Why the Negative Book Titles on Men?
I saw that Hanna Rosin has a new book out entitled The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. I have to say that I really dislike and find distasteful the derogatory titles that these new books on men seem to find acceptable. Do authors lately ever have a title that makes men sound good, or decent or even likable? Are there any that don’t include women in the title or refer to how men relate to women? Just asking.
Seriously, titles like Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys or Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care or even Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System That’s Leaving Them Behind give the reader negative images of men that lead the reader to believe that men have no agency–that is, they are not autonomous, independent beings who deserve better, but rather immature characters who can’t hack it in the current system.
I am sick of these titles and wonder why anyone would buy a book that is geared toward men as failures. Certainly, few men are reading these books as most publishers only want books about men for women and therefore, take those books that make women feel good and make men look like losers for their female customers only.
If male, would you buy a book entitled “The End of Men?”
Cross-posted at the PJ Lifestyle blog.
Yes!
I would buy it as another tool to warn my sons :Stay away from the Jezebels and the beast whores
When i visit my oldest son his wife has the Bible open and picture of Holy Mary Mother of God above the Bible. And the wife of my middle son good she has three babies to take care of a reads God’s word the Bible daily. But my youngest son with so much potential I still worry about since he does not take his baptism and holy communion serious and Satan the Devil in this wicked world can send demons to seduce him to practice sin with beast whores
I pray for him this does not happen but he find young woman he can have deep deep respect toward for her faithfulness to him and our God
“… and Satan the Devil in this wicked world can send demons to seduce him to practice sin with beast whores …”
—
Yeah, umm, probably.
I notice all the religious people each have their own private, detailed fantasies about how the religion works – all a bit different, or more than a bit. Doesn’t matter, apparently, because they are all absolutely right. I guess. Absolutely impervious to any reasoning, but absolutely sure they are right.
I wish people would keep their religious ideas to themselves – or reserve them for a religion board – but that is never going to happen.
This show our freedoms creative imagination turning into faith realities , God Willing unlike atheist stuck in their box and in no time they play the same very very boring one note on their flute to seduce the innocent to their religion and they have that freedom
Waxy isn’t real. Just another manifestation of Micro Targeting disinformation.
Telltale signs? Being at the top of the comments, and multiple posts with the same basic theme, with words rearranged.
Could be. Or not.
I have run across some heavy-duty religious people who are real, and they don’t sound much different. One guy flatly informed me if I don’t take Jesus into my heart I’m going to be burning in Hell while he is laughing, laughing, laughing at me from the right hand of God.
I see the Westboro Baptist Church doing their stuff. I see Jim and Tammy Fae Baaker, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and all of the other scam artists living the life of Reilly off the “Believers”. I see all of the hypocrites demanding attention and worship because they go to church, while they treat people a lot worse than the Heathen disbelievers.
Sorry for the interruption on this thread, and I won’t pursue this further. But I really can’t stand these religious twits, whether Jehovah Witnesses, Evangelists, Islam extremists or whatever. Leave … me … the … F%&ck … alone.
Agreed that there are many ‘twits’ who claim the mantle of religion.
So all I will say in response is that there are people (way too many) who are nominally Christians who are like that…but even the most cursory examination of their behavior makes it abundantly clear that they are not even remotely in line with the actual teachings of Christianity.
That Wax poster above has such poor grammar and writing that I suspect that it is a spam/machine generated post. So I would pay him no mind.
As the Bible itself states – there are tons of people who will claim the mantle of religion and abuse it in numerous ways – this no more casts sapersions on religion than Goebbel’s experiments for the Nazis cast aspertion on science.
If you read the actual Scriptures, scholarly studies thereof, or the writings of many well-known (or fairly well-known) Chriatians (C.S. Lewis, Chesterton, Belloc, etc) you will find a more orthodox, traditional Christianity that is the basis for all Western civlization and science (Catholic monks were a large % of the early scientists and science started totally in a Christian framework)and it not even recognizable compared to the sheer fundamentalist retrardation practiced in much of the modern American church.
You will notice that the term “Churchianity” has been popping up quite a bit lately – to differentitae the utterly corrupt american church from the original Christian traditiion that it totally falsely claims to represent.
I am not saying you necessarily were/are doing this – but don’t paint with such a broad brush and take the actions of Wax & co to represent Christianity.
PC Geek, I appreciate the reasoned approach, and you sound intelligent, but for me it’s like a crazy person on the street telling me to believe in the God Zeus and then a reasoned person explaining why he is crazy but I should still believe in the God Zeus. Maybe some lurkers will be converted, I don’t know.
