Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys [Hardcover]

[LiberalLoner]

This title intrigued me. Has anyone read this book, and can you tell me if you would recommend it? TIA.

Here is the description:

In Manning Up, Manhattan Institute fellow and City Journal contributing editor Kay Hymowitz argues that the gains of the feminist revolution have had a dramatic, unanticipated effect on the current generation of young men. Traditional roles of family man and provider have been turned upside down as “pre-adult” men, stuck between adolescence and “real” adulthood, find themselves lost in a world where women make more money, are more educated, and are less likely to want to settle down and build a family. Their old scripts are gone, and young men find themselves adrift. Unlike women, they have no biological clock telling them it’s time to grow up. Hymowitz argues that it’s time for these young men to “man up.”
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[WingDinger]

1. All the MAN STUFf that is considered under attack, is idiotic.

All the guys defending it, are shitheels. Maybe it is a Blue collar reaction. To biased unemployment and outsourcing.

As with minority youth, they will find ways to bolster their self esteem. Even if it is killing and robbery. Same with men. If they CANNOT support a pregnant wife etc, they will get petulant. They will fault find the whole scheme as untenable. And retreat into gender amplification. This has resulted in a group called grasseaters in Japan. It seems to affect Itay's boys/men too.

Without a reasonable path to success, bad behaviours proliferate.

We will descend into chaos, if the American dream, that we all were subjected to growing up, proves to be simply PR, or at least is now. Witness how diligently the right trumpets American Exceptionalism. Same with cult members that are challenged with facts. They retreat evermore into the familiar. To boys, not yet men, that is acting tough, lashing out and posturing.

[LiberalLoner]

2. All I know is, overt misogyny is on the rise, even on message boards like this.

[WingDinger]

3. Unfortunately we here also are men reacting to massive changes to what we expected, and were

told we could expect. We too are subject to onesided sacrifice due to greed and corruption. Why do women bear up better than men? Ask the military, that is studying black women to lessen suicide rates among servicemen. When women are treated unfairly, they internalize guilt. Men lash out. It has ever been thus.

[LiberalLoner]

4. Yes, expectations can be a real problem sometimes....

I am thinking of that guy in Pennsylvania that shot all those women in the gym because he was angry they didn't give him sex, which he felt entitled to from them simply because he was a man and they were women and "owed" it to him.

[bemildred]

5. Sounds like sexist horseshit.

Not to mention being competely unfalsifiable, and hence a fancy form of name-calling.

However, the question needs to be asked, if young men are not to "grow up" and assume responsibility for a family, what are they supposed to do? Could you tell us what Ms Hymowitz answer is, some sort of idea?

[LiberalLoner]

6. I don't know....haven't read it....was curious if others have and what they thought - sounds like

sexist horseshit to me, too. But then I've always been hypersensitive about that stuff.

[bemildred]

7. You don't have to be hypersensitive to see she is labelling a

large group of people in a pejorative way, based on their age and gender,.

Maybe somebody else will inform us better about the book.

[LiberalLoner]

8. I agree it is wrong to label a large group of people based on gender! Or age!

In fact it would be equally wrong to put up a poll complaining that women these days aren't feminine anymore because of the women's movement!

[Nay]

10. It depends on whether true research is being reported in this book. Statistics, done correctly, can

reveal many useful trends/facts that humans can use to improve themselves or their environment. Making sweeping statements about large segments of any population is necessary if we are to understand that population. But as I said, I have no idea whether this book has any solid research to back up the selected paragraph.

[Nay]

9. The "dramatic, unanticipated effect" on some young men is that they have lost their automatic

positions of privilege for simply being men and being formerly able to rely on their gender to raise them above any woman, no matter how intelligent or accomplished. They are "adrift" because there is no longer a whole class of human beings to whom they can feel superior with no effort on their part whatsoever.

Some more quick points:
1. Women are more educated because they go to school, stay there, study, and graduate. Men are allowed to do the very same thing.
2. For years men have denigrated women for 'using' men as the main provider, but now they are upset that that women now no longer 'force' them into that role? As far as I can tell, men just got what they said they wanted all these years.
3. Women's old scripts are gone too, and they have made the best of it. I suggest these men in this book get to work and do the same.

P.S. Haven't read the book, but it looks interesting!

[kestrel91316]

14. Word.

[treestar]

21. Exactly, sexist men do not really have a problem with being the provider

It gives them control. What they've lost with feminism and working women is control over the woman.

