Rating: 
Summary: True True
Review: as a young male I partly agree with the author. Feminism has a place in our society, but it shouldn't be used to scapegoat testosterone and masculinity for all of the world's problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Poorly researched using half-truths and misleading data
Review: As a proud, married American male, I find this female author's book insulting to men (and women). The mere thought that we can blame issues such as child abandonment (by Fathers) on feminism is stupid. Women through the centuries who have had the nerve to stand up for their equal rights are not to blame ...We as REAL MEN need to face up to OUR shortcomings and fix them. Being a strong man & having a strong woman as your lifepartner (or friend, or sister, or mother) is a sign of your comfort with your masculinity --not a weakness. The kind of thinking that went into this book gives wifebeaters and the like the weapon they need to further insult & hold down our sisters, wives and daughters. This book is a JOKE!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting book, lacking an honest perspective
Review: Scholars look at evidence and make assumptions. They look at other scholars' work and make arguments. But they don't do what would be truly beneficial -- experience and objectively conclude from real world situations. Boys and girls in our schools have become a new battleground for liberal and conservative, masculinist and feminist policies, and the disadvantage is always with the children, who are forced this way and that rather than allowed to pursue their own tracks. What the author here neglects to mention is that in the past, boys often had the good fortune to have a heavy feminine influence as they grew up. Their mothers, sisters, and girlfriends have always "raised" boys to be men. They were taught morality; their aggressiveness (and not too many are aggressive -- to say so is to err by generalizing) was channeled to creative tasks; and they were given dreams to inspire them. Women no longer fulfill these roles. Women are out doing things for themselves that they once pushed men to do. That is why the boys are neglected, and why our next generation of adult males will lack the moral fibre and social connections of the past. This shows the strong and meaningful purpose women once had in our society as far as the maturity of males. However, I would never contend with the right of women to do things for themselves. I too am one who is not interested in being thus linked to a man, as a mommy rather than as my own person. Men are going to have to adapt -- boys will need a school program that teaches them morality and encourages them toward adulthood. Violence, for instance, is a tool of the ignorant and the emotionally neglected. It is not normal in men. After all, female aggression has been denied for decades, even though as girls we all knew any attempt to be active, intelligent, or successful has always met with condemnation by our family or peers. This book is an attempt to explain a social problem, but the author would have done better to consult and react to the psychological literature rather than the philosophical. Philosophers only think; psychologists study, look for answers, and solve problems. Also, there is the opportunity now to look at real scientific evidence on the male brain from all the published brain scans, even those on male aggression or violence (and by the way on female aggression and violence too!). Worth reading for another woman's perspective, but if you want to really get involved in this issue, read the psychology and visit the schools.
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Summary: Teacher with 3 Brothers Glad to See Common Sense in Debate
Review: Sommers' assessment of the value of current gender-based educational research is dead-on. As a graduate student in education, I have found that bias and agenda threaten the internal validity of every gender-based study reported by the established community. Sommers uses statistics and results rather than filtered qualitative data to show that the learning needs of boys are neglected or contorted by our current educational institutions. Even though this brave work may not offer the strongest solutions, it offers a previously unvoiced argument against the monolithic, bias-blinded educational community. Ethnographic research is supposed to provide a voice to the voiceless, but I challenge the educational community to produce one such study of America's voiceless boys that does not conclude that their masculinity is what is wrong with them. Perhaps this work can inspire a debate within the educational community and stir them to stray from their girl-is-victim agenda.
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Summary: Christina is a General in this man's army.
Review: I love this book. It is backed up by factual research and figures. It has confirmed what I have been feeling for along time. I am 40 years old now and have often commented to friends and relatives how young men today just aren't really what I think men ought to be. I recall having been more responsible as a 5 year old than most 10 to 14 year olds are that I know today. I have had my own oppinions about why this is. However, I always found myself in a quandry as to why the demise of "real men" in our society continues to increasingly get worse. Mrs. Hoff Sommers book has cleared my mind on the subject and I for one think this is a must read for everyone. If this is considered a war then let the battle begin. The war is not boy against girl or man against woman, but against a dark force by the name of *radical feminism* which is working toward the ruin of our young men in training and ultimatley to our country as a whole. We would do no less than go to war if an outside country threatened our way of life. The difference here is our enemy is within and the popular weapon of choice is the written and spoken words of brave soldiers like Christina Hoff Sommers. The other side has been extremely successful in achieving their agenda in this way and they fight as valiant as any warriors could fight to get what they want, but they have done it with half truths and misinformation. With the salvo Mrs. Hoff Sommers has fired back in her latest book, the tide of the war will change and the truth shall set us free.
