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Summary: Being Male Is Now A Disease!
Review: Some thoughts and arrows:1) We all know that boys are unlimited dynamos--just asks any mother, but now it seems that being male is a disease. All feminist titters aside, this is a serious issue. Many feminists trace the history of tragedy--and rightfully so in many areas--about abuses of men on women. This book is the beginning of the history of female abuses on men. 2) Ms. Summers does have a provocative title, and I am surprised that the editor let her get away with it! 3) It is interesting to note that Ms. Summers focuses on public education, where it seems that literally everything is going on and being done except education. Three Questions: Who understand men better: men or women? Which sex dominates the education field? If there are a lot of women, who don't understand men well, in education, what problems does this create? 4) What Summers doesn't say it that this "War on Boys" may be the tool some radical feminists use to get back at men. 5) Why is the book so thin? Probably because this is the opening shot in the "War on Boys." There is no data primarily because there is no money, and there is no money primarily because there is no interest, and there is no interest because people are not aware. 6) TAJ MAHAL: Boys have energy, boys have stamina and the standard response has to drug them up with Prozac. The key word that Ms. Doesn't use is "sublimation," or the process where you make holy something that is profane. Men can make their testosterone sweet ambrosia by applying their energy to constructive purposes. Hence the Taj Mahal.
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Summary: The Ms.Andry Machine
Review: Trashing men for fun and profit has never been so lucrative a trade as the 21st century in Weimar Amerika makes it. Deeply hateful ms.andrists are showered with grants and honors for pedaling the types of propaganda that they roundly denounce when directed at any group other than the despised and disposable male minority. And then 'Hanoi Jane' Fonda announces another multi million dollar grant to Gilligan for spreading more of the same (excrement deleted) through the nation's schools. Fertile ground for anti male hatemongers indeed. The problem I have with Sommers (and Patai as well) - it that they get away with saying and publishing truths for which a man would be hung from a lamppost did he the same. I admit to being both envious and more than a little worried about this power. I recall that when Warren Farrell first published "The Myth of Male Power" that the local newspaper (S.F. Crockabull) refused to run a review in the book section (a standard censorship technique of theirs, used against Sommers too) - But, in a rare show of 'balance' published Pro / Con pieces by female authors in another section of the paper. The true irony was that they had a party line misandrist do the male trashing, and self avowed 'lesbian renegade' Camille Paglia write the Pro side on 'behalf' of Men. This was about as close to 'balance' as they felt comfortable going, and it is reflected in the decisions of other publishers and papers as well. Women can say things Men are forbidden - all in the name of equality. Go Figure. I do not mean to disparage Hoff-Sommers and her valuable work in any way, when I say that she does Not speak for Men. Like the organization she helped found (the Independent Women's Forum - IWF.Org), however much they may feel sympathetic with Men, they are still not advocating a Men's agenda. While there are numerous disagreements which I and other males have with their programs and viewpoints - the biggest difference between them and anti male hate groups like 'now' is that it is possible to have an honest and fact based dialogue with them - one which can lead to positive solutions. Still - Even granting the huge gulf between Gender and Equity feminists, it is important to remember that Most Women in the USA still reject the title itself (regardless of modifier), and Men should not loose sight of this fact in rushing to embrace a quasi 'feminist' group that does not outright hate us. Anywayyyy... Buy and Read this Book! It will depress you, anger you, and make you wonder about out brave new world in ways you hadn't probably considered before. For all that, it is a bargain at any price. Who knows - after this book they may actually publish a Man's opinion as well. Don't hold your breath though.
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Summary: This book was too thin!
Review: While I do not exactly have any vested interest in either the promotion or dismissal of this book, I agree in most places with the author while I also think she could have added more insight and less ideology. For example, she glides by the concept of "kindergarten" by ignoring what I see as the obvious: a garden is only as useful as it is cultivated. Ask any gardener what happens when a garden is allowed to go without pruning and careful tending. It no longer becomes a garden, but a wilderness. Dr. Sommers perhaps could not honestly make that connection as most academics tend their books and careers rather than their gardens. If she had only used the analogy of a "child garden" to a logical conclusion, her book would have been a lot stronger. She does much the same way with other thesis-corroborating thoughts. Perhaps her passion and righteous indignation blinded her to the stronger arguments that could have been made. I have tutored college students in English composition enough to realize that those closest to their subject matter tend to get bogged down in the swamp of their convictions. This is a criticism Dr. Sommers levels against the feminist ideologues yet unfortunately fails to apply to her own work.