I really wish people would keep their religious beliefs to themselves. It is considered rude in some other countries (I don’t live in the United States) to be in your face about it. I know that your invisible man in the sky can beat up the invisible man in the sky of the Moslems, or the invisible man in the sky of some other religions, but some people don’t want to hear about it.
I am intensively interested in the questions of religion (what happens after you die, who are you truly, what is your purpose here etc.), but I’m not going to shove my beliefs in your face after it is clear that you don’t want to hear it. Rude is rude. I realize that Christians all seem to be on a mission to enlighten the people who are far stupider than they are.
There is a very old Star Trek episode (the original series in the 1960s) called “Errand of Mercy”.
It kind of reminds me of wanna-be Christian “missionaries” today. The “good guys” (Kirk and Spock and the bunch) go down to a primitive planet. Unfortunately, the big enemy, the “Klingons” also go down to the primitive planet.
The people on the primitive planet are just shepherds, they have a rudimentary government, and they just … want … to … be … left … the … F%$ck … alone.
No, ain’t gonna happen. Eventually the Klingons start rounding up the primitive people and shooting them en masse until they agree to something or other.
Then it comes to the verge of a war between the good guys and the Klingons.
The kind-of leader of the primitive people then informs them that war is extremely distasteful to him and he has to unfortunately stop it. He then does stop it, and it turns out the primitive people just wanted to act that way until the cavemen left. They are very advanced energy beings.
LOL
I picture bossy, hypocritical, American Christian people (like the “Church Lady” from Saturday Night Live a couple of decades ago) lecturing to Buddhists or the like who have spent their entire lives on these issues (at least the Buddha said, paraphrased, “I am just pointing out the direction, don’t take anything I say, or that others say, as gospel”). In reality, not just Sunday for show.
It all gets a bit sickening. Really, truly. The people with the least amount of true answers to life are “teaching” others.
In interspersed my reply with your response:
PC Geek, I appreciate the reasoned approach, and you sound intelligent, but for me it’s like a crazy person on the street telling me to believe in the God Zeus and then a reasoned person explaining why he is crazy but I should still believe in the God Zeus. Maybe some lurkers will be converted, I don’t know.
Thank you for your response. I have no problem leaving you or anyone else alone – I just want to make some parting remarks.
I am intruiged by your objection to my response – “but for me it’s like a crazy person on the street telling me to believe in the God Zeus and then a reasoned person explaining why he is crazy but I should still believe in the God Zeus.” To use your example, the only relevant question would be if Zeus existed or not. That is the basis for either rejecting or accepting a belief – not the perceived state of a small sample of those who hold it. Any given belief is held by plenty of people, both the sane and crazy alike…atheism and agnosticism are held by plenty of crazy people as well. If, as per your logic, a belief held by a reasonable person is to be dismissed because some crazy people also hold it and you happen to have encountered them before the sane person espousing the same thing, then any belief out there, including your own, would have to be dismissed along precisely the same lines. You don’t have to believe what I do, but don’t believe it because you think you have a valid rational reason for not believing, not because some people who (often do a very poor job of adhering to) said belief system are off the deep end. Every belief system on just about anything has its’ share of black sheep.
I really wish people would keep their religious beliefs to themselves. It is considered rude in some other countries (I don’t live in the United States) to be in your face about it. I know that your invisible man in the sky can beat up the invisible man in the sky of the Moslems, or the invisible man in the sky of some other religions, but some people don’t want to hear about it. I am intensively interested in the questions of religion (what happens after you die, who are you truly, what is your purpose here etc.), but I’m not going to shove my beliefs in your face after it is clear that you don’t want to hear it. Rude is rude. I realize that Christians all seem to be on a mission to enlighten the people who are far stupider than they are. There is a very old Star Trek episode (the original series in the 1960s) called “Errand of Mercy”.
It kind of reminds me of wanna-be Christian “missionaries” today. The “good guys” (Kirk and Spock and the bunch) go down to a primitive planet. Unfortunately, the big enemy, the “Klingons” also go down to the primitive planet.
The people on the primitive planet are just shepherds, they have a rudimentary government, and they just … want … to … be … left … the … F%$ck … alone.
No, ain’t gonna happen. Eventually the Klingons start rounding up the primitive people and shooting them en masse until they agree to something or other.
Then it comes to the verge of a war between the good guys and the Klingons.
The kind-of leader of the primitive people then informs them that war is extremely distasteful to him and he has to unfortunately stop it. He then does stop it, and it turns out the primitive people just wanted to act that way until the cavemen left. They are very advanced energy beings.
