Btw, incredible how influenced by Rosseau and Marx her thinking is. "If only there were no oppressive forces around, we could be all gallant and nice and insert here whatever."
Wherever Rousseau is mentioned, particularly in the context of children or good behavior, I feel the need to mention that he most likely forced his partner to abandon multiple infants to (brutal 18th century) orphanages, and likely for little reason other than not wanting to be a parent yet.
So I've got to say I would not read such a book more than the review even though as a feminist I suppose I'm supposed to be the audience. I don't think, however, it is an actual feminist leaning book. Feminism isn't about demonizing any particular man for being man, let alone simply for being tall and bearded and working with one's hands. Some of the things the author of the book said seemed designed too make her reader roll their eye at feminism--as indeed most journalistic statements on feminism are meant to.
But equally I take issue with Ms. PSmith's take here. I roll my eyes at the idea she's expressed, multiple times that men are endowed by their gender to be a cross between Ayn Rand's Hero and Rudyard Kipling's now you are a man son. It's rather like setting gender based on the character of the Virgin Mary or and saying here proof that gender differences are real.
To make the argument that women are only acceptable when they do things that are traditionally male is a sound argument but to suggest that we should train ONLY girls in that, or we don't value the traditional female, I mean seriously? Also, Martha Stewart would like to have a word--and since I happen to know at least one of the people who taught her her skills, she was an outlier not in feminine skills but in marketing. Or one could point to her predecessor Julia Child, who mastered feminine skills and worked for the OSS.
It's this idea I find most stifling, as a mother, as a feminist as an old farm girl and thus observer of nature and as a human being, the idea that being a mother (and overall nurturer) is a cordoned off identity, that it necessarily requires one to not ambitious, or a fighter or a physically active doer, etc. That is observably untrue.
It is, as much of a sexist idea, a classist one, and a wildly middle class one at that. The idea of lady (and its counterpart gentlemen, which was a thing men could be) is of course a bit of a class conceit, a way too think one-selves above the people who did the real work. Maids, who not only women but also spent far more of their lives making a home beautiful and nurturing did not get to be ladies, not even their offshoot as nurses/nannies ,nor did slave-women.
But at least at one time the term lady came with a real sense of power, and its full expression of it. Lady's we required to have honor, and stoicism, and that careless humor in the face of disaster that men have now claimed for themselves. They were supposed to gather the people of the castle to defend it and if all hope was lost, and only rape and murder possible--throw themselves off its parapets.
Now, with the middle class moralists working on it, the term has devolved so that only those with whose zest for life is in their beige twinsets and ability to keep their sex life as decorous as possible and not the kind, the courageous and rarely the nurturing. It's not feminism's fault the word got shelved.
Nor is it feminism's fault that Heathcliffian behavior is generally considered less acceptable than gentlemanly kinds. (It was a shocking book when it was written as well.) Though really, putting out this kind of book when Heathcliffe is President of the United states seems willfully blind.
I find much more interesting the idea I read, also in a review of a book I would have read but had small children then, that because of our social ideas we don't see traits we code as one sexes as the other. We don't see women's interest in marriage and children as risk taking even though it clearly is. We don't see coaching and the like as nurturing even though it is. Heck, this author talks about men sharing factoids and doesn't see women sharing recipes etc. in the same light. We don't actually only talk about emotion and the biggest gossips I know are men-but we don't put those behaviors in that basket and so find "proof" of gender stereotypes.
But the proof that gender stereotypes are untrue is that in fact, whole certain behaviors gather more people of one sex or another, they don't do it universally i.e. Individuals differ on which behaviors they exhibit in keeping with their gender and which they don't.
And finally, if you are going to quote the study that shows primate have a greater interest in wheeled things, you have to also note that they had an equal interest in the doll and other nurturing toys. Something that is seen in field observation on them in the young.
I don't recall Catherine McKinnon demonizing individual men. Her claim to fame as a feminist is her legal work on sexual harassment. A quick check on wikipedia elucidates she talks of patriarchy on a system wide level, equating it with a marxist analysis. If you are going to say that sexual harassment law goes after men for being men, well I'm going to have to take issue with your internalized misandry.
Shulasmith Firestone, also saw it with a marxist analysis, taking the problem down to biologic distinction and finding extreme solutions. While I've been trained to think, oh yeah, he got me with that one, on the other hand, it would be wildly wrong to say her focus was on blaming individual men (though maybe the men in her family). She saw the problem as a matter of controlling the means of production and thus human beings had to find a different means off reproduction or they would never be free. To categorize that theory as against individual men seems to be missing her point by a mile.
While she was prominent, how could someone like that not be, and her ideas influenced early second wave and radical feminism, they are hardly mainstream. Then too her later work is influenced by the fact that she was developing schizophrenia which would later take over her life, and I think a certain lack of clarity is bound to leak through. Or she just thought outside the box. I'm not a trans-humanist, and admire Marx only for his keen analysis, so I'm not a fair judge there.
In discussing this, I think one would be remiss in not discussing the trend of people, but especially men, in saying feminists "hate men". I've had this said of me many times in online comments and in person. The husband of a friend of whom we get along very well says this. For a long time I assumed he, at least, was just roughly teasing but I also noticed how often in reddit help questions, men would refer to women doing something as disrespectful, often to his manhood--when it wasn't disrespectful to anything, let alone his manhood, it was just not something they liked or perhaps wanted in a relationship (which is fine, you get to have preferences and say them, so does the other person, hopefully a compromise can be made).
And it clicked. A lot of men tend to equate women looking up to them, to looking for answers, to seeing them as leaders to masculinity itself. The idea of men and women being equals feels like an attack on manhood itself. I've had a lot of frustrating conversations lately with people who insist on male headship and say men and women have complimentary roles but women WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE (according to them) are under men. They don't get to make the decisions. That's not what complimentary means. You could say that women make decisions in one realm and men in the other. That would be complimentary, but one under the other is not complimentary. That's not the definition. Complimentary colors are on the same layer of the color wheel, pairs directly opposite each other, not one under the other.
And so we come to feminists hating men and masculinity. Well, if one person believes in equality and the other is the the kind of person who equates masculinity with being in charge and specifically in charge of women, well, of course the latter think feminists hate men. That person can't conceive of men any other way.
But in point of fact, most men are not in charge, they never were. They live their lives having to bow and scrape and please and flatter. It is true in patriarchal wonderlands now. It expect it will be true in communist utopias. So please, stop pushing it as a gender linked trait. It just isn't.
I want to reply to you. But you seem angry, and I don't want to make you more angry. I want to say that there are cultural differences between men and women. And then there are biological differences. (I'm mostly thinking hormones here.) And if you don't like the cultural differences, you can choose another these days. Can't there be more than one culture? (I mean there are already.) And you can even change your hormones. (I've recently been wondering what it's like to get off testosterone, like I could go on blockers for a week or two. Oh I should listen to women who have transitioned.)
Anyway why are you so angry? And if you don't like the cultural vibe that Mrs. Psmith radiates, then why read her book review.
Sigh. Of all the cheap shots, you seem angry, directed at feminists is one of the cheapest. Why not just directly address my points? As to why I read (or shouldn't)Mrs. PSmith, that was the weirder jabs I've seen. I read her for the reason most reasonably intelligent people do, not to validate my own "cultural vibe" but because I find what she has to say interesting and often well said. I agree with some things she says and disagree with others. The mix of which changes column to column. The way she portrays men's personality as opposed to women is one of the ways I disagree with her. Most intelligent people read with this mix in mind. Mrs. PSmith has the benefit of always writing her opinion clearly and in an entertaining fashion.
