Kathleen Parker

As with the subject matter, I was ambivalent about this book. Too often people write books on social science topics because they think it’s “common sense,” but they provide scant evidence to back up their opinions. This book was no exception to that unfortunate occurrence. While Parker does have some thought-provoking comments about feminism and the current climate of gender equality, her research is seriously lacking.

Parker wants us to "save the males." In other words, she wants us to stop behaving as though men and women are equal on all counts, and furthermore, she wants us to stop denigrating all things male, turning men into doofuses, deadbeats, and violent rage-aholics. While I agree that demeaning men is a bad policy, Parker paints with too broad of a brush. Citing the opinions and actions of a few and extrapolating that women have become vagina-worshipping, men-bashing, radical sluts is a bit much. There may very well be women out there who deny the importance of men to families and society, but I haven’t met any.

I did find her to be somewhat engaging and slightly humorous, although she's not as funny as she thinks she is. Her occasional tangents do nothing to justify her viewpoints; they are distracting and pointless. Anecdotal writing does not equal social science, and I was looking for something with more substance. The most impressive chapter was on women in the military, and if she would have focused on this topic, she might have had a fighting chance at convincing me that she knew what she was talking about.

Society is fluid, nothing is fixed. No ideas, behaviors, mores or norms remain stable. Little by little, things change. Sometimes there are major developments and the swing of the social pendulum can go too far. Inevitably though, things seem to even out if we let them. Parker seems to forget that the women’s rights movement is still relatively new and still working out its kinks.… (mehr)