Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care 1st Edition

This was a very well-written, reasoned book about why men are important. Most importantly, without men, there are no women, and vice versa. Being opposite and different is what makes us important and worthwhile. This book helps lay out the case that our pornographic and male-phobic society has helped encourage men to believe that they are not useful in our society. The policies of our government and how we treat men in our advertisements, schools, and homes tells them they are not worthwhile and that they should be feared in many cases (no men can sit next to unaccompanied minors in Australia: are men really guilty by default? On college campuses faces of random [not guilty] students are plastered around campus as "potential rapists": are men rapists simply for being men?). These and many more stunning and depressing cases are laid out to show how prevalent and pervasive these opinions are, as well as how foolish they really are and the consequences of such mysandry.

This book was very insightful. This book touched on topics related to masculinity and the negative effects that feminism has plaque into this society. I really enjoyed the conclusion of the book when the author rationalize a world without men and how detriment this reality can be for our future.

I am an elementary school teacher. I can see great opportunity in gender innocence. High lighting unique strengths in both genders is enriching and empowering for the children. They learn to value themselves and each other. This book has opened my eyes to a very obvious problem in society where women are wearing themselves down by taking over roles that men are better equipped to handle. If women don't learn to appreciate, encourage and commend men and their efforts instead of criticizing discouraging and condemning them, we will end up doing everything ourselves while men sit and play video games all day -is that what we really want?!

must have reading for all sexes and proclivities. no hype or hysteria just honest and intelligent discussion. this girl should be in the executive office

A quick read with a few thought-provoking ideas, but a little short on hard data. It's value as a read is primarily to make you think of a few things that the politically correct educational system in the US today would probably like to suppress. I would've enjoyed it more if it'd had a little more data to back up its claims, but since it didn't promise to be a comprehensive tome on the subject, I can let that slide.

Kathleen Parker brings a sane view to everything she writes about, which includes not only this book but her newspaper columns as well. She is alway careful to state the good points about opposing views in balance to the eventual points she makes. She always builds the reasoning for the points she makes with thoughtfulness. And she always makes sense! That's the thing that Parker seems to be able to illustrate so well: that common sense is just missing these days in so many areas of debate and on so many subjects. Kathleen Parker lays down common sense with wit, tongue-in-cheek humor, and with eyes wide open. This book will be interesting to anyone interested in gender issues, family issues, men's and women's issues, and...common sense!

This is the fourth book I've read (and, for a while at least, the last I'll read) in the "women taking over the world" genre, the other three being H. Rosin's "The End of Men", K. Hymowitz's "Manning Up", and L. Mundy's "The Richer Sex". Of the four, Parker is by far the sharpest, wittiest, and most engaging writer, and I say this as a reader who more often than not disagrees with her.

Parker begins her conclusion with the sentence "This book was harder to write and I had expected for reasons that are probably apparent by now: everything in it could be restated as an argument for saving females. Given that we are inextricably bound, what is bad for one sex can't defensively be good for the other."

That sums it up. There are many things that are bad for men. The fact that little boys are taken away from their families, where the fathers are preoccupied with work and other concerns, and placed in the care of legions of women during their formative years is not good. The fact that these women are increasingly schooled in feminism is also not good. Little boys are not allowed to do traditional, instinctual little boy things: play with sticks, roughhouse, play with toy guns, play tag, or act rowdy in any particular way.

Parker writes that the predominantly female teachers tend to prefer girl students. They are more attentive in class, more likely to sit still and absorb the material than to fidget and fuss, and generally tend to get better grades. The teachers understand the girl students. The girl students generally do better by almost all measures through high school.

Parker does not go into the curious fact that men seem to excel in life to a greater extent than women. Girls may be better in school, even up through the University, but in most realms of science and business it remains men who predominate. I will offer a couple of observations. First of all, as Larry Summers said – a statement that got him fired from the presidency of Harvard University – the bell curve of distribution is flatter among men. There are more exceedingly dumb and more exceedingly smart men. Inasmuch as Harvard professors tend to be exceedingly smart, it is not surprising that there would be more men than women. A second factor, the product of intelligence research of the last couple of decades, is the observation that male and female intelligence is just about comparable up through children's late teen years. Women, however, attain maturity faster in intelligence just as they do in other ways. Researchers project that men's intelligence continues to grow, and that they wind up with a two or three point advantage in IQ by the time they are in their mid-20s. Your reviewer notes that this is preliminary research: the reader should check the results for him or herself.

Parker goes on at length about the way that men are mistreated on college campuses. Women basically have it both ways. They are absolutely free to dress in any provocative way they want, speak in any coarse manner that they want, and yet claim the protection of being the weaker sex when a man interprets these as signs of availability. The men are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

She has a long riff on pornography. Pornography treats women as commodities, and sexual gratification as a one sided affair. She cites statistics: porn rentals in hotels are watched for an average of 12 minutes. That must be the time for a man to give him self-satisfaction. There is no concern for giving a woman pleasure. Conversely, women who have affairs with too many men become blasé, jaded. The Return of Kings website calls at the "thousand cock stare." Sex loses its magic in a hurry, and without that mystical, magical element, the inducement to stay in a marriage is much diminished.

She talks about the hookup culture. Men are not inclined to turn down free sex, but on the other hand she notes that they find it less than fully satisfying. Women, bathed in the amorality of the sexual revolution, inundated with propaganda from Cosmo magazine, Sex in the City, and every other media outlet, all act and dress rather like sluts. On the other hand, if their behavior attracts attention from a man who doesn't appeal to them, they can protest affronts to their presumed chastity and the man has no adequate defense. Parker goes over a couple of cases that were then in the news: the Duke University lacrosse team, Lorena Bobbitt and others.

In the final analysis, women are not prepared to be wives and mothers. Men are on the one hand cowed by women, but on the other hand accustomed to getting sex without any particular preconditions. The patterns of behavior cultivated by both sexes are inimical to lasting relationships.

Wrapping back to her conclusion, modern American society is simply not preparing men and women to get together, form stable families and create the next generation. They are not willing to put up with each other in order to give birth to the next generation, and they are certainly not often enough willing to stay together and to raise the succeeding generation in a culture that will encourage them to produce grandchildren. In this reviewer's words, modern culture is the poison by which our society is committing suicide. Parker describes it pretty well.