I happen to agree with you that being left alone is your right. On any issue from religion to politics you can believe whatever you want and the consequences (good or bad) or yours to have. One important note though – you had said that “Rude is rude” – but with even a basic grasp of history you know that that is simply not true. It is a bit of irony really – your entire ‘leave me alone’ thread is totally predicated on a particular set of cultural values that happens to agree that people in fact have that right – most societies, historically, did not believe that you had the right to ‘be left alone’. You are treating your wish to be left alone as some absolute, inviolable cosmic right that Christians (among others I suppose) are violating, somehow stepping on some sacred boundary which must not be crossed – but this really isn’t the case – both of us happen to be from cultures that have created and enshrined such a right which is why I am fine with leaving you alone to believe whatever you want. We both happen to be fortunate that the culture and time we live in recognizes such a right. But simply repeating multiple times, in multiple ways (including Star Trek!!!) that you wish to be left alone and claiming that this is some absolute, objective right, is simply not true. Ironically, a culture strongly influenced by my belief system is one of the principal cultures to afford people such a right.
LOL
I picture bossy, hypocritical, American Christian people (like the “Church Lady” from Saturday Night Live a couple of decades ago) lecturing to Buddhists or the like who have spent their entire lives on these issues (at least the Buddha said, paraphrased, “I am just pointing out the direction, don’t take anything I say, or that others say, as gospel”). In reality, not just Sunday for show.
It all gets a bit sickening. Really, truly. The people with the least amount of true answers to life are “teaching” others.
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Somehow I get the impression that anyone who has the nerve to express their beliefs, no matter how politely, is ‘bossy’ and ‘rude’ to you. It’s just like those libtards who state that if you disagree with them you are a woman beating, child hating Nazi that wants all poor people to starve and hates black people as a good side measure. Are there some ‘bossy’ Christians? Sure. That does not even begin to compare with the bossiness of the (secular) libtards and the New Atheists running around. For every ‘bossy’ Christian, there are 50 Richard Dawkins and 50 liberal democrats trying to shove liberalism into the classroom and trying to take away basic civil rights
One last point – you say “the people with the least amount of true answers to life…” – now this goes way beyond the scope of this post so I won’t go into it here except to say that if I somehow was ‘rude’ in daring to defend your criticism of Christianity, your blatant attack on it right there is at least equally as ‘rude.’
Anyway, good day to you sir and I wish you well. I will even pray for you, but in any event, if you wish to be left alone I will certainly do just that.
When I hear that title by Rosen, I get a physical feeling in my stomach. It is the same feeling every time. I thought about that feeling so that I could respond to your question. No, I wouldn’t support Rosen’s book, it feels like injustice.
While at the Uni. Calif. Riverside I made my first contact with germinating feminism in 1967. I can remember the photo in the uni. newpaper. A group of “brave” young female students had just established a feminist club. About 20 of them huddled very close together, sort of an extended embrace, a single solid blob of mutual supporting feminity, a totality in self-contained security. The young women seemed to be finding safety, family, comradeship in a mutual support system of femaleness, hence their quasi-hugging to the point that I sensed a lesbian attitude. As I remember, they even refused delieveries to the club by males. At the time, I asked myself how sex, other than lesbian, could be possible for those young “girls”. I do not mean to imply lesbianism was actually being practiced, just the impression that maleness was foreign to their being women. Maleness as foreign to feminity constitutes lesbianism or?. Obviously the feminists of today are indulgent in sex, and with males too. Nevertheless, the sense of being a woman only with the exclusion of men seems to reign. If my impression was correct, then I venture the thesis that feminism very early found its positivity in the negation of masculinity. The books with “negative” titles concerning men would seem to be a logical extension of the early vision. Even more omninous is that we men are starting to believe that we are irrelevant, except as sex subjects (which allows us non-responsible sex–whoopy!). Heck, I am probably missing the mark. In my age I have the luxury that I do not need to give a damn. And that is not good, just less worrysome!
Please. Those titles are designed to sell to feminist women and uber-metros. No more, no less. It’s selling to the sold.
To the religiously fervent – there is no “Satan the Devil in this wicked world”. It’s people who want to control your thoughts (and worship or not).
To the religiously fervent – there is no “Satan the Devil in this wicked world”. It’s people who want to control your thoughts (and worship or not).
Your stuck in your box. this is you idea of freedom
Does Satan live on Uranus?