[cyberswede]

25. +1

Well said!

[kestrel91316]

11. Sexist claptrap, it sounds like. Women DO NOT make more than men.

Women make 77% of what men do for the same work with the same level of experience. Nice try, Ms. Hymowitz.

Some young men (like my nephew) haven't the slightest trouble with education and finding a career and making money.

Pretty lame if there are some young men out there who think the fact that women aren't treated like such doormats anymore is cause for THEM to suffer.

[Blue_Tires]

12. OLD sexist claptrap at that...

that talking point is what, a good 15 years old now?

[struggle4progress]

13. Manhattan Institute

The Manhattan Institute (MI) is a right-wing 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank founded in 1978 by William J. Casey, who later became President Ronald Reagan's CIA director.[1]

The Manhattan Institute is "focused on promoting free-market principles whose mission is to 'develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility.'"[2]

"The Manhattan Institute concerns itself with such things as 'welfare reform' (dismantling social programs), 'faith-based initiatives' (blurring the distinction between church and state), and 'education reform' (destroying public education)" ...
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research

[kestrel91316]

15. RW Manhattan Institute shill >>>>> BLAME THE UPPITY WOMEN!!!11!!!

Color me surprised.

From the "keep 'em barefoot and pregnant" crowd.

[LiberalLoner]

16. That makes sense, thank you! It's more or less an argument to shove women back in our subservient

roles..typical right-winger crap. GLad I didn't order it on my kindle, don't want to give any money to those jerks!

[seabeyond]

17. hey, i think i have heard of this. then we better get on it in raising our sons to shun those old

roles, be their authentic self, go out and kick ass and when ready, find someone to connect with and be happy and good to each other.

meh, piece of cake.

hey.... doesn't help with all these commercials literally saying, this is a product for a man, over and over and over. they certainly are working hard to define men. i say, men, rise up and say.... fuck yawl. dont get to be defining my manhood.

[Zoeisright]

18. Oh boo hoo.

I'm sick and tired of all these white men whining about how hard they have it. White men have had all the power, the money, and the property in this country (and the world) for hundreds and hundreds of years. If they can't handle strong women succeeding, they ARE little boys. Having temper tantrums.

And a "biological clock" doesn't tell anyone it's time to grow up. A person grows up when they realize they're not the center of the universe.

[cbrer]

19. The book, if following the title, is Bullshit

All Feminism EVER did, (besides its original goals), was unmask boys. The movement had little to do with creating them. The self-important title may not reflect the contents. Having not read it, I couldn't say.
There are emotionally retarded people of both sexes. Immature versions of adults, living their lives with more severe versions of the little demons that we all experience, at least occasionally.

[treestar]

20. These are theories that do not support equality

Notice women's gains are thought to be a loss to men. The men in the scenario are harmed by equality of women. It presumes equality of women is bad for men.

The biological clock is one of those things sexists desperately use to try to argue; yes you are different, and that's why you shouldn't be equal. Yet men age at the same rate as women and have biological clocks too. Just because they theoretically can impregnate at age 80 doesn't mean all of them are likely to. Men get old and less potent and they aren't meant to be fathers of babies at advanced ages any more than women are meant to have kids then. The whole thing is once again meant to convince us women that we are at a disadvantage and that it's biological so there is nothing we can do but accept male superiority. Along with our being shorter and having less muscle mass - it's all "nature's intent" and if we step aside from that, it harms those poor men who nature intended to be in charge.

[ZombieHorde]

22. I don't like being told how to be a man, and I also don't like being told how to be an adult. nt

[Odin2005]

23. RW boilerplate "feminazis are emasculating men" crap.

[The Stranger]

24. Sounds like Kay has some issues.

Especially the bit about having someone else "man up."

[LiberalLoner]

26. I might as well confess now - I posted this in an effort to get people to see how

offensive it is when someone tries to tell women how to be "feminine" or men how to be "masculine."

It was posted in response to a post/thread that has now be removed and locked (thankfully!) by the great DU mods whom I appreciate.

[4th law of robotics]

27. If men are more educated and make more money it is proof that

that patriarchy is evil and men are the problem.

If men are poorly educated and make less money it is proof that . . . the patriarchy is evil and men are the problem.

We really can't win.

"Men should stay at home with the kids and be more nurturing, less of a Don Draper figure. Be a more progressive nurturing male"

Ok.

"wait, why are you just hanging out at the house not working?!?! Go be a man!"

WTF?