Why the Negative Titles for Books 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 them 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?
*****
Related at PJ Lifestyle on Rosin:
From the intellectual heights where I reside, those titles are good for a self-satisfied smirk.
The fact is, if society is biased against men, then women have to kneel before us to ask us to marry them.
That’s a specific case of Howard’s Law: every action achieves the opposite of what was intended.
I think all of this got started in the early 70s. There was that Brady Bunch episode when Marsha decided she wanted to be a Boy Scout, and shortly thereafter the school got rid of dodgeball, the greatest non-organized sport ever.
Think about it. You got six classes of boys in a gym, three classes or roughly 90 boys on each side. Then you dump a bunch of big, red, soft, hollow balls in the middle, and let the game begin. The rule was if you got hit by a ball, you had to leave the floor. So, you got 180 boys with 60 balls running around and throwing them at each other. Girls were not allowed, as there were no girls in boys PE. It was great fun.
Well, they got rid of that. Then they changed the Boy Scouts into the Explorers, so girls could go on camping trips. If you were a patrol leader, as I was, responsible for a group of younger kids in the wilderness, you know what kind of a disaster that was–listening to girls complain about how heavy their backpack was, not knowing how to set up a tent or build a fire, much less how to cook their own meals.
It was the Brady Bunch 2.0. This stupid girl, Marsha, wakes up one morning and suddenly decides she wants to be a Boy Scout. The troop leader asks her, “Why do you want to be a Boy Scout? Why don’t you want to be a Girl Scout?” Marsha becomes horribly offended. “This is discrimination!” And she goes on a rampage, organizes marches in the streets, protests complete with bullhorns and billboards–”Let Marsha be a Boy Scout! Let Marsha be a Boy Scout!” She brings the entire town to its knees, until finally the adults just give up. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Calm down, Marsha. You can be a Bow Scout.” And Marsha says, with a flip of her hair, “Well, I don’t really want to be a Boy Scout. I just wanted to prove that I could.”
The premise of this show is the most stupid I’ve ever seen. This girl gets horribly offended over nothing for no reason, in fact she goes out and deliberately looks for something, anything to be offended by, so she can throw a fit. And she can throw a royal fit. She becomes totally motivated, physically committed, psychologically determined to proving that she can do what she does not want to do. It’s idiotic in the extreme.
Yet, for some strange reason, unfathomable to the mind’s of men, every girl in America found this stupid show empowering. Next thing you know, no more dodgeball for boys–in fact, they’ve pretty much eliminated PE and recess altogether, so boys have no way of expending their natural energy. The Boy Scouts became the Explorers, so that girls could go on camping trips and complain about it.
I’ll never forget that first one. I had a 50 lb pack, loaded with camping gear–tent, sleeping back, food, cooking gear, tools, etc. I always carried two canteens, as fresh water is not something easily found in the wilderness. It was about a 10 mile hike to the camp site. After 1 mile, these stupid girls all sat down, took off their packs and started pouring water on their faces. “I’m hot. I’m tired. This pack is heavy.”
Well, you wanted to be a Boy Scout, or Explorer, at least that’s what you said. If you get tired, lean up against a tree. Do not take off your pack and do not sit down, because if you do it’s going to take 1/3 of your remaining energy to stand back up and put your pack back on. And whatever you do, don’t waste your water.
I can’t even begin to desribe what kind of a nightmare it was once we got to camp. Girls crying, complaining. Basically, us boys had to set up their tents, build their fires and cook their meals, not to mention give them our water, which left us all with barely enough for the hike back. Hey, girls, great job at proving that you can do what you do not want to do.
It’s been the same ever since. Boys are not allowed to be boys and are not trained to grow up to be men. It’s all about grrrl power! What little of that there is.
This is the way I look at it, have since I was 14. I have a 50 lb pack to carry. She has a 50 lb pack to carry. If she’s so stupid as to not be able to survive in the wilderness, I might as well leave her out there to die, just as I would for a stupid boy, because I’m getting back to base camp alive. I have an education, a career, and I earn a salary. She has an education, a career, and she earns a salary. If she wants to get together and have sex, great. We’ll meet at a hotel, as long as she pays half the bill.
It’s about the equality, stupid. That’s what you wanted, or at least that’s what you said. But, no, you want me to carry your pack for you, set up your tent, build your fire, cook your meals, give you my water after you’ve wasted yours. Forget about that. Carry your own weight and survive in the wilderness. Otherwise, don’t go camping with me.
These books are no mystery to me. They’re all written by Marsha 2.0. Get any one of these women authors out in the wilderness, and see how quickly they change their tune.
