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Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys
In Manning Up, Manhattan Institute fellow and City Journal contributing editor Kay Hymowitz argues that the gains of the feminist revolution have had a dramatic, unanticipated effect on the current generation of young men. Traditional roles of family man and provider have been turned upside down as “pre-adult” men, stuck between adolescence and “real” adulthood, find themselves lost in a world where women make more money, are more educated, and are less likely to want to settle down and build a family. Their old scripts are gone, and young men find themselves adrift. Unlike women, they have no biological clock telling them it’s time to grow up. Hymowitz argues that it’s time for these young men to “man up.”
248 pages, Hardcover
First published February 8, 2011
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March 17, 2011
Manning Up: How the rise of women has turned men into boys by Kay Hymowitz presumes that the meme of adult male as perpetual child, the lad generation, the male incarnate as any juvenile Adam Sandler character, which she describes as the “preadult”, is the result of the socioeconomic rise of women in modern culture.
The jacket design is the best thing about the book. It’s a great graphic, and it is what will sell the book, but after that, like Neil Young said in his intro to “Don’t let it bring you down” the book “sort of starts off slow and then fizzles out all together.” It is the literary equivalent of news channel infotainment, nothing more than a sensational premise supported by opinion and convoluted presumptions designed only to generate controversy, and more importantly, sales.
I’m going to take specific exception to the title, because it presumes the one thing that is possibly the most toxic concept in any relationship and that is that someone else, or some set of circumstances that are beyond your control, are responsible for how you behave and think.
No one can make you mad, belittle you or denigrate you: we do that on our own. I have a wise friend who’s said time and again, “It doesn’t matter what I’m called, it matters what I answer to.” And in our relationships, in our lives, we are responsible for the choices we make and the consequences they bring.
It may be that as the title suggests that men are living lives of extended “preadult”-hood, or as Ms. Hymowitz tries to caveat with a “some men” in an interview with Dr. Helen Smith, but if men are, in fact, choosing computer games over relationships, if men are choosing to be Chester Riley rather than Ward Cleaver, then understand this one thing: it is a choice. The rise of women, the conflict of who gets the check, the distinction of alpha or beta or even theta male has nothing to do with it. It is a choice. To say that men make this choice, if in fact they are making it, because of women’s relative success is simplistic at best and it does disservice to both sexes.
While the book is copiously footnoted, most of the references are anecdotal and tautological, and many of the core premises of her argument go unsubstantiated: three spring to mind easily.
On page 3 she states that “preadults are a different matter: they are a major demographic event.”
Notwithstanding that she has self-admittedly created the new concept of “preadult” without bothering to define “adult”, demographics are by definition documented numbers. A city is 23% black, 54% high school graduates, 10% LGBT: these numbers come from the census, from statistical analysis, from any number of sources public and private but they are at their core demonstrable and factual: to state that “preadults” are a “demographic event”, major or otherwise, is meaningless and pure sophistry without citation to authority.
And on page 15 she states “By the 2000s, young men were tuning in to such cable channels as Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network, and Spike, whose shows reflected the adolescent male preferences of its targeted male audiences.” It might be a commonsensical claim, notwithstanding that the Cartoon Network is the home of “The Powerpuff Girls” yet I have no doubt that Ms. Hymowitz could have contacted someone at Nielson or Tivo to document the exact demographic of these channels, but she doesn’t, and like the dog that didn’t bark in Doyle’s Silver Blaze the fact that she doesn’t is telling: like the Sandleresque slackers she derides, she gives at best a “preadult” effort at documenting her claims.
Writing of the latter part of the nineteenth century she further opines “Still, with the limited number of respectable women hanging around in billiard halls and, in any case, fairly strict rules against sex unless you put a ring on a finger, the vast majority of men - 90 percent – would soon enough become husbands” pg 129
I’d like a little authority for the presumption that social rules against premarital sex were any more effective in 1890 than they were in 1960 or 2010, and some explanation of why charities supported “lying in” hospitals where generally poor and unmarried women, seduced, no doubt by the functional equivalent of “preadult” man-boys of their time, could both safely birth their unexpected child and find moral salvation if the youth of the time were deferring sexual activity until marriage.