Sure we can have lots of cultures, but that wasn't my point was it? My point was actual human traits, risk, ambition, nurturing etc. How those are expressed varies culture to culture but we don't speak of certain cultures not having them (or only when we are being bigots). And in that same way, men's culture and women's culture is NOT universal, not across human cultures, not across time and not even across class, within those constraints (even to a degree not across religion).
I'd note you don't actually know what my cultural vibe is, and the little I did reveal should suggest I know a lot more about hers than you are pleased to think.
Am I angry? Hmm, perhaps. Not in this instance and certainly not at Mrs. PSmith, I found the writer of the book she reviewed far more annoying. However, we are in a world in which the belief in male superiority have given us a barrellful of moral monsters, as President and his advisors;monsters who are also supremely incompetent on a basic governing/realpolitik level and are doing their best to create an apocalyptic expansive world war that will destroy the world as thoroughly as they destroyed the American reputation, alliances and power. Plus, they want to install concentration camps, we have narrowly, (maybe not sure, fingers crossed), avoided one being placed in my hometown, but Americans have already been killed and the people who should stop them won't.
So yeah, maybe in retrospect, I'm a little salty. Why aren't you?
Oh dear, I'm sorry. I should have hit the cancel button and not posted. I didn't mean to take jabs at you, but clearly that's what you felt. I don't think men are superior, just different. More risk takers, you get the heroes and the villains from that. I think it has a lot to do with the testosterone, and not some belief/ culture. But sure belief/ culture is also important in the making of heroes and villains. And sure you get women heroes and villains too, just lower percentages.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this old thought of mine; to fix our political system we should try giving the vote only to women for ~10 years or so as a trial period. When I offer this idea to my male friends they run away screaming... grin.
But your sense that men are "risk takers" was precisely the point I brought up that is so skewed by our expectations--we think men are "risk takers" because we tag what men do as risky and then we reverse engineer it to say it's their testosterone or some such thing. But we don't think pursuing marriage and babies (to name just two classic female activities) are risky so women are not risk takers; never mind both activities are in fact risky especially for women. (And as I said, we can go the reverse for men and behaviors that are clearly nurturing)
And from there is the really insulting, I know you don't mean to insult, but jeesh,dude, did you hear yourself say we have fewer heroes that are female and then press send? This just isn't observable fact. The French revolution, for example, was started by French women tired of bread prices being so high. And women across cultures have taken to the streets repeatedly, they've stripped naked when nothing else worked. It was women who organized the er, women's march. Black and White they drove the abolition movement and the civil rights movement, indeed I'd fill the page with those names alone. I mean Dr. Ruth, Dr.Ruth, was a resistance fighter, Julia Childe was in the OSS. These are not isolated cases. Florence Nightingale started modern nursing in the middle of the crimean war. But that's just nursing, it's not risk. And in school shootings teachers step in front of students...They also step up for each other.
(And yes there are villains too, but nobody has much of a problem blaming women generally).
I really don't want to sound like a "more you know announcement", but the very idea that men are more brave and heroic, or even more willing to take risks, men who are infamously afraid of an ordinary life basic commitment off marrying the person they love. Well, seriously now. But to say it now, in this day and time, when an entire party of men are too afraid, too risk averse to stand up to a President they know is driving us to disaster? I mean C'mon dude. As the British say, are you having a laugh?
Individuals are brave. Individuals are risk takers. And even there, it is circumstances that make them many of them so. I've been shocked to my core about who did and didn't step up in this moment. Or any one really.
>I think one would be remiss in not discussing the trend of people, but especially men, in saying feminists "hate men"
Possibly don't underestimate the role of, say... a situation where "KILL ALL MEN" graffiti is treated like a joke, and "KILL ALL WOMEN" graffiti- if it ever existed- would be treated rather more like a war crime.
The word doesn't get used enough, but I find it more accurate to say that feminists are, broadly, *indifferent* to men. The downstream results look very much like hate to the recipient or observer, but the upstream justifications are not at all similar.
I would say that with rare exceptions, feminists do not endorse Kill All Men graffiti--I can't say I've ever seen it myself, though no doubt there is some modern art somewhere with it. I certainly don't myself.
While I'm sympathetic to the feelings of men encountering it, I will say there is a direct difference between the two. Most men encountering it (not all, always not all) are pretty confident that such graffiti won't be felt in a direct way. No woman will be confident that way and a huge proportion of them will know that in fact it will be.
When Nick Fuentes makes his nasty remarks about women's place, women know that if not him, at least one of his enraged followers will be making good on it to some women. Even when death isn't on offer, our world is very different, "Patient Griselda" was a story told by Petrarch, Chaucer and Perrault (among others)as a model for wifely behavior . Not a cautionary tale mind you, a model. An illuminated triptych was given as a wedding gift.
It's just not the same.
Your point about feminists being indifferent to men is both true and not true. Feminism is by its very nature a liberation movement for women. It exists to liberate women from oppression. I'm not sure why everyone thinks it would only be valid if it also catered towards men's concerns.
However, it has done so and many feminists as varied as from Gloria Steinham to Andrea Dworkin have pointed out that it would. They were capable of seeing how patriarchy oppressed men as well as women. Feminist lawyers, have in fact responded to men's claims as Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously did re Social Security case. Catherine McKinnon's harassment laws are not sex specific and Terry Crews got support from the women in MeToo. In regard to the draft, one of the men pushing for equality only got sympathy from a woman judge, the men were not moving forward. But typically, it was not moving fast enough and he got mad and so killed her son and injured her husband in an attempt to kill her--a person NOT indifferent to his claim.
As I said those graffiti you speak of lands very, very differently.
I'd also note that I'd say, feminist or not, women are far less indifferent to men's pain than men are to women's. It is very difficult for me to find entertainment that will not include a women who is murdered or raped. It is very easy for men to find entertainment where they are not raped (by anyone) and while they can see themselves murder each other frequently, finding it where women murder them, is less easy. Entertainment that is free from it is usually derided as chick flicks. I mean when it comes to indifference, pot to kettle guys.
One of the aspects I dislike about modern internet dialogue is rule of snark over civil dialogue. I took your point seriously. Answered it seriously, despite you only offering names(and of those only one that is at all relevant today, 2026). You didn't even offer a single quote.
And to respond you offered a snarky line that ignored all I said, that's supposed to take me done even though it addressing none of what I said.
What part of what I actually said do you disagree with? Do you for example believe that men and sexual harassment are part and parcel? Do you believe that masculinity and being in charge of women are inherent and indivisible from each other?
Or what part of the Marx influenced analysis of grabbing the means of production do you feel demonizes inviduals as opposed to attacks a system wide problem. If Shulasmith Firestone felt the only answer was not using female reproductive systems that's about as system wide a view as it gets.
And as for my own discussion, it is hardly demonizing people who are behaving a certain baffling (and fairly libelous way) to me personally, and trying to figure out why. If I am wrong, then explain oh you went down the wrong rabbit hill there it is actually this--but to just say oh your demonizing men and then pretending blah blah---well yeah that's being an AH.
Shulamith Firestone, Catherine McKinnon, and Marilyn French are among the most influential second wave feminists. Their works substantially influenced family law, education, and government policy. To claim they’re not True Feminists is an egregious example of a motte and bailey claim.
Thanks for at least explaining what you mean but I'm baffled. Where did I say they weren't feminists? I didn't say Marilyn French had a lot of influence because as I said, I didn't know her. All I know I cribbed from Wikipedia, though I do take issue with the idea that a single character out of many in a single fictional situation gets to represent her views. That's not motte and bailey any writer would stand by the view. If that is why you claim she's a "demonize the individual male', well that's just silly. The rest of her work is pretty classic patriarchy is oppression feminism.