Oh, and marriage is out of the question. I have my life, and I make money to survive. She has her life, and she makes money to survive. That’s the way she wanted it, or at least that’s what she said.
My school was fairly small and we played coed dodgeball. Boys had to throw with two hands though. The girls would generally try to get picked off early knowing that if they stood still the guys would aim for the legs and not throw too hard. Then the guys would go at it. We also played kickball with the same balls. Most of the girls didn’t like that too much either. In both games the girls would get out and sit on the sidelines talking, mostly about the guys still playing, and wait for their turn to get out again. A few did play, particularly kickball, though.
Outside of that class, there was a decided bias in favor of the girls even in the 70′s and 80′s. The teachers, all female, would clamp down a lot harder on male “misbehavior” and let the girls slide with a lot. They also tended to grade boys’ papers harder and we suspected were less likely to bump grades up a little such as from B+ to A. One of my first college professors in the early 90′s was terrible about this. Girls sailed through the class but guys would get corrected papers, make the corrections, hand the paper back in and get the paper back with the corrections marked wrong! Most weren’t that bad though, not against males per se but most weren’t too keen on Conservatives expressing themselves.
So yes, the schools are particularly biased against boys. They should just switch to single sex education after about 5th grade. Boys and girls could be taught more to their learning styles and, at least during the school day, they wouldn’t be preening and showing off for the opposite sex instead of concentrating on work.
Everyone seems to forget the most important rule from the way we used to play dodgeball, and that was, you could try to catch the ball, and if you did, the one who THREW it was out. That way, the big guy with the killer arm who tried to dominate the game could be taken out with one good grab. It encouraged the ones being targeted to fight back, rather than just cower.
Good point. It also helped to fall back to get more time for the catch and also gather up stray balls and put them in the corner, particularly if your side was outnumbered. Not all gym teachers liked tactics in the game but they helped.
Ah, I wondered when someone was going to refer to this style of the game, called “War”. Also when a ball was caught, one of those “out” on the sidelines could come back into the game.
Now, I went to a rural K-8 school, where the 7th & 8th grade teacher (male) was also school principal, as well as the coach for ALL sports, both boys & girls teams (basketball, volleyball, softball, etc.) Of course this was during the time of rural K-8 schools having actual games played between them — you know, REAL games with REAL winners/losers. One assuredly did not receive a trophy for just showing up. If you made a mistake, you were likely to hear about it from the coach, your teammates, and your parents; if it was costly enough, your community too.
Anyway, K-4 had recess 2x/day (15 min. ea.) as well as the time after lunch was eaten. Grades 5-8 had no recess except the after lunch time, but P.E. the last 45 min. of the day: boys M & W, girls Tu & Thr. (this consisted of playing & polishing whatever sport then in season). Friday afternoons the gym was reserved for the 7-8 graders after our “Citizenship Meeting”. (I know, how quaint to think of such a thing now! but this was only in ‘72) After the mtg. was adjourned, we went to the gym to play. The entertainment committee would determine what the game was for that partic. aftrn. Many times the call was “War”. We were divided up many diff. way — sometimes boys against girls, or 7th against 8th, and so on.
In the beginning, we girls were not so hep on this game. The boys could throw harder & further — those red balls could give a pretty good sting. However, we had a wily teacher/coach/principal. He absolutely encouraged tactics. He also told us girls (in no uncertain terms) that if we really wanted to compete as equals, then we had to act & think like it. This encouraged about half the girls, including myself, to study the opposition to 1) learn from them, and 2) find their weaknesses. Many times it was myself and 1 boy trying to get each other “out” at the end of the game; that outcome was about 50%.
The other half of the girls resorted to squealing, batting their eyes, and making cute little pirouettes to avoid being hit, never even trying to catch a ball. I had the deepest scorn for them. Not b/c they were acting like girls (airheads, maybe) but b/c my folks, ESP. my dad, a big-time sportsman & athlete, had taught me to do the best I could at whatever I was doing. Yet in that place & time, a few yrs. later my dad scolded me for beating a boy at ping-pong, saying the boy would never like me if I won. Even then, I didn’t want a partner that would never love me for being me, but only some pretend image in his mind. In the interaction between the sexes, perhaps honesty being the best policy isn’t always the way to go, if honesty means being needlessly cruel, but for my dad to press me to purposely lose seemed to a huge hypocrisy.