The truth is we are sexual creatures and the hormones that propel that drive are at their most rampant in our fertile years. Young men and women fuck around. Always have, always will, and sadly my only authority for that is my personal experience, yet even that limited authority is more than Ms. Hymowitz can muster for her claim that somehow social prescriptions against premarital sex once forced men into marriage and the absence of those social prescriptions allows today’s man-boy to live in an extended adolescence.
I will grant you if there is a phenomenon of “preadult”-hood among some men and further assuming arguendo that it has evolved over the last thirty years that there is a correlation between “preadult”-hood and the advances women have made in their economic and educational participation in society, but there is also the same correlation to be made with the decline in interest rates in the same period. Correlation is not causation.
But one of the major problems with Ms. Hymowitz’s theory is that she posits this behavior is some how new, as if Henry Fieldings Tom Jones wasn’t the eighteenth century iteration of a paradigm that has been around for all time.
As I understand one of her arguments, women’s lib, the pill, and greater education has allowed beautiful intelligent girls to “play the field” and to put off their child rearing years so that they can pursue alpha males to the detriment of poor beta males, who then slide inexorably into the perpetual childhood that is “preadult”.
This is passed off as new and interesting despite the fact that we all were in junior high school at one time or another and learned there that beautiful intelligent girls play the field and seek out alpha males. As Charlie Sheen, the paragon of extended adolescence would say, “duh… winning.”
Distilled to its core, the sum and substance of Ms. Hymowitz’s monograph is simply that some people make bad choices and choose immaturity over growth, self-gratification over introspection and behave childishly even after their personal chronology suggests they are “adults”, and she takes almost 190 pages to put lipstick on that particular pig.
The hope is that somehow, as a species, we evolve past junior high school. It seems iffy, but it could happen. Ms. Hymowitz doesn’t address how her “preadults”can grow to be more than a cruel society has forced them to be.
The jacket design is the best thing about the book. It’s a great graphic, and it is what will sell the book, but after that, like Neil Young said in his intro to “Don’t let it bring you down” the book “sort of starts off slow and then fizzles out all together.” It is the literary equivalent of news channel infotainment, nothing more than a sensational premise supported by opinion and convoluted presumptions designed only to generate controversy, and more importantly, sales.
I’m going to take specific exception to the title, because it presumes the one thing that is possibly the most toxic concept in any relationship and that is that someone else, or some set of circumstances that are beyond your control, are responsible for how you behave and think.
No one can make you mad, belittle you or denigrate you: we do that on our own. I have a wise friend who’s said time and again, “It doesn’t matter what I’m called, it matters what I answer to.” And in our relationships, in our lives, we are responsible for the choices we make and the consequences they bring.
It may be that as the title suggests that men are living lives of extended “preadult”-hood, or as Ms. Hymowitz tries to caveat with a “some men” in an interview with Dr. Helen Smith, but if men are, in fact, choosing computer games over relationships, if men are choosing to be Chester Riley rather than Ward Cleaver, then understand this one thing: it is a choice. The rise of women, the conflict of who gets the check, the distinction of alpha or beta or even theta male has nothing to do with it. It is a choice. To say that men make this choice, if in fact they are making it, because of women’s relative success is simplistic at best and it does disservice to both sexes.
While the book is copiously footnoted, most of the references are anecdotal and tautological, and many of the core premises of her argument go unsubstantiated: three spring to mind easily.
On page 3 she states that “preadults are a different matter: they are a major demographic event.”
Notwithstanding that she has self-admittedly created the new concept of “preadult” without bothering to define “adult”, demographics are by definition documented numbers. A city is 23% black, 54% high school graduates, 10% LGBT: these numbers come from the census, from statistical analysis, from any number of sources public and private but they are at their core demonstrable and factual: to state that “preadults” are a “demographic event”, major or otherwise, is meaningless and pure sophistry without citation to authority.
