The End of Men
And the Rise of Women
-
-
4.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Essential reading for our times, as women are pulling together to demand their rights— A landmark portrait of women, men, and power in a transformed world.
“Anchored by data and aromatized by anecdotes, [Rosin] concludes that women are gaining the upper hand." –The Washington Post
Men have been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But Hanna Rosin was the first to notice that this long-held truth is, astonishingly, no longer true. Today, by almost every measure, women are no longer gaining on men: They have pulled decisively ahead. And “the end of men”—the title of Rosin’s Atlantic cover story on the subject—has entered the lexicon as dramatically as Betty Friedan’s “feminine mystique,” Simone de Beauvoir’s “second sex,” Susan Faludi’s “backlash,” and Naomi Wolf’s “beauty myth” once did.
In this landmark book, Rosin reveals how our current state of affairs is radically shifting the power dynamics between men and women at every level of society, with profound implications for marriage, sex, children, work, and more. With wide-ranging curiosity and insight unhampered by assumptions or ideology, Rosin shows how the radically different ways men and women today earn, learn, spend, couple up—even kill—has turned the big picture upside down. And in The End of Men she helps us see how, regardless of gender, we can adapt to the new reality and channel it for a better future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This debut by Atlantic magazine senior editor Rosin bears witness to a paradigm shift currently turning the gender norms of American society upside down. "Plastic women," adaptable in a changing economy and culture, dominate institutions of higher education and steadily infiltrate the cubicles and boardrooms of a corporate America, and no longer need men to be the breadwinners. "Cardboard men," especially working-class and unskilled men, forced out of their factory jobs by the growing industrial flight, struggle to find purpose and employment in an evolving economy that values brains over brawn and the ability to build teams over handiness with a hammer. Rosin explores these changing gender norms across several settings, from the bedroom to the jail cell (more women are being arrested for violent crime than in the past), and teases out the highs and lows experienced by women attempting to shoulder the breadwinner and housekeeper roles simultaneously. Rosin's passion for the subject is married with the depth of understanding gained from years of reporting to produce confident prose and thorough citation. She deftly balances academic research with relatable anecdotes, from sorority sisters to single mothers. Rosin ends with a vision of both genders putting aside outdated traditions and finding a new normal built on the strength of human connection.
Customer Reviews
Excellent, albeit a trifle light-weight
An interesting almost breakthrough thesis (at least if it was cribbed from others I'm not aware of it). Here I was waiting for a world-wide disaster or apocalyptic disease to wipe out men and it turns out its a natural side effect of the evolution of civilisation instead. Well worth the read and the sticker price for sure.
Where it fails, is that the research is 'breezy' at best, and the whole writing is terribly skewed towards a very specific, rich, western woman's point of view. The author makes a valiant attempt, especially at the beginning, to include 'normal', non-elitist points of view, but she is clearly swimming in a sea of great privilege as are most of her subjects. The working class people in this book are seemingly only included only as curiosities although the author doesn't seem aware of it.
As a male feminist who grew up in the 1970's the answers to a lot of the larger questions the book poses seem obvious, but the author never seems to see it. Evidence to me at least, of a very narrow view of feminism.
Finally I found it very disappointing indeed to find out when I was a full one quarter of the book away from finishing by the page count, that the book was in fact over. All those remaining pages are just filler. (A quarter if the book!) To add insult to injury the author then states unequivocally that it isn't a book at all but an article for some stupid American magazine.
Overall an interesting original idea, but ...