The Male Ego

by Willard Gaylin

A renowned psychiatrist argues that men's identities are dangerously connected to reputation and shows how this embattled sense of manhood affects language, politics, relationships between the sexes, and men's self esteem. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Genres: Psychology

Paperback

First published October 1, 1992

Reviews

[Jamey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reads like a magazine article. The prose is dim. The social politics are very dated, with notes of essentialism, lazy homophobia, unexamined white privilege, and a tone-deaf attitude toward class. Some of the book's generalizations about women are sweeping and a bit silly. There's not much evidence here of substantive acquaintance with the texts and values of previous centuries or other cultures.

The account of prehistory is the weakest point in the book, comprised entirely of unexamined assumptions from pop sociology not far above the level of the Flintstones. Not a single author about paleolithic or neolithic life is cited, as though these assumptions (about gender roles, hunting, parenting, fighting, and so on) were as plain as day. To be fair, most of the great work done in that field has been more recent that Gaylin's book, but that doesn't quite cover the intellectual complacency and breeziness he shows here.

Also, Norman Mailer is held up as a paradigmatic masculine writer, instead of the marginal, gruff little hysteric he has more recently become in the eyes of much of the literary public. In other words, it's a dated book, bound to the 1980's milieu. I don't hate it, but I sure didn't like it. The book doesn't seem hateful--just ignorant and shallow. Yuk.