I certainly didn't say McKinnon didn't have influence; how could I? She made the sexual harassment law. I just don't see what makes her "a demonize the individual male" proponent in your mind. You still haven't said.
Firesmith leans closer to the kind of thinker you mean but even she is really a Marxist analysis intertwined with sex based oppression. In many ways she is the one who is most devoted to using marxist analysis--as I explained, at length. There is no point in repeating it, either you'll read it or you won't.
While surely elements of her work influenced feminists of the time who now influence working feminists today, I would push back on the idea that she is primary cannon, or perhaps more accurately, that she remains primary material now in 2026 (50-60years later). She went off on her own sideways jaunt, and while sideways jaunts are often wildly talked about, and inspirational (pro and con) that doesn't mean they are the heart or driving philosophy of a movement.
It is hardly controversial to treat as non-standard the thoughts of someone who was not only on the radical edge in her day but also becoming psychotic during the most radical of her works.
You may disagree with that assessment, of course, (or any of mine) but mere disagreement doesn't make it "controversial" and it certainly isn't the kind of thing one "hides" in reasonable arguments.
Having never heard of her I had to look her up on wikipedia, and from its synopsis it appears she is, but there too it doesn't look like she in fact demonizes all men. She had pretty strong words about patriarchal systems, especially the post WW2 world order.
She did have a novel in which she had a character who went all off on protesting friend (I'm assuming female and feminist) against men in a moment of anger. She made it plain, as authors too often have to do, that these were not her personal views. The character was voicing a feeling from a particular character, and a particular argument. Having not read the novel, I assume there are responses from the other equally FICTIONAL characters. It is kinda the point of fiction. I have characters in my manuscripts say all sorts of things that I personally don't believe but that their character might, or might in a moment of despair, anger, lust etc. That's what makes novels interesting, the interplay of different thoughts, reactions etc.
It is why some writers, who are scrupulously moral, still prefer writing villains and trainwrecks. It is difficult to write sensible, moral people as fascinating. Superman only is because he has all the power not to be--and still people often don't get what the real drama is.
But I know I'm giving you too much credit for effort. You are obviously going to some incel/manosphere webpage to find man-hating feminists or worse, using grok or Claude or whatever AI floats your fundamental indolence and looking it up. Maybe I'm being unkind, maybe your taking some early feminist thinker woman's history class and feeling personally targeted by your classmates. I'll try to be charitable.
I'm not going to respond to every one of those women you've been assigned. So stop doing it.
I will grant you that there are people in the media, both regular and social, who will claim things for feminism that are decidedly NOT. Girl Boss is not official feminist cannon folks, nor is Girl dinner. However, people will claim a lot of things there.
No movement can be responsible for every idle statement someone makes about it on social media. Good lord, there are people out there, an entire contingent, who are convinced that the original Star Trek was merely a space opera confirming traditional conservative values.
You know, I had a whole thing explained why that snark is silly and then I realized once again I'm doing the work for you. Get off the AI and actually explain why what you said could possibly apply, identify what parts of my argument are which. Use details.
When I saw this was going to be a book about boys, I thought "oh boy, I can't wait." I am an avid reader of parenting books and I've read quite a few books about boys. Very very few are any good, especially the ones written by women. I love women, some of my best friends... actually all of them are women (except the husband), but women who are obsessed with the male psyche and then write books about it can lean a bit off. I think, in general, we are living through a moment when women feel a right to have strong opinions about what men are and should be, and this off-gasses as some rather bad parenting ideas.
btw, if you *are* interested in a good book about boys, the only one still on my shelf is "Raising Boys" by Steve Biddulph. My review:
This is a great book on boys and how to raise them. It is modern, it doesn't look backwards, it doesn't praise dubious behaviors, and it doesn't blame. On the other hand, it isn't guided by social ideology and it doesn't try to stuff boys into a pre-shaped box. Rather, it provides a series of positive ideas for raising successful, kind, thoughtful, and responsible men given the constraints of the society we live in.
This book is what The Wonder of Boys could have been, with less pseudoscience and working backwards from the conclusions. The author cites that book once, suggesting that he may have been guided by its flaws. If I had to recommend a child-rearing book to the parents of sons (and yes, this book is definitely for fathers as well) it would be this one.
There are times when I felt a little lost in the organization of the book and I thought he was a tad overprotective in his advice, but on the whole this was a solid piece of work.
I’ll check it out, thanks. I enjoyed Anthony Esolen’s book about boys but it was much more nostalgia for boyhood from a man than explaining boyhood for a mom.
I have three boys, and just ordered Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph based on your recommendation. Thanks!
I've had three similar books sitting in my list for a while now. I'd be grateful if you or other readers can tell me if they're bad, good, or unread (and thus not included in your blanket disrecommendation):
The middle one was on my to-read list but I haven't ready any. It's hard to do a search for books by topic on goodreads, but this is what came up for "boys" or "sons."
Read:
Real Boys by William Pollack - two stars. Dated.
Boys and Sex by Perry Orenstein - two stars. Just as cringe feminist as the book reviewed here.
The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian - three stars. More of a lament than any practical suggestions.
The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers - four stars. Not really a parenting book, more about how the culture has turned against men. Was groundbreaking when it came out but now I think most people have picked up on this problem. Probably dated.
The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine - three stars. It's about the nature part of the whole nature/nurture debate. She can be a bit biological essentialist but on the whole it's good info.
Four Lessons from My Three Sons by Jeff Nelligan -- four stars. Author is a proud dad and very easy to hate on but there is some decent content here. Unfortunately, the most important thing his sons had was an extremely involved father and that may have made more difference than anything else in the book.
Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves -- three stars. Reeves is a 40,000ft kind of guy so most of this is about policy, not parenting.
On my To Read List:
Mothering Our Boys by Maggie Dent
Between Mothers and Sons by Patricia Stevens - female writers reflect on raising boys. Sure to be cringe af.
Lost Boys by James Bloodworth - about the manosphere. Could go either way.
Raising Cain by Kindlon, Barker, Thompson - child psychologists talk about the boys they've seen and what they needed.
Raising Emotionally Strong Boys by Thomas and Goff - same idea. psychologists opine on what boys really need.
Bringing up Boys by Dobson
Rebels with a Cause by Niobe Way -- this is almost surely another feminazi reimagining what boys could be if they were only a blank slate.
Deep Secrets: Boys Friendships and The Crisis of Connection by Niobe Way -- probably another version of Boys and Sex.
The Boy Crisis by Farrell -- this was the OG "but what about the boys" book but it is so long and dense I have not been able to make any headway in it.
I'm imagining the first Urartian pot merchant who showed his pottery wheel to some visiting horse-nomads. "kʷelh₁! kʷekʷel!" "What's he saying?" "he say turn round. Round and round!" "Yes, they do that." "kʷékʷlos! H₁éḱwos kʷékʷlos kʷe tekmi dʰéǵʰōm!" "How do you even pronounce that? What's he saying?" "He say...buy him horse now. Probably you last chance."
1.) Women are, men do. But perhaps Ladies do and Gentlemen are. Perhaps this is countersignaling, too.
2.) There are things a man cannot talk about to anyone but an iron-clad friend, or maybe your father. If you are exceptionally lucky, you could have such a relationship with a brother. Such relationships have always been rare, a man might have as many as four of them in a lifetime. We make it very hard to have those relationships now. Such a relationship would be called gay (see Sam/Frodo, Kirk/Spock/McCoy). And anyway, the reason such a relationship has to be iron-clad is because it will bear a great deal of weight and require both partners to be dependent on each other. In the world of the men without chests entering into such a relationship with anyone is madness. It is inviting being rugpulled. And yet, by a miracle, some men do have such relationships. But they would never in a million years tell her about them.