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Summary: The Masculine Mystique
Review: This review appeared June 15, 2000, in the Seattle Weekly and is available online at http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0024/arts-lightfoot.shtml For more than two decades, Carol Gilligan has studied what she considers to be special feminine powers of moral and social understanding--gifts that, she says, our patriarchal society routinely smothers in young girls. In 1994 the best-selling "Reviving Ophelia," by Gilligan disciple Mary Pipher, proclaimed a national emergency rooted in a "girl-poisoning culture" that kills the preadolescent female spirit. Now Christina Hoff Sommers, the author of "Who Stole Feminism?" (1994), has discovered that America shortchanges boys, not girls. Sommers begins "The War Against Boys" by arguing that girls are more successful in school. She cites studies showing that girls feel more engaged in their classes, get better grades, and more often believe that their teachers listen to their ideas. She says the overall SAT scores of boys are higher only because more girls (including low achievers) take the test, motivated by an educational system that favors and encourages them. She claims that instead of worrying about sexist bias in the SATs we should worry about the low-achieving boys who avoid the test and thus can't attend college at all--the Department of Education reports that only 6.7 million men were enrolled in American colleges in 1996 as compared to 8.4 million women. Sommers' most interesting chapters dismiss Gilligan's lifework as bad science. Apparently, Gilligan drew what were hailed as revolutionary theories about gender from a small pool of data, whose details she still conceals from public scrutiny. Sommers gracefully concedes that pro-girl anti-sexism has benefited girls in important ways, but argues that Gilligan-inspired educators have gone too far. Indeed, some teachers create hostile environments in which boys feel blamed for being male and for belonging to a historically oppressive group. But Sommers goes further. She insists that the goal of gender equity in American education has devolved into a nationwide project to rescue boys from their "masculine pathologies." To support her idea that educators are systematically and even punitively "feminizing" American males, Sommers paints an anecdotal, extremely one-sided portrait of schools. At one, the rough-and-tumble play of boys at recess is prohibited as "aggression." At another, a 6-year-old boy who hugged a classmate is called a harasser and punished. Elsewhere, teachers adorn their classroom walls with pictures of women exclusively, or ask boys to role-play famous females and help with class sewing projects. These last two ideas actually look sensible, but for the most part Sommers chooses to mention only curriculum initiatives and workshops so ridiculous they'd make you laugh if you didn't know that real human children are being taught by true believers in silly notions. Ironically, such misguided efforts on the part of educators result from approaches closely resembling Sommers' own: a quick pinpointing of problems and simple solutions that make more nuanced, labor-intensive (and thus costly) education reforms seem esoteric or impractical. Sommers recommends all-male classes, strenuous competition for grades, back-to-basics curriculums, and old-fashioned character training--welcome ideas at the conservative American Enterprise Institute where she's a resident scholar. But if gender wars shouldn't drive choices in education, neither should right-wing politics, especially when Sommers bases her preference for a new regime of authoritarian lectures and drills at American schools on one main source: "national British proposals" to improve the experiences of schoolboys in England, produced by one conference of headmasters and praised by a few London newspapers. Sommers is eloquent on what we love about boys and men, and on the harm that even subtly institutionalized male-bashing can do to young minds. But her argument is tiresomely repetitious, simplistic, and at least as convenient as Gilligan's in the narrowness of its evidence.
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Summary: A challenge for progressives of all stripes
Review: This thought-provoking book lays down an implicit challenge for feminists and other social progressives to expand and modify our discussions of gender and child-rearing. As an openly gay male, I have lived through the consequences of belonging to a group which is still "pathologized" in various degrees around the world. While I was tormented many times as a young child by young males who fit more "classical" paradigms of masculinity, I cannot accept the idea that "pathologizing" the behaviour of many young men is in itself an answer. It would be really cheap for me to, after having been tainted as "wrong" and "defective" by that "other" group, to just turn around and label THEM as "defective." If we really believe in unlocking the potential of all members of the human race, there is room in all our discussions for developing policies that are expansive enough to include all our children, male & female, gay, non-gay, and others. Anybody who conisders themselves to be creative thinkers cannot (without losing their integrity) fall into a new orthodoxy. This is a separate issue from that of raising concern about twisting social science to fit public relations strategies, which I believe is the strongest part of this book. This clear abuse of social science should be a concern for people of all political persuasions. Finally, I wish the author had mentioned more details on what the British government is doing for young boys - she points to these policies as examples, but tells us very little about them. The book would have had a stronger meaning for political progressives had we learned more about the "meat" of the British policies. What a Labor government (with its assortment of progressive politicians in the Cabinet) is doing would carry more credibility towards the left of the American political spectrum.
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Summary: Well researched + well written = A very good book
Review: This is a book that is both scholarly engaging and accessible to the general public. Arguments are clear, as is her criticism of the gendered feminist standpoint.
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Summary: Boy's mother"s must
Review: If you are a mother of boys, then this a must. It is well written and easy to follow. It is helpful guide as young men face the world of feminism and how as mothers we can help.
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Summary: Only a woman could write this
Review: No man could get away with telling this truth. Much like racial issues, the pendulem in America has swung too far. The results of this make it hard on boys and girls alike. Boys punished by the system for being masculine, and girls criticized by their peers for being too feminine. This book also ties in well with the Rise and Fall of the American Teenager and the Unreality Industry.
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Summary: Good stuff from a good lady.
Review: I as a man am a feminist in the real equality, anti-misogyny meaning of the word feminist. but i have also relised that some bitter and insecure women are misusing the feminist name to get their anger at patriarchy out by attacking men, any man. I started off reading feminist theory. some of it i agreed with, and some of it i didnt. But it was great to find a book against the man-hating culture, especially as it was written by a woman; and if my memory recalls; a woman that is a feminist. Hoff-summers is no anti-feminist, she is as true a feminist as you can get. its just that she puts the phrase "pro-male" before the word feminist. Quite a few feminists have done this now including warren farrell and cathy young. Just like many socialists have critised their movements actions, many feminists are getting invloved in mens rights as well. i think it is wonderful when people battle for the rights of others and i would love to see more men intrested in womens rights and more women interested in mens rights. In fact I am writing a mens rights play, but still using feminist ideas in that play script. The play will be about extreme feminists infringing on mens rights only for a group of good women (this will please women) to fight against the bad women for mens rights. How about that then? Female empowerment and mens rights in the same play! a play about women on a mens rights protest!!
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Summary: So sad, So True
Review: This is a book that examines the status of males today and gives an unfortunate truth: boys are far more disadvantaged than girls. This is so politically incorrect, I know, but the author provides abundant factual data and research, all carefully annotated. This was a fascinating read, well worth the attention of anyone who cares about the American male today.
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