That\u2019s the claim of the new book by Helen Smith. <\/p>\n
I have in mind to use this blog to share some of what I\u2019m reading and what I think of it, and this book was a significant disappointment. <\/p>\n
The largest irritant was how little original research there was in the book. \u201cWrite a book\u201d has long been on my bucket list \u2014 not the Great American Novel, but a serious treatment of the retirement crisis, with an international perspective \u2014 but I am well aware that writing requires skill in researching (including access to data) and the well-honed ability to write in depth, as well as a significant investment in time. I may indeed have the time, after retirement, or at least after the kids don\u2019t require quite as much homework supervision and chauffeuring, but I hope that at that point, Congress would have acted on the issue already! <\/p>\n
Anyway, if it were really possible to write a book with as little research as this book contains, I\u2019d jump at the chance, but I imagine that, as with many such books, it was her name recognition that got this book published (and I\u2019m not sure how known she is in her own right vs. as the wife of a major conservative blogger). <\/p>\n
But wow! She talks about interviewing men who frequent the gym \u2014 and talked to two!, one of whom gives her the answers she wants only after she asked leading questions. Oh, and she talks to two men at a bar. But the bulk of her \u201cresearch\u201d consists of comments she received to questions she posed on her blog, and substantial references to material from a couple books on the topic that preceded hers, as well as unsubstantiated assertions by \u201cmen\u2019s rights\u201d activists. <\/p>\n
So it was really hard to get past this to evaluate the content of the book, however sparse, but the basis thesis is that men, who are choosing not to marry and not to attend college, are \u201con strike\u201d in response to the ways they\u2019re ill-treated by society and the law. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that there\u2019s some unfairness out there. As far as sexual relationships for unmarried men are concerned, the tables have been turned. Instead of women worrying that having sex could lead to pregnancy and \u201cruin,\u201d any woman who is OK with abortion is fully free to have sex as much as she wants without fear of consequences (because no one, male or female, seems to worry about STDs) \u2014 but men do bear the risk of paying 18 years of child support for a single night of sex, or even, in one bizarre cases, from oral sex with a condom which the woman later retrieved. And instead of women worrying that drunken flirting could put them at risk of rape, it\u2019s men\u2019s drunken sex that puts them at risk of a rape accusation for consentual sex. <\/p>\n
And men are attending college in declining numbers, relative to women, and, once there, can be, if they\u2019re unlucky, subjected to harassment of the \u201call men are rapists\u201d student orientation variety, or find themselves in classes in which a professor promotes an anti-male viewpoint. <\/p>\n
But are declining marriage rates evidence of a \u201cmarriage strike\u201d by men? Her disgruntled commenters say they won\u2019t marry lest they lose everything in a divorce, and some say they stay away from relationships entirely, being perfectly happy with porn \u2014 but this is a pretty self-selected group. <\/p>\n
In any case, to the extent that men are decreasingly likely to say in surveys that getting married is important to them (and are less likely to say so than women), it\u2019s not at all clear that Smith\u2019s notion of a \u201cstrike\u201d \u2014 refusing to marry because of the injustices of the child support and divorce system \u2014 is a suitable explanation. <\/p>\n
Likewise, are declining college attendance numbers for men really a sign of discomfort with the \u201cfeminization\u201d of the education system? Or are some men who are only marginally college material in the first place now recognizing that fact, and turning to the skilled trades and similar occupations? <\/p>\n
And are the failures of men from impoverished backgrounds really due to being \u201con strike\u201d or due to a whole constellation of issues and pathologies? <\/p>\n
In introducing the book, Smith complains that other books of the \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with men\u201d genre do so from a woman\u2019s perspective: \u201chow can we fix men so they\u2019ll be good husbands and fathers again instead of playing video games in the basement?\u201d But her \u201cmen on strike\u201d device isn\u2019t any better, in trying to lump together a number of issues for the sake of a clean thesis for her book. <\/p>\n
(Side comment:\u00a0 I had said previously that one\u00a0of my goals was to improve my\u00a0writing style \u2014 and one of my deficits is that I have a hard time coming to any final conclusions.\u00a0 I just sort of peter out. . . )<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That\u2019s the claim of the new book by Helen Smith. I have in mind to use this blog to share some of what I\u2019m reading and what I think of it, and this book was a significant disappointment. The largest irritant was how little original research there was in the book. \u201cWrite a book\u201d has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n