A lot of ink has been spilled across continents and centuries about what defines a gentleman. My personal definition is based on 3 attributes:
Self-Discipline: A gentleman is in control of himself, his appetites, and how he reacts to the world around him.
Taste: A gentleman aligns his clothing and living space with a distinct aesthetic.
Tact: A gentleman is sensible at all times of the feelings of others and the general mood of a gathering, and chooses his words and actions accordingly to give delight and minimize offense.
I'm thinking of the literature on honor codes among English aristocrats. There was nothing you could do that would make you a gentleman, but there were a thousand things that if you either did them, or allowed them to happen to you, could reveal to the world that you were *not* a gentleman. Conversely, a woman who married into the aristocracy, so long as she acted appropriately, would be more or less accepted (especially if she came from a wealthy family.)
Kicking your pregnant wife out of your bedroom is really low behavior, even by the standards of the gnarliest incels. I guess it's blaming the victim, but we do have a choice in whom we match with. Hers is telling... to be fully honest, I think a lot of these things are driven by unconscious dynamics... I'm not trying to be a moralistic scold. I just think it's crazy to take stuff like this at face value, sometimes.
We don't know what actually happened without hearing his side of the story. Probably not even then.
She's retconning what was probably a mutual agreement. Maybe he's a shift worker with back problems and really needed good sleep in a specially designed bed.
If you want to talk morals, here's the moral: trust but verify. Don't believe all women. Now I am off to read factoids about a subject of interest to me.
There are no shortage of people who volunteer to take the worse side of a deal in order to boast about how virtuous they are for having taken it. Or how abused. Her husband may have got things figured out -- she needs to have many things to object to because <patriarchy> and he gives her the ones he chooses for her to object to, rather than have her do the choosing and find fault with things he cares about.
I just read this (I’d been saving it) and aside from you being funny as usual I wanted to add a bit about Odin, because I also just read a thing about Viking society, and it brought up a point that hadn’t occurred to me before. Christians are very ready to take God as a model for behavior but this isn’t universally true for pagans. Just because a god did it doesn’t necessarily Mean Something About Society and personal behavior. Inverse WWJD. Gods can do whatever they want, sucks to be a mortal.
Oh sure! Stories of the gods behaving in morally problematic ways bothered the classical philosophers too. But I gender-subversive stories strike me as a little different and I can’t think of any from the Mediterranean world.
That is interesting, that the Mediterranean gods don’t subvert those social bounds but subvert plenty others. I wonder where else we find behavior like Odin’s in mythologies.
Others have made the observation that when it comes to how American middle-class culture relates to masculinity, the Return of the Repressed becomes obvious. (Shocker: Freud really was right.) Young men take steroids they do not need and hit themselves with hammers in the belief this will make them "look manly"; women read romance books where the male heroes are dominant, aggressive stalkers; frustrated female desire is distorted into things like "Morning Glory Milking Farm". (I miss the 90s, when Robert Bly tried to teach men to beat drums and write poetry to get in touch with their deep feelings. Such an innocent time...)
"...women read romance books where the male heroes are dominant, aggressive stalkers; frustrated female desire is distorted into things like 'Morning Glory Milking Farm...'"
Seriously, I've been thinking a lot about the weird twists of women who want to enjoy stories of male dominance, but want it to be ideologically appropriate, and so we get monster sex so you get to enjoy stories of a powerful, manly... minotaur (or werewolf, or whatever).
Something else that I've been thinking about for a while is the way that women shape culture by serving as enforcers of norms, as shaming men, calling the men of the community to punish antisocial men, calling for male violence when necessary, etc. And I feel like, idk, that balance has increasingly come off-kilter in the last half century and change because women and men alike are failing to acknowledge it and its usefulness.
Weirdly, the equilibrium often works well in theologically conservative churches that *aren't* being self-consciously Manly (e.g. your Mark Driscoll types or adult converts to Orthodoxy), but are also not being aggressively feminist. But the trick is that you can't think about it too hard ("Our faith tradition says that men rule everything, so why is every leadership role below that of pastor held by the congregation's women...?") because once that happens, it's like the athelete who chokes on the free throw because he's now consciously thinking about it.
Oh yeah, long-time reader, first-time commenter. And man, I'm flying close to the sun with the razor-thin anonymity of my Substack handle.
I grew up in a religious enclave and my father was quite open about the reason women weren't allowed into leadership roles: Because they will take them, and men will step back, and you will get useless men. As a kid, that seemed an unfair reason to prevent women from participating in the community. As an adult, I can see the pragmatism. Because useless men are bad for women. Now, there are downsides to men controlling all access to a religion that dominates the family life for women as well. I haven't quite come to agreement with my father. But I can see the perspective better.
I've got friends with sons in the 18-24-year-old age range, and so over the last few years I have been thinking a *lot* about how exactly society manages to deal with the problem of Male Sloth. Because it's real! Half of I Hate My Husband online discourse is women who perceive (oftentimes entirely correctly) that their husband simply isn't simply pulling his share of the weight in the home. And that circles back to issues of church leadership. If women will give them the chance, men will absolutely just offload all possible work onto them.
When I was younger, I used to think that all the ideological language about The Value of Hard Work was a way of keeping people down and making them think that they deserved to be at the bottom. After having increasingly seen more of the world, I think that an ideology of The Value of Hard Work is kind of necessary to keep young men from just spending their entire lives playing video games.
Every time I read a book about, idk, arctic exploration, I realize "oh that's what the guys making Turing-complete Minecraft builds are supposed to be doing"
There is room in between though! And we really need to teach young men to put their shoulder to the yoke and see the value in living the in-between life. If there's one thing I've learned from reading anthropology, it's that men have to be raised and actively taught to be useful. Otherwise, you wind up with Tasmania.
"If there's one thing I've learned from reading anthropology, it's that men have to be raised and actively taught to be useful."
As a half-century old guy, one thing I've noted about Gen Xers in particular is that they often had a reflexive twitch of wanting to be less harsh than their Boomer parents -- but at some point boys *need* a parent to tell them, in the words of my late father, "get off your dying ass and get to work."
It has struck me, too, how many strong-willed women there are among American conservatives. I think it's a genuinely American cultural thing: the frontierswoman who can pick up and use a rifle if she has to. (Women in Western movies are notably strong-willed.) This is why "trad women" seemed so fake.
It wasn’t a great book but it was an interesting one — I saw it more as a mom memoir with some intellectual pretension than a definitive book on masculinity.
I do feel really bad about liberal helicopter moms raising boys. I feel bad for the boys. These "educated" women aren't raising men, but p-ys. I love being a BoyMom but raising my son to be a man has caused a rift for my son and his helicoptered-big-emotioned boy friends which I wrote about here. It is one of several instances where the moms intervene in pre-teen boy relationships for the worst.
Btw, incredible how influenced by Rosseau and Marx her thinking is. "If only there were no oppressive forces around, we could be all gallant and nice and insert here whatever."
Wherever Rousseau is mentioned, particularly in the context of children or good behavior, I feel the need to mention that he most likely forced his partner to abandon multiple infants to (brutal 18th century) orphanages, and likely for little reason other than not wanting to be a parent yet.
Rousseau must never ever be a positive influence.
So I've got to say I would not read such a book more than the review even though as a feminist I suppose I'm supposed to be the audience. I don't think, however, it is an actual feminist leaning book. Feminism isn't about demonizing any particular man for being man, let alone simply for being tall and bearded and working with one's hands. Some of the things the author of the book said seemed designed too make her reader roll their eye at feminism--as indeed most journalistic statements on feminism are meant to.