Yes Satan lives on Uranus
In Pure Lucifer Spirit in Total Freedom and Great Joy but Not very happy when Lucifer feels trapped on our earth with the same old experiment.
but this should be not about immortal Lucifer but you and me and why are we here and where are we going -then you can ask questions outside of your box maybe about your future and if your past has had any meaning for you with your future and what about when you no longer have your flesh in the future? Is it all about the little girl who hurt your feelings?
Who is speaking? Wiggy Waxy One or Satan? Or Persons Galore?
Nice show. When does the Final Act, The Fleshy End Times of Wiggy Waxy One begin? And end. With U-Haul “boxes” and all.
Hey, hang out for a while. And don’t dry up too soon and run away. Again.
saints saints saints saints and their great endurance. They do the impossible because they Trust in God
over and out
Waxwing seems unnaturally obsessed with our boxes.
“Does Satan live on Uranus?”
heh, nice
By and large, society is designed to turn men into pedestals for women to stand on.
Because the very real phenomenon of MGTOW scares the loving crap out of them. They’re in denial.
Have you been to a writers’ conference or workshop? In my part of the World, the vagitarians are very much in charge and are the gatekeepers for who and what gets published. There aren’t a lot of obviously heterosexual men in the group; the few men are at best ambivalent metrosexuals whose hands flit about as they fawn over the lesbians.
Vagitarian! That is good! New one for me, thanks for writing it!
Trey
The titles are there for the same reason college age women put “Coexist” bumper stickers on there cars along with “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” bumper sticker. They’re good, loving, caring people who just happen to hate men.
I just purchased that second book (I’m male), but I haven’t read it yet. My understanding has it that it is written by an anti-feminist.
My understanding of this phenomenon is that unlike feminism, the actions of men are in fact the actions of agents. The idea is that this is the RATIONAL response by men to their situation. That men are, in fact, “going Galt”.
Or rather, that is my understanding. I haven’t yet read the second book, and I won’t read the first.
But if you read carefully, both of the latter titles are lamenting and admonishing, but the first sounds triumphant. I always read carefully a title before choosing a book; it often gives away the author’s tone and thesis.
the western matriarchies keep pouring out their venom on little boys and men, disguised as literature
they gag our mouths, tie our hands behind our backs, and then the Strong Independent Empowered Ninjettes kick our asses, while declare themselves the winner, and men “ended”
lol
how v courageous! how v typical!
thx for this piece Dr. Helen — btw the answer to your title’s question is “hatred” and “jealously”
the time will come when it will be possible for the human male and female once again to love one another w/o the constant degradation of masculinity and fatherhood by satanic governments and related thugs, weaklings, and psychotics
hey i just heard that shulamith firetongue croaked . . . well ding-dong, another one bites the dust, and in the dust she will stay, like every serpent
despite endless propaganda, the gynogulag cant last much longer, and it wont, either
Many years ago I stopped by my local Borders store and found the little section entitled “Men’s Issues” (one half of one shelf). I was intrigued when I saw Susan Faludi’s “Stiffed-The Betrayal of the American Man”. I didn’t know who she was at the time and picked up the book. Randomly I opened it and the first thing I read was (it was some time ago) something about how two young boys had seen their father naked and were remarking about how ugly the male genitals were. Huh,I wondered? A further perusal confirmed by growing suspicion that this was just another misandrist work masquerading as a piece of scholarship.
We men have some serious reclaiming to do in our culture, that’s for sure.
Aside from the publishing industry being dominated by women, the title of a book is just another tool used to market it. Since people tend to read books that reflect their worldview, a title like this is going to grab the attention of every semi-literate “you go GRRL”-feminist type that has limited critical thinking skills.
Disgusting, yeah, but no more disgusting to them than pictures of attractive women in bikinis being used to sell beer is to men.
If male, would you buy a book entitled “The End of Men?”
Only if it were by P.G. Wodehouse.
This is why we need a draft of all our youngsters into service for our great nation to unite the rich and the poor and the middle class so they can start off their life being far more attractive to each other instead of these butt-ugly images of missing arms and missing legs and head injuries which should only come if our great nation has been attacked as happen in 9/11 /2001
What leader has the vision to do this?
A couple of years ago when I was really struggling with being a man in a culture that seems to have lost all compassion for them, books and articles with this sort of title really appealed to me because they suggested someone was interested in and might understand the pain I was in.
I felt stiffed, I felt like somebody needed to save us, I felt like I was somehow stuck as a little boy, so the titles seemed to give words to the feelings in my head. That made me want to read them, in hopes I would see that someone understood what I was going through.
