Rating: 
Summary: A must-read
Review: Dr. Warren Farrell spent three years on the board of directory of the Nation Organization for Women (NOW) in the 1970s. He wholeheartedly believed in the project of removing the barriers that kept women from realizing their full potential. With time, however, he saw the movement turn towards a victim mentality that focused on a hatred and envy of men. In this book, Dr. Farrell focuses on the empowerment of men, a project that can go hand-in-hand with the empowerment of women. In the first part of this book, he focuses on how men can communicate with the women in their lives, helping each to understand their hopes, dreams and frustrations. The second part of the book involves the breaking of myths that leave men frustrated and dispirited, and women angry. The third and final section of the book examines how the promulgation of these myths have led to a hostility being directed at men that is poisoning male-female relationships, and leading to great unhappiness between the sexes. Overall, I found this to be a great book. Dr. Farrell is no misogynist, but is a self-described Liberal who is passionate about empowering *both* women and men. If this book seems weighed toward breaking down the idea of man-as-oppressor, it is because the author finds the idea not just incorrect but perniciously so. If you are a woman who would like to look at men from a different perspective, or are a man who wants to see a new look at the misandrous myths that infect our society, then you must read this book!
Rating:
Summary: MUST READ!
Review: Essential information for children,fathers and families! Original andfascinating!
Rating:
Summary: MUST READ!
Review: Essential information for children,fathers and families! Original andfascinating!
Rating:
Summary: Everyone ought to read
Review: Farrekk points out that only women's feelings have been heard for the past several decades. It is time we all heard from the other side, from men's feelings. This book is about how millitant anti-male hate has taken over all aspects of our culture and how it is hurting everyone. Hate destroys relationships between men and women, destroys families, and hurts children. Farrell helps to open people's eyes to the completely one sided institutionalized prejudice of American life today. He advocates sharing between men and women to understand the feelings on both sides and is articulate and considerate of everyone's feelings. Buy the book. Read the book. Learn.
Rating: 
Summary: A Worthy Successor to "The Myth of Male Power"
Review: Farrell's thesis, both here and in "The Myth of Male Power", is that men don't sufficiently or effectively complain about being neglected and abused by "society" in general and feminists in particular. He is a good writer and a superb researcher. Here is a sampling of his findings: The United Nation generated a report and a derivative press release to support the International Women's Conference that Hillary Clinton attended in China. These documents showed that, worldwide, women worked more hours than men. In "The Second Shift, Hoschschild concluded that "Women work an extra month of 24-hour days a year." Farrell shows why these are false. In particular, the U.N. press release ignored every country in which men work more than women. Apparently, the U.N. so strongly held "the belief in women as victim that it felt justified in falsifying the data to prove it." Furthermore, Farrell shows how definitions of "housework" have included most traditional female tasks, but ignored many traditionally male tasks. He lists 54 of them. Farrell discusses misoandrous greeting cards from Hallmark Cards and American Greetings. My favorite is from American Greetings: "Men are always whining about how we're suffocating them. Personally, I think if you can hear them whining, you're not pressing hard enough on the pillow." There are no comparable misogynic greeting cards, perhaps because most greeting cards are bought by women. Farrell describes falsifications in the movie "Titanic." (It is, after all, a date movie.) In reality, the male third officer acted heroically, there is no indication that any woman attempted to save a male passenger, much less repeatedly, and the female survival rate from all three shipboard classes (including third class) exceeded the male survival rate from ANY class. Farrell point out that the New York Times' publisher is a feminist and fan of Marilyn French ("All men are rapists and that's all they are.") Not coincidentally, when pro-feminist and anti-feminist books are reviewed by the Times, the reviewers are typically feminists. That is, when the Times is completely ignoring the anti-feminist books. Farrell and I have a major clash of paradigms. Farrell is a "therapist" with a PhD in some undisclosed discipline. I'm a student of evolutionary psychology (and biological anthropology), a field which has a lot to say about gender relations. (See "The Adapted Mind" by Barkow, Cosmides and Tooby or "The Moral Animal" by Wright.) Although Farrell indicates that he understands this field, he refrains from exploring its implications in depth. I wish he had - here's why: Farrell discusses what, in "Myth", he calls "men's addiction to sex." This "addiction" has roots at least 65 million years old. In most species, one of the genders (almost always the female) sets the limit on the number of offspring that a breeding pair can produce. Not coincidentally, she tends to be the more selective, emphasizing "quality" when selecting a mate, in the hopes that the father's good attributes will be passed to her offspring. Because males aren't a limiting breeding resource, an increase in the number of their sexual contacts correlates well with an increase in the number of offspring. Furthermore, female sexual selection forces males into sort of a winner-takes-all mating game. (See "Homicide" by Wilson and Daly.) Unsurprisingly, this leads to a variety of "bad" behavior by males: inter-male combat (in too many species to mention), rape (elephant seals and orangutans) and killing other males' infants (gorillas, orangutans and lions). Farrell predicts an increase in lawsuits claiming anti-male discrimination in professions like elementary school teacher, cocktail "server" and receptionist. But he also mentions a male Marxist feminist social worker interviewing for a corporate job at three times his current salary. The guy wants to get married and have a family and, as Farrell says repeatedly, women are inordinately attracted to men with money. This preference is now known to be cross-cultural and species-wide, although it is more precisely stated as: when selecting mates, women are more attracted than men to attributes, including intelligence, ambition and social dominance, which positively correlate to high and/or rising social status and/or wealth. (See "The Evolution of Desire" by