But equally I take issue with Ms. PSmith's take here. I roll my eyes at the idea she's expressed, multiple times that men are endowed by their gender to be a cross between Ayn Rand's Hero and Rudyard Kipling's now you are a man son. It's rather like setting gender based on the character of the Virgin Mary or and saying here proof that gender differences are real.
To make the argument that women are only acceptable when they do things that are traditionally male is a sound argument but to suggest that we should train ONLY girls in that, or we don't value the traditional female, I mean seriously? Also, Martha Stewart would like to have a word--and since I happen to know at least one of the people who taught her her skills, she was an outlier not in feminine skills but in marketing. Or one could point to her predecessor Julia Child, who mastered feminine skills and worked for the OSS.
It's this idea I find most stifling, as a mother, as a feminist as an old farm girl and thus observer of nature and as a human being, the idea that being a mother (and overall nurturer) is a cordoned off identity, that it necessarily requires one to not ambitious, or a fighter or a physically active doer, etc. That is observably untrue.
It is, as much of a sexist idea, a classist one, and a wildly middle class one at that. The idea of lady (and its counterpart gentlemen, which was a thing men could be) is of course a bit of a class conceit, a way too think one-selves above the people who did the real work. Maids, who not only women but also spent far more of their lives making a home beautiful and nurturing did not get to be ladies, not even their offshoot as nurses/nannies ,nor did slave-women.
But at least at one time the term lady came with a real sense of power, and its full expression of it. Lady's we required to have honor, and stoicism, and that careless humor in the face of disaster that men have now claimed for themselves. They were supposed to gather the people of the castle to defend it and if all hope was lost, and only rape and murder possible--throw themselves off its parapets.
Now, with the middle class moralists working on it, the term has devolved so that only those with whose zest for life is in their beige twinsets and ability to keep their sex life as decorous as possible and not the kind, the courageous and rarely the nurturing. It's not feminism's fault the word got shelved.
Nor is it feminism's fault that Heathcliffian behavior is generally considered less acceptable than gentlemanly kinds. (It was a shocking book when it was written as well.) Though really, putting out this kind of book when Heathcliffe is President of the United states seems willfully blind.
I find much more interesting the idea I read, also in a review of a book I would have read but had small children then, that because of our social ideas we don't see traits we code as one sexes as the other. We don't see women's interest in marriage and children as risk taking even though it clearly is. We don't see coaching and the like as nurturing even though it is. Heck, this author talks about men sharing factoids and doesn't see women sharing recipes etc. in the same light. We don't actually only talk about emotion and the biggest gossips I know are men-but we don't put those behaviors in that basket and so find "proof" of gender stereotypes.
But the proof that gender stereotypes are untrue is that in fact, whole certain behaviors gather more people of one sex or another, they don't do it universally i.e. Individuals differ on which behaviors they exhibit in keeping with their gender and which they don't.
And finally, if you are going to quote the study that shows primate have a greater interest in wheeled things, you have to also note that they had an equal interest in the doll and other nurturing toys. Something that is seen in field observation on them in the young.
“Feminism isn't about demonizing any particular man for being man, let alone simply for being tall and bearded and working with one's hands.”
There’s a real motte-and-bailey claim for you. Or are Catherine McKinnon, Shulamith Firestone, etc. not feminists?
I don't recall Catherine McKinnon demonizing individual men. Her claim to fame as a feminist is her legal work on sexual harassment. A quick check on wikipedia elucidates she talks of patriarchy on a system wide level, equating it with a marxist analysis. If you are going to say that sexual harassment law goes after men for being men, well I'm going to have to take issue with your internalized misandry.
Shulasmith Firestone, also saw it with a marxist analysis, taking the problem down to biologic distinction and finding extreme solutions. While I've been trained to think, oh yeah, he got me with that one, on the other hand, it would be wildly wrong to say her focus was on blaming individual men (though maybe the men in her family). She saw the problem as a matter of controlling the means of production and thus human beings had to find a different means off reproduction or they would never be free. To categorize that theory as against individual men seems to be missing her point by a mile.
While she was prominent, how could someone like that not be, and her ideas influenced early second wave and radical feminism, they are hardly mainstream. Then too her later work is influenced by the fact that she was developing schizophrenia which would later take over her life, and I think a certain lack of clarity is bound to leak through. Or she just thought outside the box. I'm not a trans-humanist, and admire Marx only for his keen analysis, so I'm not a fair judge there.
In discussing this, I think one would be remiss in not discussing the trend of people, but especially men, in saying feminists "hate men". I've had this said of me many times in online comments and in person. The husband of a friend of whom we get along very well says this. For a long time I assumed he, at least, was just roughly teasing but I also noticed how often in reddit help questions, men would refer to women doing something as disrespectful, often to his manhood--when it wasn't disrespectful to anything, let alone his manhood, it was just not something they liked or perhaps wanted in a relationship (which is fine, you get to have preferences and say them, so does the other person, hopefully a compromise can be made).
And it clicked. A lot of men tend to equate women looking up to them, to looking for answers, to seeing them as leaders to masculinity itself. The idea of men and women being equals feels like an attack on manhood itself. I've had a lot of frustrating conversations lately with people who insist on male headship and say men and women have complimentary roles but women WITH THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE (according to them) are under men. They don't get to make the decisions. That's not what complimentary means. You could say that women make decisions in one realm and men in the other. That would be complimentary, but one under the other is not complimentary. That's not the definition. Complimentary colors are on the same layer of the color wheel, pairs directly opposite each other, not one under the other.
And so we come to feminists hating men and masculinity. Well, if one person believes in equality and the other is the the kind of person who equates masculinity with being in charge and specifically in charge of women, well, of course the latter think feminists hate men. That person can't conceive of men any other way.
But in point of fact, most men are not in charge, they never were. They live their lives having to bow and scrape and please and flatter. It is true in patriarchal wonderlands now. It expect it will be true in communist utopias. So please, stop pushing it as a gender linked trait. It just isn't.
I want to reply to you. But you seem angry, and I don't want to make you more angry. I want to say that there are cultural differences between men and women. And then there are biological differences. (I'm mostly thinking hormones here.) And if you don't like the cultural differences, you can choose another these days. Can't there be more than one culture? (I mean there are already.) And you can even change your hormones. (I've recently been wondering what it's like to get off testosterone, like I could go on blockers for a week or two. Oh I should listen to women who have transitioned.)
Anyway why are you so angry? And if you don't like the cultural vibe that Mrs. Psmith radiates, then why read her book review.
Sigh. Of all the cheap shots, you seem angry, directed at feminists is one of the cheapest. Why not just directly address my points? As to why I read (or shouldn't)Mrs. PSmith, that was the weirder jabs I've seen. I read her for the reason most reasonably intelligent people do, not to validate my own "cultural vibe" but because I find what she has to say interesting and often well said. I agree with some things she says and disagree with others. The mix of which changes column to column. The way she portrays men's personality as opposed to women is one of the ways I disagree with her. Most intelligent people read with this mix in mind. Mrs. PSmith has the benefit of always writing her opinion clearly and in an entertaining fashion.
Sure we can have lots of cultures, but that wasn't my point was it? My point was actual human traits, risk, ambition, nurturing etc. How those are expressed varies culture to culture but we don't speak of certain cultures not having them (or only when we are being bigots). And in that same way, men's culture and women's culture is NOT universal, not across human cultures, not across time and not even across class, within those constraints (even to a degree not across religion).
I'd note you don't actually know what my cultural vibe is, and the little I did reveal should suggest I know a lot more about hers than you are pleased to think.
