More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
My father and mother have been married now for more than fifty years.
This is the main trouble I have with this book so far; it's pretty much entirely blanket statements and sweeping generalizations in the service of a (plausible, compelling) narrative, backed up almost entirely by anecdotes or simple assertion. How many fathers are actually abusive? Is there in fact a strong correlation between having an abusive father, and becoming one?
In our culture these attitudes toward sexuality have been embraced by most men and many post–sexual liberation, postfeminist women.
Have they? How do we know this?
usually she does not like it and she does not know what to do with
Really? Usually? How do we know this? Is it a hunch?
overt acts of sexual repression.
Like what?
Despair and rage are the feelings men bring to sex, whether with women or with other men.
All men? Some men? How many?
sex nevertheless takes on an addictive character.”
What does that mean? What is "an addictive character"?
Patriarchal violence is a mental illness.
No it isn't. It's a behavioral pattern imposed by patriarchy and its power structures and institutions. Mental illness is something else entirely.
“I can’t get no satisfaction.”
Um. There's a whole song! Being insatiable is in fact part of the patriarchal idea of male sex, isn't it?
gay males, unless they have consciously decided otherwise, are as patriarchal in their thinking about masculinity, about sexuality, as their heterosexual counterparts.
Are they? How do you know?
Working women are
citation needed
Women workers find that leaving the isolation of the home and working in a communal setting
Do they? All of them? Most? Some? Citation needed.
used the workplace as a setting to practice relational skills,
How? Would capitalism allow it?
The individual men who did take on the mantle of a feminist notion of male liberation did so only to find that few women respected this shift.
Really? How do we know this?
in every case where this model of parenting has been successful, women have chosen adult males—fathers,
In every case? Surely not. Is there any evidence here at all, or is this just personal speculation?
the self that has a penis.
phht
male identity, like its female counterpart,
Would they be different at all? If so, why? If not, why isn't there just a single human identity, not one for each gender?
We see that females who are raised with the traits any person of integrity embodies can act with tenderness, with assertiveness, and with aggression if and when aggression is needed.
Why females specifically? What?
Love cannot exist in any relationship that is based on domination and coercion.
they said that they would smash their mommies.
All of them? How many? Book really needs footnotes.
Men in Black, Independence Day, and The Matrix rely on these racialized narratives of dark versus light
?
we all
Again not everyone is terrified of their father.
maternal sadism is the norm.
what?
Studies indicate
[citation needed]
there is tremendous emotional abuse happening in single mother/adult
how much? how do we know?
these men speak of the necessity of caring for our souls as though the path to that care is the same for women and men.
is it not?
Men need to hear that their souls matter and that the care of their souls is the primary task of their being.
hm
the practice of integrity.
what IS it?
Much of the depression men suffer is directly related to their inability to be whole.
What is the evidence for this? How could one possibly test it? what does it mean, even?
Men in particular seem incapable of grieving and mourning on an individual basis.
so many huge blanket statements!
The competitive performance model of patriarchy teaches men who father that a son is or will be his adversary, that he has to fear the son’s stealing his glory. Our myths and religious stories are full of narratives in which the son is depicted as the father’s enemy, ever poised to steal his power.
really? I can't think of very many.
Nathaniel Brandon
so many quotes from vapid white men with vapid self-improvement books!
Shepherd Bliss
yet another self-improvement white guy. must we?
boy,
can't this just be "child"?
Men are on the path to love when they choose to become emotionally aware.
are we going to get any less vague?
maleness,
what's that?