I am in no way a man-hating woman, but in the tradition of “doing your best”, I have to call myself a feminist. I fully realize this word has been co-opted by a newer generation, and society in general has adopted the new definition, but I reject it. For me, feminism has NEVER been about anything other than not putting up roadblocks only b/c someone is female. I was beautiful when younger, and I’m still mostly a girly-type girl (if that can be applied to a woman of 54
and truly appreciate gentlemen. Basically it’s just in the agora that I want & need to make the same salary for the same job, education & skill set; and want some common sense in other areas. For instance, I don’t necessarily want to open my own doors (and would never ridicule a man for doing so for me), but if we approach at the same time and he’s using a walker or carrying a large load, *I* should be the one to open the door, as dictated by balanced good manners. (my current social peeve is men making a big production and squooshing others by trying to allow me to enter or exit the elevator first — if the elevator’s full, whoever is closest to the door gets out first, dang it!)
Having said all this, I AM terribly afraid for the future of our sons, partic. in our public schools. Boys should be encouraged to be boys, period. Yes, maybe this means a segregation of the sexes after 5th or 6th grade, at least until h.s. (which I define as beginning at sophomore), and perhaps until college. Btw, if your have sons or grandsons, the “Dangerous Book for Boys” should be required reading at some point. There definitely are diffs. betwn the sexes, but as with so many things these day, the redress of obvious wrongs* continues to progress to the point of diminishing returns, in fact has turned into masturbatory navel-gazing, but oh-so much more dangerous, esp. when touted & spread publicly by written word.
* Such as also around ’72, my m-i-l had divorced but despite being the majority bread-winner of the family all along, could not even open a bank acct. w/o a man co-signing)
“…could not even open a bank acct. w/o a man co-signing)”
Where in the World was this? In the late ’60s in the rural South most of the college girls I knew had their own bank accounts. Some did have parents on the account but it wasn’t necessary for them to have parents on the account to have one; just as today, having mommy on the account makes it easier for mommy to pay the bills the kid isn’t paying any attention to.
A suburb of Denver. However, I apologize for my faulty memory of m-i-l’s story. Darlin’ hubby said it was btwn ’66-’68 when this happened. She had to get her elderly father to co-sign with her, or no opening an acct.
Of course, any discussion of “feminism” today that doesn’t focus on the poor women in the Middle East/Africa … means nothing to me. I refuse to accept cultural relativity and celebrate diversity that reduces half the popul. to little more than brood mares with something ‘extra’ that needs to be cut off.
And I am still bewildered how feminism was taken over by crazies/loons/idiots. A (forgive me, here, pls.) “true” feminist is horrified by what’s happening to men and boys, as I said partic. in the written word. The feminist ‘movement’ (oh, how I hate that word, & more all the time) was, to the best of my no doubt faulty understanding, only to get rid of articial b.s., NOT to denigrate half the people to bolster the other half! Degrading anyone is bad business, and sooner or later boomerangs to the detriment of all.
We called our version “Bombardment.”
I haven’t read the “Dangerous Book for Boys” or its sequel, but when I was growing up, we did have copies of “where did you go? Out. What did you do? Nothing.” and “How to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself”. Very valuable resources. Of course, the advice therein about the kind of pocketknife to carry would get one in serious trouble today.
Women, good; men, bad!
I think a lot of this is indicative of the fact that most feminists are actually very insecure. The ubiquitous T-shirts saying things like “Silly boys, (fill in the object or activity) are for girls” are popular because they allow the girls a false sense of superiority. Deep down, they know that the strongest man is much stronger than the strongest woman, the fastest man is faster than the fastest woman and that a good boys team will beat a good girls team in almost any sport you can name. But when a girl makes it onto a boys football team, it’s a national headline and feminists everywhere can say “See? Women can do anything men can do, only better!”
The next area up for argument is intelligence and we’ve all been lectured for years about the superiority of the female intellect. Ignore the fact that every major invention or civilizational advance has been generated by a man. That’s because of sexism, of course. And that’s obviously true of the past, but women have been given educational and occupational priveledges over men for decades, yet the basic premise hasn’t changed much.
You don’t see pro male T-shirts or books because most men don’t need them to know who they are. The ranting and foot stomping of the Girl Power movement is tolerated like a neighbor’s barking dog because it’s just not worth the confrontation.
There are pro-male books out there, but mostly they are geared toward teaching guys how to be douchebags. What would be good is fewer books about having a street gang, bar brawler, pro-Wrestler mentality and more about being a true gentleman. That is to say well mannered and polite but assertive without being a thug.
Thane, douchebags get laid. Especially in their teens and twenties. Gentlemen… Don’t.
It’s as simple as that.
There aren’t many competitions where men go head to head against women. One area where they do is aerobatic flying. There, some women have done well. One in particular is Patty Wagstaff, 3 time US Aerobatic Champion. I’ve seen her fly in airshows and she’s an incredible pilot. An airplane doesn’t know or care about the race or sex of its pilot. Competition aerobatic pilots fly planes like the Extra 300 and pull over 10 Gs with nothing but muscle control to keep from blacking out. Upper body strength doesn’t give anyone an advantage. Auto racing is another form of competition where a few women compete directly against men. Offhand, I can’t think of any other sports where that’s true.