Am I angry? Hmm, perhaps. Not in this instance and certainly not at Mrs. PSmith, I found the writer of the book she reviewed far more annoying. However, we are in a world in which the belief in male superiority have given us a barrellful of moral monsters, as President and his advisors;monsters who are also supremely incompetent on a basic governing/realpolitik level and are doing their best to create an apocalyptic expansive world war that will destroy the world as thoroughly as they destroyed the American reputation, alliances and power. Plus, they want to install concentration camps, we have narrowly, (maybe not sure, fingers crossed), avoided one being placed in my hometown, but Americans have already been killed and the people who should stop them won't.
So yeah, maybe in retrospect, I'm a little salty. Why aren't you?
Oh dear, I'm sorry. I should have hit the cancel button and not posted. I didn't mean to take jabs at you, but clearly that's what you felt. I don't think men are superior, just different. More risk takers, you get the heroes and the villains from that. I think it has a lot to do with the testosterone, and not some belief/ culture. But sure belief/ culture is also important in the making of heroes and villains. And sure you get women heroes and villains too, just lower percentages.
Anyway, I'll leave you with this old thought of mine; to fix our political system we should try giving the vote only to women for ~10 years or so as a trial period. When I offer this idea to my male friends they run away screaming... grin.
But your sense that men are "risk takers" was precisely the point I brought up that is so skewed by our expectations--we think men are "risk takers" because we tag what men do as risky and then we reverse engineer it to say it's their testosterone or some such thing. But we don't think pursuing marriage and babies (to name just two classic female activities) are risky so women are not risk takers; never mind both activities are in fact risky especially for women. (And as I said, we can go the reverse for men and behaviors that are clearly nurturing)
And from there is the really insulting, I know you don't mean to insult, but jeesh,dude, did you hear yourself say we have fewer heroes that are female and then press send? This just isn't observable fact. The French revolution, for example, was started by French women tired of bread prices being so high. And women across cultures have taken to the streets repeatedly, they've stripped naked when nothing else worked. It was women who organized the er, women's march. Black and White they drove the abolition movement and the civil rights movement, indeed I'd fill the page with those names alone. I mean Dr. Ruth, Dr.Ruth, was a resistance fighter, Julia Childe was in the OSS. These are not isolated cases. Florence Nightingale started modern nursing in the middle of the crimean war. But that's just nursing, it's not risk. And in school shootings teachers step in front of students...They also step up for each other.
(And yes there are villains too, but nobody has much of a problem blaming women generally).
I really don't want to sound like a "more you know announcement", but the very idea that men are more brave and heroic, or even more willing to take risks, men who are infamously afraid of an ordinary life basic commitment off marrying the person they love. Well, seriously now. But to say it now, in this day and time, when an entire party of men are too afraid, too risk averse to stand up to a President they know is driving us to disaster? I mean C'mon dude. As the British say, are you having a laugh?
Individuals are brave. Individuals are risk takers. And even there, it is circumstances that make them many of them so. I've been shocked to my core about who did and didn't step up in this moment. Or any one really.
>I think one would be remiss in not discussing the trend of people, but especially men, in saying feminists "hate men"
Possibly don't underestimate the role of, say... a situation where "KILL ALL MEN" graffiti is treated like a joke, and "KILL ALL WOMEN" graffiti- if it ever existed- would be treated rather more like a war crime.
The word doesn't get used enough, but I find it more accurate to say that feminists are, broadly, *indifferent* to men. The downstream results look very much like hate to the recipient or observer, but the upstream justifications are not at all similar.
I would say that with rare exceptions, feminists do not endorse Kill All Men graffiti--I can't say I've ever seen it myself, though no doubt there is some modern art somewhere with it. I certainly don't myself.
While I'm sympathetic to the feelings of men encountering it, I will say there is a direct difference between the two. Most men encountering it (not all, always not all) are pretty confident that such graffiti won't be felt in a direct way. No woman will be confident that way and a huge proportion of them will know that in fact it will be.
When Nick Fuentes makes his nasty remarks about women's place, women know that if not him, at least one of his enraged followers will be making good on it to some women. Even when death isn't on offer, our world is very different, "Patient Griselda" was a story told by Petrarch, Chaucer and Perrault (among others)as a model for wifely behavior . Not a cautionary tale mind you, a model. An illuminated triptych was given as a wedding gift.
It's just not the same.
Your point about feminists being indifferent to men is both true and not true. Feminism is by its very nature a liberation movement for women. It exists to liberate women from oppression. I'm not sure why everyone thinks it would only be valid if it also catered towards men's concerns.
However, it has done so and many feminists as varied as from Gloria Steinham to Andrea Dworkin have pointed out that it would. They were capable of seeing how patriarchy oppressed men as well as women. Feminist lawyers, have in fact responded to men's claims as Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously did re Social Security case. Catherine McKinnon's harassment laws are not sex specific and Terry Crews got support from the women in MeToo. In regard to the draft, one of the men pushing for equality only got sympathy from a woman judge, the men were not moving forward. But typically, it was not moving fast enough and he got mad and so killed her son and injured her husband in an attempt to kill her--a person NOT indifferent to his claim.
As I said those graffiti you speak of lands very, very differently.
I'd also note that I'd say, feminist or not, women are far less indifferent to men's pain than men are to women's. It is very difficult for me to find entertainment that will not include a women who is murdered or raped. It is very easy for men to find entertainment where they are not raped (by anyone) and while they can see themselves murder each other frequently, finding it where women murder them, is less easy. Entertainment that is free from it is usually derided as chick flicks. I mean when it comes to indifference, pot to kettle guys.
Ah, so demonizing all men is part of feminism, just not the part you want to admit to.
One of the aspects I dislike about modern internet dialogue is rule of snark over civil dialogue. I took your point seriously. Answered it seriously, despite you only offering names(and of those only one that is at all relevant today, 2026). You didn't even offer a single quote.
And to respond you offered a snarky line that ignored all I said, that's supposed to take me done even though it addressing none of what I said.
What part of what I actually said do you disagree with? Do you for example believe that men and sexual harassment are part and parcel? Do you believe that masculinity and being in charge of women are inherent and indivisible from each other?
Or what part of the Marx influenced analysis of grabbing the means of production do you feel demonizes inviduals as opposed to attacks a system wide problem. If Shulasmith Firestone felt the only answer was not using female reproductive systems that's about as system wide a view as it gets.
And as for my own discussion, it is hardly demonizing people who are behaving a certain baffling (and fairly libelous way) to me personally, and trying to figure out why. If I am wrong, then explain oh you went down the wrong rabbit hill there it is actually this--but to just say oh your demonizing men and then pretending blah blah---well yeah that's being an AH.
Shulamith Firestone, Catherine McKinnon, and Marilyn French are among the most influential second wave feminists. Their works substantially influenced family law, education, and government policy. To claim they’re not True Feminists is an egregious example of a motte and bailey claim.
Thanks for at least explaining what you mean but I'm baffled. Where did I say they weren't feminists? I didn't say Marilyn French had a lot of influence because as I said, I didn't know her. All I know I cribbed from Wikipedia, though I do take issue with the idea that a single character out of many in a single fictional situation gets to represent her views. That's not motte and bailey any writer would stand by the view. If that is why you claim she's a "demonize the individual male', well that's just silly. The rest of her work is pretty classic patriarchy is oppression feminism.
I certainly didn't say McKinnon didn't have influence; how could I? She made the sexual harassment law. I just don't see what makes her "a demonize the individual male" proponent in your mind. You still haven't said.
Firesmith leans closer to the kind of thinker you mean but even she is really a Marxist analysis intertwined with sex based oppression. In many ways she is the one who is most devoted to using marxist analysis--as I explained, at length. There is no point in repeating it, either you'll read it or you won't.
While surely elements of her work influenced feminists of the time who now influence working feminists today, I would push back on the idea that she is primary cannon, or perhaps more accurately, that she remains primary material now in 2026 (50-60years later). She went off on her own sideways jaunt, and while sideways jaunts are often wildly talked about, and inspirational (pro and con) that doesn't mean they are the heart or driving philosophy of a movement.