And on page 15 she states “By the 2000s, young men were tuning in to such cable channels as Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network, and Spike, whose shows reflected the adolescent male preferences of its targeted male audiences.” It might be a commonsensical claim, notwithstanding that the Cartoon Network is the home of “The Powerpuff Girls” yet I have no doubt that Ms. Hymowitz could have contacted someone at Nielson or Tivo to document the exact demographic of these channels, but she doesn’t, and like the dog that didn’t bark in Doyle’s Silver Blaze the fact that she doesn’t is telling: like the Sandleresque slackers she derides, she gives at best a “preadult” effort at documenting her claims.
Writing of the latter part of the nineteenth century she further opines “Still, with the limited number of respectable women hanging around in billiard halls and, in any case, fairly strict rules against sex unless you put a ring on a finger, the vast majority of men - 90 percent – would soon enough become husbands” pg 129
I’d like a little authority for the presumption that social rules against premarital sex were any more effective in 1890 than they were in 1960 or 2010, and some explanation of why charities supported “lying in” hospitals where generally poor and unmarried women, seduced, no doubt by the functional equivalent of “preadult” man-boys of their time, could both safely birth their unexpected child and find moral salvation if the youth of the time were deferring sexual activity until marriage.
The truth is we are sexual creatures and the hormones that propel that drive are at their most rampant in our fertile years. Young men and women fuck around. Always have, always will, and sadly my only authority for that is my personal experience, yet even that limited authority is more than Ms. Hymowitz can muster for her claim that somehow social prescriptions against premarital sex once forced men into marriage and the absence of those social prescriptions allows today’s man-boy to live in an extended adolescence.
I will grant you if there is a phenomenon of “preadult”-hood among some men and further assuming arguendo that it has evolved over the last thirty years that there is a correlation between “preadult”-hood and the advances women have made in their economic and educational participation in society, but there is also the same correlation to be made with the decline in interest rates in the same period. Correlation is not causation.
But one of the major problems with Ms. Hymowitz’s theory is that she posits this behavior is some how new, as if Henry Fieldings Tom Jones wasn’t the eighteenth century iteration of a paradigm that has been around for all time.
As I understand one of her arguments, women’s lib, the pill, and greater education has allowed beautiful intelligent girls to “play the field” and to put off their child rearing years so that they can pursue alpha males to the detriment of poor beta males, who then slide inexorably into the perpetual childhood that is “preadult”.
This is passed off as new and interesting despite the fact that we all were in junior high school at one time or another and learned there that beautiful intelligent girls play the field and seek out alpha males. As Charlie Sheen, the paragon of extended adolescence would say, “duh… winning.”
Distilled to its core, the sum and substance of Ms. Hymowitz’s monograph is simply that some people make bad choices and choose immaturity over growth, self-gratification over introspection and behave childishly even after their personal chronology suggests they are “adults”, and she takes almost 190 pages to put lipstick on that particular pig.
The hope is that somehow, as a species, we evolve past junior high school. It seems iffy, but it could happen. Ms. Hymowitz doesn’t address how her “preadults”can grow to be more than a cruel society has forced them to be.
August 21, 2012
I read this fairly small book 187 pages in about 3 and 30 minutes I skipped the last chapter because this book is so awful. Here are the reasons why the book is called Manning up so plainly I believed it would involve the discussion about todays men, wrong the first three chapters were all about women and how these modern women are striving ahead in the world of males in education, workforce, charity work, maturity etc. in other words "Girl Power", which the author herself talks about but fails to realize that she is quite a supporter of Girls Power.
So anyways the first chapter is called Preadults and their Brilliant careers pretty much how much more educated people are these days and she gives loads of statistics to prove it without offering an opinion of her own. The author also states that this increase in people graduating from colleges has made society less mature because people might continue their education up until their 30's and then marry. She talks about television shows such as Friends and Seinfeld to prove her point.
