#WARONMEN: Carrie Lukas reviews the Insta-Wife’s new book, Men On Strike, for National Review. Excerpts:
Instead of blaming men and ridiculing the lifestyle of those who have “failed to launch,” Smith explores the idea that men may be making a purposeful, even rational, choice in rejecting a society that already has rejected them.
Smith draws heavily from the actual experiences of men, using their stories and comments to illustrate the disaffection, anger, and sorrow that many feel. The anecdotes she provides — the voices of the men themselves — are powerful. As Smith notes, experts often call men poor communicators, but she’s found that “men often know their minds very well, but they are reluctant to communicate in interpersonal and political settings for fear of coming across weak or, worse, being accused of being sexist or misogynistic. Or sometimes, they are communicating, it’s just that no one is listening.”
Smith lets us listen, and walks the reader through some of the ways men’s rights have been constricted. . . .
Smith highlights eyepopping statistics on paternity fraud, such as studies suggesting that around 3.5 percent of men actually have no biological relation to the child they believe is theirs. And even when paternity is disproven, a man may still be on the hook for 18 years of financial support for someone else’s offspring. The double standard is unmistakable. Smith tells the story of a 15-year-old boy who had sex with a 34-year-old woman: “The woman got pregnant and, although in the state of California a minor under the age of 16 cannot consent to sex, the court saw fit to force Nathaniel to pay child support to the woman who committed statutory rape against him.” . . .
Men on Strike is a compelling work that may succeed in launching a much-needed conversation about the treatment of men in America. As Smith observes, often conversations about the state of men are considered necessary solely because men’s problems spill over to affect women, children, and society more broadly. The men themselves are just an afterthought.
Read the whole thing — the review, or, better yet, the book.