It is hardly controversial to treat as non-standard the thoughts of someone who was not only on the radical edge in her day but also becoming psychotic during the most radical of her works.
You may disagree with that assessment, of course, (or any of mine) but mere disagreement doesn't make it "controversial" and it certainly isn't the kind of thing one "hides" in reasonable arguments.
To paraphrase Keynes:
Practical feminists, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct Marxist.
Dude, seriously? We are back to the tedious AI smarm machine? Bye. You must be out of kleenex.
Is Marilyn French a feminist or not?
Having never heard of her I had to look her up on wikipedia, and from its synopsis it appears she is, but there too it doesn't look like she in fact demonizes all men. She had pretty strong words about patriarchal systems, especially the post WW2 world order.
She did have a novel in which she had a character who went all off on protesting friend (I'm assuming female and feminist) against men in a moment of anger. She made it plain, as authors too often have to do, that these were not her personal views. The character was voicing a feeling from a particular character, and a particular argument. Having not read the novel, I assume there are responses from the other equally FICTIONAL characters. It is kinda the point of fiction. I have characters in my manuscripts say all sorts of things that I personally don't believe but that their character might, or might in a moment of despair, anger, lust etc. That's what makes novels interesting, the interplay of different thoughts, reactions etc.
It is why some writers, who are scrupulously moral, still prefer writing villains and trainwrecks. It is difficult to write sensible, moral people as fascinating. Superman only is because he has all the power not to be--and still people often don't get what the real drama is.
But I know I'm giving you too much credit for effort. You are obviously going to some incel/manosphere webpage to find man-hating feminists or worse, using grok or Claude or whatever AI floats your fundamental indolence and looking it up. Maybe I'm being unkind, maybe your taking some early feminist thinker woman's history class and feeling personally targeted by your classmates. I'll try to be charitable.
I'm not going to respond to every one of those women you've been assigned. So stop doing it.
I will grant you that there are people in the media, both regular and social, who will claim things for feminism that are decidedly NOT. Girl Boss is not official feminist cannon folks, nor is Girl dinner. However, people will claim a lot of things there.
No movement can be responsible for every idle statement someone makes about it on social media. Good lord, there are people out there, an entire contingent, who are convinced that the original Star Trek was merely a space opera confirming traditional conservative values.
Do look up the motte and bailey fallacy.
You know, I had a whole thing explained why that snark is silly and then I realized once again I'm doing the work for you. Get off the AI and actually explain why what you said could possibly apply, identify what parts of my argument are which. Use details.
You are decidedly too lazy to argue with.
When I saw this was going to be a book about boys, I thought "oh boy, I can't wait." I am an avid reader of parenting books and I've read quite a few books about boys. Very very few are any good, especially the ones written by women. I love women, some of my best friends... actually all of them are women (except the husband), but women who are obsessed with the male psyche and then write books about it can lean a bit off. I think, in general, we are living through a moment when women feel a right to have strong opinions about what men are and should be, and this off-gasses as some rather bad parenting ideas.
btw, if you *are* interested in a good book about boys, the only one still on my shelf is "Raising Boys" by Steve Biddulph. My review:
This is a great book on boys and how to raise them. It is modern, it doesn't look backwards, it doesn't praise dubious behaviors, and it doesn't blame. On the other hand, it isn't guided by social ideology and it doesn't try to stuff boys into a pre-shaped box. Rather, it provides a series of positive ideas for raising successful, kind, thoughtful, and responsible men given the constraints of the society we live in.
This book is what The Wonder of Boys could have been, with less pseudoscience and working backwards from the conclusions. The author cites that book once, suggesting that he may have been guided by its flaws. If I had to recommend a child-rearing book to the parents of sons (and yes, this book is definitely for fathers as well) it would be this one.
There are times when I felt a little lost in the organization of the book and I thought he was a tad overprotective in his advice, but on the whole this was a solid piece of work.
I’ll check it out, thanks. I enjoyed Anthony Esolen’s book about boys but it was much more nostalgia for boyhood from a man than explaining boyhood for a mom.
I have three boys, and just ordered Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph based on your recommendation. Thanks!
I've had three similar books sitting in my list for a while now. I'd be grateful if you or other readers can tell me if they're bad, good, or unread (and thus not included in your blanket disrecommendation):
Building Boys by Jennifer L.W. Fink
Mothering Our Boys by Maggie Dent
Wild Things by Stephen James & David Thomas
The middle one was on my to-read list but I haven't ready any. It's hard to do a search for books by topic on goodreads, but this is what came up for "boys" or "sons."
Read:
Real Boys by William Pollack - two stars. Dated.
Boys and Sex by Perry Orenstein - two stars. Just as cringe feminist as the book reviewed here.
The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian - three stars. More of a lament than any practical suggestions.
The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers - four stars. Not really a parenting book, more about how the culture has turned against men. Was groundbreaking when it came out but now I think most people have picked up on this problem. Probably dated.
The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine - three stars. It's about the nature part of the whole nature/nurture debate. She can be a bit biological essentialist but on the whole it's good info.
Four Lessons from My Three Sons by Jeff Nelligan -- four stars. Author is a proud dad and very easy to hate on but there is some decent content here. Unfortunately, the most important thing his sons had was an extremely involved father and that may have made more difference than anything else in the book.
Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves -- three stars. Reeves is a 40,000ft kind of guy so most of this is about policy, not parenting.
On my To Read List:
Mothering Our Boys by Maggie Dent
Between Mothers and Sons by Patricia Stevens - female writers reflect on raising boys. Sure to be cringe af.
Lost Boys by James Bloodworth - about the manosphere. Could go either way.
Raising Cain by Kindlon, Barker, Thompson - child psychologists talk about the boys they've seen and what they needed.
Raising Emotionally Strong Boys by Thomas and Goff - same idea. psychologists opine on what boys really need.
Bringing up Boys by Dobson
Rebels with a Cause by Niobe Way -- this is almost surely another feminazi reimagining what boys could be if they were only a blank slate.
Deep Secrets: Boys Friendships and The Crisis of Connection by Niobe Way -- probably another version of Boys and Sex.
The Boy Crisis by Farrell -- this was the OG "but what about the boys" book but it is so long and dense I have not been able to make any headway in it.
Any good ones about raising girls?
Here I rely on instinct. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry, not my area -- I standardized on boys.
I'm imagining the first Urartian pot merchant who showed his pottery wheel to some visiting horse-nomads. "kʷelh₁! kʷekʷel!" "What's he saying?" "he say turn round. Round and round!" "Yes, they do that." "kʷékʷlos! H₁éḱwos kʷékʷlos kʷe tekmi dʰéǵʰōm!" "How do you even pronounce that? What's he saying?" "He say...buy him horse now. Probably you last chance."
1.) Women are, men do. But perhaps Ladies do and Gentlemen are. Perhaps this is countersignaling, too.
2.) There are things a man cannot talk about to anyone but an iron-clad friend, or maybe your father. If you are exceptionally lucky, you could have such a relationship with a brother. Such relationships have always been rare, a man might have as many as four of them in a lifetime. We make it very hard to have those relationships now. Such a relationship would be called gay (see Sam/Frodo, Kirk/Spock/McCoy). And anyway, the reason such a relationship has to be iron-clad is because it will bear a great deal of weight and require both partners to be dependent on each other. In the world of the men without chests entering into such a relationship with anyone is madness. It is inviting being rugpulled. And yet, by a miracle, some men do have such relationships. But they would never in a million years tell her about them.