Buss.) So why would men sue to get a low-status, low-pay job, when the real discrimination is by women thinking like greedy prostitutes? Farrell also predicts: "More men will ask for paternity tests." I certainly hope so! A series of studies from the U.K. and the only available U.S. study indicate that about 10% of children have a different biological father than the man identified by the mother. In some "monogamous" bird species, 25% of the chicks are secretly fathered by males other than the "husband". Therefore, some "violence against women" can be viewed as attempts to reduce paternal uncertainty. (Again see "Homicide".) Males in 97% of mammalian species use a different strategy. They're "Deadbeat Dads" who provide little to their offspring except sperm. I think it was Leda Cosmides who said, "Men's and women's breeding strategies interfere with each other." Being a therapist, Farrell's solution is "better communications." But, as Farrell well knows, this is often futile and occasionally dangerous. Women have been so busy "celebrating" themselves for the past 30 years that most are insufferably hypocritical, self-righteous, petty and vindictive. (Unfortunately many are also like Susan Faludi: patronizing and backstabbing.) I often wonder whether men shouldn't borrow an idea from lesbian feminist Ann Northrop: "Essentially, this is sort of a final nail in men's coffins. Men are now totally irrelevant, if this (cloning) is in fact true and possible and becomes routine. Men are going to have a very hard time justifying their existence on the planet, I think." (Rochester [N.Y.] Democrat and Chronicle, 4/2/1997). How long would it take and how much would it cost for a team of male scientists and engineers to design a mechanical replacement for a woman's uterus, for cloned male fetuses? After a few million have been built, the gender war can begin in earnest.
Rating:
Summary: read this book
Review: First introduced to Mr. Farrell's books at the age of 18 I responded with righteous indignation, "just a man making excuses" for his behavior and discarded the book. Now age 35 I have read every book he has written. His writings changed my relationship with myself (as a man), every man in my life (father, brothers grandfathers, friends and strangers) and woman in my life. I consider my vocabulary inadequate to accurately articulate the quality and integrity of Mr. Ferrell's thoughts and conclusions. Although many of Warren Farrell's ideas are contrary to common thinking --- 100 percent of his conclusions are consistent with my experience as a growing man. Purchase this book for yourself and all others that you love.
Rating:
Summary: read this book
Review: First introduced to Mr. Farrell's books at the age of 18 I responded with righteous indignation, "just a man making excuses" for his behavior and discarded the book. Now age 35 I have read every book he has written. His writings changed my relationship with myself (as a man), every man in my life (father, brothers grandfathers, friends and strangers) and woman in my life. I consider my vocabulary inadequate to accurately articulate the quality and integrity of Mr. Ferrell's thoughts and conclusions. Although many of Warren Farrell's ideas are contrary to common thinking --- 100 percent of his conclusions are consistent with my experience as a growing man. Purchase this book for yourself and all others that you love.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fablulous!
Review: I can't stop reading this book over and over. Dr. Farrell turns complex psychology into practical, easy-to-understand relationship advice, then examines the male mind deeper and more forthrightly than anything I've ever read. Everyone needs to read it. Farrell has perfectly articulated many of my precise feelings as a male that I didn't know how to express or was afraid to. I have attention deficit disorder, and often have trouble communicating and listening well. Even though this book is not aimed at overcoming attention disabilities, I use it almost like a bible because of how it dramatically improves my ability to listen to others, and even care more. Farrell's sweet, readable tone and his concise articulation of my exact feelings makes him a hero to me. I can't explain it well enough. Farrell is just magnificant. And he articulates men's issues and the sources of men's difficulties in intimacy with such beautiful precision that I honestly don't think Farrell can be matched by anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Warren Farrell...
Review: I don't have much to add to what the other positive reviewers here have written... I was initially a little concerned by the first few (short) chapters that W.F. was attempting to be a "feelings hero", but have since learned that the inclusion of some amount of relationship advice was the price which had to be paid to make the rest of the book possible. While this fact is not mentioned in the text, much of the rest of the material in the book is exactly about this sort of thing: men having to pander to female/feminist sensibilities. And somehow we think *men* have all the power, which is what both this book and Farrell's previous book ("The Myth of Male Power") are about. I give a slight nod to the earlier book as being the better of the two, though many of the same ideas are reiterated in this one. The only thing that could have made the book better would have been a coherent plan for how men can achieve equality with women. I understand Warren is working on two more books (one on fathers and sons), so perhaps we won't have to wait the better part of a decade next time like we did for this book. Farrell is one of the most astute and accessible observers of this area of contemporary western culture around and the best general antidote to the worst aspects of the widespread (and mostly brain-dead) feminist ideology of the last 25 years.
Rating:
Summary: A prophet who is yet to be recognized properly.
Review: I have read every book that Dr.Farrell has written and to say that they changed my life would be an understatement. For almost three decades Warren has labored to bring about the true egalitarian world that will some day arrive. I long ago dubbed him the "Betty Friedan" of the men's movement, for just as millions of women's lives were changed by her landmark book "The Feminine Mystique", so too has his book heralded the revolution which is occurring now. The current book" Women Can't hear what men don't say" is another milestone on the road to a just and fair society. Even though I am familiar with his writings, the new book just blew me away. It is dense with information that will surprise even his fans.Like all his other books it appeals to both men and women. If only we could teach its ideas in our high schools, think how different the next generation would be.
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