Those latter titles have more of a sense of alarm about how young men are “going Galt”, than a general disdain for men. Young men going Galt is a real problem in Japan, and quickly arriving in the US.
The important question is why. Without going into a long analysis, the whole setup of carrots and sticks has been turned on its head by feminism. The tragedy of feminism is that they’ve created a self-fulfilling prophesy of young men who don’t want to play their game. And then they get angrier.
These books aren’t written for men, that’s why they are the way they are.
There was another article on PJ Media September 10th about Chick Flicks: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/09/10/the-10-most-damaging-chick-flicks-ever-made/
The negative messaging is intentional and plays to their audience. They are trying to instill a sense of simultaneous victimization and superiority, coupled with hedonistic sexual freedom. It’s very similar to what happened to the black community in both form and substance, just replace “white people” with “men”. The results in both instances are unmarried single moms, living in section 8 housing, fully dependent on the government as their husband, and proud of their “independence” as their sons grow up to be criminals and “baby daddies” to the next generation of duped women.
Men can’t really do anything about it except avoid women who are corrupted and hope that they don’t reproduce. Luckily most feminists are ugly, so it’s no big lose.
These books aren’t written for men… They are trying to instill a sense of simultaneous victimization and superiority, coupled with hedonistic sexual freedom….
Sounds just about right to me. More Left/Progressive agit-prop in the ongoing meme war (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260).
With respect to Dr. Helen’s original question: yes, I would buy a book titled that. Why? Because I’m easily amused and reading a book titled the End of Men while being a man seems pretty funny to me. Oh, and the Galt effect is going to continue until either a cultural purge restores the sanity of women everywhere or the culture of “make children, get a job later” overwhelms the entire country.
In the first scenario, women will recognize that men and women are intrinsically different from each other and should be treated as such. Overreaching arguments about “equality” do nothing but set an unattainable ultimatum that will tear what’s left of society even farther apart. In the second scenario, the economy (or what’s left of it) will go up in a puff of smoke and what’s left will be anarchy fueled by sheeple demanding their “free lunches”.
The likelihood of the second scenario is far greater than the first scenario, unfortunately. I suppose I’ll continue to take notes for my upcoming historical documentary on the fall of America because of the social contract theory. -.-
if you want a good book for men, about being real men, read John Eldridge’s “Wild at Heart.”
It’s a great book on how to let boys be boys and yet raise them to be good Men.
+1 on Wild at Heart
D.D. @ September 17, 2012 – 12:40 pm
A suburb of Denver. However, I apologize for my faulty memory of m-i-l’s story. Darlin’ hubby said it was btwn ’66-’68 when this happened. She had to get her elderly father to co-sign with her, or no opening an acct.
With all due respect, I think it was probably a bank-specific policy. In 1967, in Aurora [suburb east of Denver] I started getting my first legitimate pay checks once I turned 16 [Colorado child labor law]. I immediately opened a bank account by myself. Granting I was male, but the justification for not opening an account for M-I-L has to be something akin to questioning her legal competence to sign. I was 16 [and therefore technically not legally competent], did not have a driver’s license or other ID besides a Social Security card, and had no problem. When we moved to the hellhole called Nebraska a year later, within one day, I had my own checking account. I moved back to Aurora, living with guardians in May of 1969. My foster sister was 16, and she had her own bank account she opened for her pay from her job. She opened it herself using the same bank I had used [and had moved my money back from Nebraska to] with no co-signer.
Moving back to the original post, our country has made being male largely superfluous in popular culture. And is reaping the consequences. That is a luxury only possible during very good times. Times are about to “get hungry out” and there is going to be a psychological reset for a lot of women in order to survive. Not that necessarily they will have to be subordinate to males, but they will have to subordinate their “self-expression” to the survival of whatever group they are part of. Or they won’t be part of the group.
Subotai Bahadur
Let me give you an interesting counter-point to that. In Alabama, it is and has been the law, for a long time, that a married man cannot hold property in his name alone. If a married man purchases real estate, his wife has implicit co-title to it. He cannot sell or encumber it without her concurrence, and if he dies, the property becomes hers by survivorship regardless of his will. The converse is not true: a married woman can buy and hold title to real estate in her name alone, and her husband has no legal claim to it. If she owns the home they live in, she can leave it in her will to her cousins or kids from her first marriage or whatever, and if she dies the heirs can have the husband evicted.