identification, concluding that the hollowness of male glory, as in sports, keeps men from intimacy with women and with themselves--a sweeping generalization. Is manhood something to be proved, consciously or unconsciously? Though the paradigm may fit the author's self-conception and his prior research into the subset of men who are violent against women, this book sheds little light on manhood for the vast majority of males. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 183 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (October 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520212665
• ISBN-13: 978-0520212664
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,140,926 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)