Instead, most books with these titles provide more fuel for the same alienation. Stiffed suggests men stop wanting to be men if they want to feel better. Man Up suggests that men only have value as a wallet to women and children. Why Boys Fail suggests that the reason boys are doing poorly in school is that the system, women, and culture have evolved, but boys haven’t, and it is somehow boys’ responsibility to become something society can support again.
I think there is a method to this: these books seem to offer men a sense that they will get some validation when they open themselves to the author’s message. This leaves vulnerable men open to the guilt and shame that these books lay at their feet. The authors can even take the high ground and pretend that they were offering compassion (Susan Faludi certainly played that card well).
It is an exercise in mass memetic engineering: you get a man who is ready to accept almost any idea if it makes the pain go away, you offer him compassion, you gain his trust and access to his mind, and then you implant ideas that are to your movement’s benefit, even if they are self-destructive to him.
“Why Boys Fail suggests that the reason boys are doing poorly in school is that the system, women, and culture have evolved, but boys haven’t, and it is somehow boys’ responsibility to become something society can support again.”
If that’s the premise of that book, I’m going to be very disappointed. I used to read the author’s old blog, and he made it clear in the blog that there was nothing wrong with the boys; the problems were in parenting and the school system. It kind of sounds like an editor may have done a hack job on the book.
waxwing# – Having been alive during the last draft, let me assure you it won’t work like your little fantasy. The rich and connected won’t do service like the others.
And the fact that you find images of injured and damaged vets “but-ugly” says a hell of a lot more about you that anything else you’ve written. Perhaps you need to read that black book again.
“If male, would you buy a book entitled ‘The End of Men?’”
I would for the same reason I would read Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz, as a battle manual so that I could eventually paraphrase George C Scott as he watched Rommel’s Panzer division defeated (“Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!”).
For the record I don’t live my life as a war between men and women; I enjoy the company of both women and men. Classic feminists, however, seem to see life exactly that way, as a zero-sum diametric opposition of the sexes. They believe they can build themselves up by tearing men down; thus the “call to war.”
In short: Know thine enemy.
Publishers want to sell books. When offered a title that will make them a good profit, they publish it.
Car manufacturers for decades reported that opinion polls claimed to want modest and efficient vehicles, but those sold poorly in practice with customers buying instead flashy gas guzzlers. Similarly, folk may decry public immodesty, but modest clothes sit on racks while thongs and Victoria Secret products get toted by the bagful out of stores.
I feel book publishing is no different. Who reads books? Who buys them?
Do you think men buy books on such topics? Well, they don’t, so publishers frankly do not care if a title or topic puts them off, especially if it catches female eyes. Men buy:
- history (write a detailed one on, say, a particular cavalry engagement in the Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars, and men will sweep the shelves clean of it),
- science (a good one, say, comparing Einstein and Feynman and Hawking will sell briskly),
- hardware (a visually solid one on Kentucky rifles, steam locomotives, or 1950s car technology will not stay in a store),
- science fiction (Ringo, Scalzi, Heinlein, etc etc are tough to keep in stock), and
- some others like games, sports, architecture.
If one wants to sell relationship books or “gender studies” or romances or such, they must target females as they are the ones who buy it.
(Note: the above is based on part-time book store experience over the last fourteen years.)
http://theincendiaryinsight.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-mother-writes-letter-to-her-future.html
This is the free, much shorter-than-a-book advice I’m giving my 2 sons.
That was a fantastic read.
That woman has bigger balls than the NBA.
I would buy a used copy in order to find out what my enemy is thinking.
I would read that book for the same reason I read Mein Kampf, The end of Faith and The God Delusion (I am a devout Christian and Libertarian). But I wouldn’t pay for it. I’d borrow it from a female or read it off of someone else’s e-reader of choice.
Not a chance. I am tempted at times to buy a “Good” book (most often by your husband posting a blurb on Instapundit) but so far I have resisted. There are still many thousands of great classics available for free download and having Gone Galt, I try to have the smallest economic footprint possible.
Having spent years in the NYC publishing community, I completely agree with Jim2.
Here’s a book I would richly love to read:
The End of Western Civilization
Are Women “Rising” or has 60 years of gender feminism gutted the future of America?
(You could type out “The End of Men” with Men crossed out)
Hanna Rosin’s debate with Christina Hoff-Somers was framed as “Are Men Finished?” Imagine if it were framed as “Is Feminism Eating America’s Seedcorn and leaving its men and boys with no way to contribute?”
It’s all spin.