Rating:
Summary: Something to think about
Review: This is the type of book that radical feminists and extremists fear because it exposes so much of their false "facts and figures". Parents of boys in public education will recognize the truth in most of what is discussed in this book. Hopefully, this book will be another eye opener for parents and lead them to speak out and demand that our schools focus on education instead of indoctrination and behavior norming. This book is important reading for all parents and those interested in education. It is also a call for better home education too, i.e fathers need to be more involved. I think this book is important because it will help to start the needed discussions about how best to educate our children, something that this country is doing very poorly in currently (American students ranked last in Math skills, behind Slovenia, in a recent international study conducted. However, American students ranked 1st in how good they feel about their math skills). Buy this book, it will give you alot to think about.
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Summary: Exposes the vacuousness of Fascists/ Liberals and supporters
Review: An excellent expose of the vacuousness of the arguments of the Fascist/ Liberal feminist Left and their supporters like John Cassels. Readers of these reviews should reject Mr. Cassels review, in part because he clearly has no understanding of the meaning of Fascism. Indeed, his intolerance of other ideas is much more akin to the totalitarian basis of Fascism than is the exaltation of freedom of the individual and the diminution of the Government (the antithesis of Fascism) that is espoused in Mrs. Sommers work. Mrs. Sommers does an excellent job of debunking the myths about the need to feminize young men. She clearly points out the negative consequences of feminists attempts to emasculate young men and helps us to understand their real needs.
Rating: 
Summary: Cogently argued
Review: It can take many decades for an ill in society to be recognised, accepted and corrected. The position of women in modern America is one such ill. Notwithstanding the fact that there is still much to be done it must also be remembered that parts of the problem can be 'over-corrected'. In this book Sommers demonstrates that the solution to gender discrimination is not just to help one sex, both sexes have their own (as well as shared) problems and both need to be addressed equally and appropriately if the progress that has been made in the past is to be continued in the future. The book is cogently argued and the key assertions back up by solid research. For those who are interested in the position of males in society this is a excellent and well balanced work; a refreshing antidote to the many reactionary or anti-feminist tomes that have appeared in the last couple of years.
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Summary: Another Phony "War" to Add to the List.
Review: Sorry, but no thanks. I just couldn't get interested in this lengthy, polemical diatribe against an all-powerful feminist establishment, most of whose members I'd never hear of. I seem to remember that the current focus on the state of girls' well-being arose from concerns over some alarming social trends back in the 80s that had nothing to do with Carol Gilligan and her ilk. Issues like skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births to teenagers, an epidemic of domestic abuse, runaway girls out on the streets and engaged in prostitution. You know, real world stuff like that. Sommers must have an awfully short memory (or thinks we do) because she never mentions any of this. Anyway, you should also be aware that Sommers doesn't actually bother doing original research herself. She just likes to take other people's apart, an easy enough task, God knows, given the pathetic state of what passes for socialogical reasearch. Instead, she operates by lifting statistics from other sources, all of them carefully selected to "prove" her points. She's very good at this, but I could take her much more seriously if she had actually done any work of value in this finld. But, of course, it's much harder to create than criticise. Sommers is right about one thing, though -- boys certainly do need a lot of help from all of us. So do girls. That's pretty simple, isn't it? Who needs to go to "war" over that?
Rating:
Summary: an unhealthy conflict of values
Review: One of the most critical points Sommers has made in this book has not attracted any attention in any other review I have read to date. That is the reality that competition (as a "male" value) is GOOD, that is the single most important reason explaining the technological progress the world has made, and that it is responsible for the relative comfort in which citizens of advanced nations live. Conversely, the "female" values of "nurturing", "empathy", etc. have an important role in reining in the excesses of competition, but a world dominated by "feelings" makes for political terrorism against those not holding the "correct" or "sensitive" views, and results in economic stagnation as "risky" investments are strongly discouraged. As a father of a two-year old boy, I am perpetually disappointed by the acquiescence of most men to radical feminism's plans for them and their sons. It is a constant source of frustration to me that the opposition almost is led by brave women such as Christina Hoff Sommers, Cathy Young, and Daphne Patai, and that the likes of Walter Pollack are found among the feminism's fellow travelers. One other comment: it may be beyond the scope of her book, but Sommers does not discuss in great detail the fate of boys growing up under feminist hegemony--a world in which they will be less likely to attend college and pursue rewarding careers. We will simply have to experience that when it happens.
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