A lot of ink has been spilled across continents and centuries about what defines a gentleman. My personal definition is based on 3 attributes:
Self-Discipline: A gentleman is in control of himself, his appetites, and how he reacts to the world around him.
Taste: A gentleman aligns his clothing and living space with a distinct aesthetic.
Tact: A gentleman is sensible at all times of the feelings of others and the general mood of a gathering, and chooses his words and actions accordingly to give delight and minimize offense.
I'm thinking of the literature on honor codes among English aristocrats. There was nothing you could do that would make you a gentleman, but there were a thousand things that if you either did them, or allowed them to happen to you, could reveal to the world that you were *not* a gentleman. Conversely, a woman who married into the aristocracy, so long as she acted appropriately, would be more or less accepted (especially if she came from a wealthy family.)
You take that back about the late Animorphs books.
I can't imagine what it would be like to be her husband. I doubt it would be pleasant.
Kicking your pregnant wife out of your bedroom is really low behavior, even by the standards of the gnarliest incels. I guess it's blaming the victim, but we do have a choice in whom we match with. Hers is telling... to be fully honest, I think a lot of these things are driven by unconscious dynamics... I'm not trying to be a moralistic scold. I just think it's crazy to take stuff like this at face value, sometimes.
We don't know what actually happened without hearing his side of the story. Probably not even then.
She's retconning what was probably a mutual agreement. Maybe he's a shift worker with back problems and really needed good sleep in a specially designed bed.
If you want to talk morals, here's the moral: trust but verify. Don't believe all women. Now I am off to read factoids about a subject of interest to me.
There are no shortage of people who volunteer to take the worse side of a deal in order to boast about how virtuous they are for having taken it. Or how abused. Her husband may have got things figured out -- she needs to have many things to object to because <patriarchy> and he gives her the ones he chooses for her to object to, rather than have her do the choosing and find fault with things he cares about.
I just read this (I’d been saving it) and aside from you being funny as usual I wanted to add a bit about Odin, because I also just read a thing about Viking society, and it brought up a point that hadn’t occurred to me before. Christians are very ready to take God as a model for behavior but this isn’t universally true for pagans. Just because a god did it doesn’t necessarily Mean Something About Society and personal behavior. Inverse WWJD. Gods can do whatever they want, sucks to be a mortal.
Oh sure! Stories of the gods behaving in morally problematic ways bothered the classical philosophers too. But I gender-subversive stories strike me as a little different and I can’t think of any from the Mediterranean world.
That is interesting, that the Mediterranean gods don’t subvert those social bounds but subvert plenty others. I wonder where else we find behavior like Odin’s in mythologies.
And her name is literally Whippman? That feels like it’s too on the nose.
> the unladylike possibility of bonding over how weather conditions affected various WW2 aircraft
Lies and libel—it’s Cold War aircraft now
pfft
some of us never moved on from WWI y’know
Honestly WW1 is returning to relevance as a historical special interest so good on you
Others have made the observation that when it comes to how American middle-class culture relates to masculinity, the Return of the Repressed becomes obvious. (Shocker: Freud really was right.) Young men take steroids they do not need and hit themselves with hammers in the belief this will make them "look manly"; women read romance books where the male heroes are dominant, aggressive stalkers; frustrated female desire is distorted into things like "Morning Glory Milking Farm". (I miss the 90s, when Robert Bly tried to teach men to beat drums and write poetry to get in touch with their deep feelings. Such an innocent time...)
"...women read romance books where the male heroes are dominant, aggressive stalkers; frustrated female desire is distorted into things like 'Morning Glory Milking Farm...'"
Seriously, I've been thinking a lot about the weird twists of women who want to enjoy stories of male dominance, but want it to be ideologically appropriate, and so we get monster sex so you get to enjoy stories of a powerful, manly... minotaur (or werewolf, or whatever).
Something else that I've been thinking about for a while is the way that women shape culture by serving as enforcers of norms, as shaming men, calling the men of the community to punish antisocial men, calling for male violence when necessary, etc. And I feel like, idk, that balance has increasingly come off-kilter in the last half century and change because women and men alike are failing to acknowledge it and its usefulness.
Weirdly, the equilibrium often works well in theologically conservative churches that *aren't* being self-consciously Manly (e.g. your Mark Driscoll types or adult converts to Orthodoxy), but are also not being aggressively feminist. But the trick is that you can't think about it too hard ("Our faith tradition says that men rule everything, so why is every leadership role below that of pastor held by the congregation's women...?") because once that happens, it's like the athelete who chokes on the free throw because he's now consciously thinking about it.
Oh yeah, long-time reader, first-time commenter. And man, I'm flying close to the sun with the razor-thin anonymity of my Substack handle.
I grew up in a religious enclave and my father was quite open about the reason women weren't allowed into leadership roles: Because they will take them, and men will step back, and you will get useless men. As a kid, that seemed an unfair reason to prevent women from participating in the community. As an adult, I can see the pragmatism. Because useless men are bad for women. Now, there are downsides to men controlling all access to a religion that dominates the family life for women as well. I haven't quite come to agreement with my father. But I can see the perspective better.
I've got friends with sons in the 18-24-year-old age range, and so over the last few years I have been thinking a *lot* about how exactly society manages to deal with the problem of Male Sloth. Because it's real! Half of I Hate My Husband online discourse is women who perceive (oftentimes entirely correctly) that their husband simply isn't simply pulling his share of the weight in the home. And that circles back to issues of church leadership. If women will give them the chance, men will absolutely just offload all possible work onto them.
When I was younger, I used to think that all the ideological language about The Value of Hard Work was a way of keeping people down and making them think that they deserved to be at the bottom. After having increasingly seen more of the world, I think that an ideology of The Value of Hard Work is kind of necessary to keep young men from just spending their entire lives playing video games.
Every time I read a book about, idk, arctic exploration, I realize "oh that's what the guys making Turing-complete Minecraft builds are supposed to be doing"
There is room in between though! And we really need to teach young men to put their shoulder to the yoke and see the value in living the in-between life. If there's one thing I've learned from reading anthropology, it's that men have to be raised and actively taught to be useful. Otherwise, you wind up with Tasmania.
"If there's one thing I've learned from reading anthropology, it's that men have to be raised and actively taught to be useful."
As a half-century old guy, one thing I've noted about Gen Xers in particular is that they often had a reflexive twitch of wanting to be less harsh than their Boomer parents -- but at some point boys *need* a parent to tell them, in the words of my late father, "get off your dying ass and get to work."
It has struck me, too, how many strong-willed women there are among American conservatives. I think it's a genuinely American cultural thing: the frontierswoman who can pick up and use a rifle if she has to. (Women in Western movies are notably strong-willed.) This is why "trad women" seemed so fake.
Sweet. Bastet's. Tail.
Thank you for reading that so we don't have to.
It wasn’t a great book but it was an interesting one — I saw it more as a mom memoir with some intellectual pretension than a definitive book on masculinity.
The only good mom memoir is by Shirley Jackson, everyone else should just give up the way no one writes novels about whales anymore.
Bruce Sterling wrote an extremely weird book about hunting whales on an alien planet called *Involution Ocean* that everyone should read
I do feel really bad about liberal helicopter moms raising boys. I feel bad for the boys. These "educated" women aren't raising men, but p-ys. I love being a BoyMom but raising my son to be a man has caused a rift for my son and his helicoptered-big-emotioned boy friends which I wrote about here. It is one of several instances where the moms intervene in pre-teen boy relationships for the worst.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-187584335
"Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax is great. As well as "The Book of Man" by William Bennett.
Ironically, her style of parenting is far more likely to produce school shooters and other manifestations of real toxic masculinity.
On less deranged note: I think male biology is as important as the female for centering our social role - it's just that ours only takes a moment.