The second chapter is called the New Girl order, again she reiterates how women are graduating more from schools and that they are entering high ranking previously only male schools and then this statement "The formerly mostly male schools of the high establishment are hardly being chivalrous or politically correct in welcoming so many female students" (51). And then she completely does not support her statement and just says that women have the right stuff, so in essence she made a fallacy in her own argument she said that women are outnumbering men then she says that these colleges are discriminating against them in the quote above (as if to get a rise out of women) and then says women are the best that they have the right stuff. Then in the same chapter she loathes women being breeders and domestic laborers and praises the fact that women are in the workforce again where is the talk about boys? Nope the first few chapters just talk how better women are.
In chapter three she finally begins to talk as to why the women have risen and this is because of the workplace economy this is what made men boys according to the author. Because according to Hymowitz their is need of feminine leadership skills of team work, talking about emotions etc.
Chapter four is called the child man in the promise land boring the whole chapter is dedicated to Adam Sandler. It is funny that she is a feminist and she is against this the whole goal of feminist is to destroy the family in turn by destroying the manly role of breadwinner protector and provider, how can she expect men to man up? when the feminists like her have given men the free ride by going to the workforce and being slaves inside and outside the home by going to the labor force and doing the double shift at home? Feminism is full of hypocrisy. A very good book on the subject is Men and Marriage by George Gilder where he argues that women are the civilizers of men, so correct in this care because of feminism women no longer cared about protecting what is theirs by nature and therefore sought to become men by doing everything to bash and deny their inherent femininity.
The further chapters where filled with even more feminist garbage and ridiculous assumptions about the roles of men and women or how she in page 131 says that it is misogynist to to have professional and college football for men as their favorite past time this is the most insane ludicrous statement ever, the author seeks to destroy masculinity and anything that is considered masculine such as outdoors sports activities as wrong.
Thanks to feminists like her and others our society is in shambles divorce is higher then it has ever been and men and forgetting to be men and women are forgetting what it means to be a woman. Be warned this book is dangerous and misleading. Interestingly this book pops up with a lot of anti-feminist books, however, this is a feminist book to the core.
So anyways the first chapter is called Preadults and their Brilliant careers pretty much how much more educated people are these days and she gives loads of statistics to prove it without offering an opinion of her own. The author also states that this increase in people graduating from colleges has made society less mature because people might continue their education up until their 30's and then marry. She talks about television shows such as Friends and Seinfeld to prove her point.
The second chapter is called the New Girl order, again she reiterates how women are graduating more from schools and that they are entering high ranking previously only male schools and then this statement "The formerly mostly male schools of the high establishment are hardly being chivalrous or politically correct in welcoming so many female students" (51). And then she completely does not support her statement and just says that women have the right stuff, so in essence she made a fallacy in her own argument she said that women are outnumbering men then she says that these colleges are discriminating against them in the quote above (as if to get a rise out of women) and then says women are the best that they have the right stuff. Then in the same chapter she loathes women being breeders and domestic laborers and praises the fact that women are in the workforce again where is the talk about boys? Nope the first few chapters just talk how better women are.
In chapter three she finally begins to talk as to why the women have risen and this is because of the workplace economy this is what made men boys according to the author. Because according to Hymowitz their is need of feminine leadership skills of team work, talking about emotions etc.
Chapter four is called the child man in the promise land boring the whole chapter is dedicated to Adam Sandler. It is funny that she is a feminist and she is against this the whole goal of feminist is to destroy the family in turn by destroying the manly role of breadwinner protector and provider, how can she expect men to man up? when the feminists like her have given men the free ride by going to the workforce and being slaves inside and outside the home by going to the labor force and doing the double shift at home? Feminism is full of hypocrisy. A very good book on the subject is Men and Marriage by George Gilder where he argues that women are the civilizers of men, so correct in this care because of feminism women no longer cared about protecting what is theirs by nature and therefore sought to become men by doing everything to bash and deny their inherent femininity.
The further chapters where filled with even more feminist garbage and ridiculous assumptions about the roles of men and women or how she in page 131 says that it is misogynist to to have professional and college football for men as their favorite past time this is the most insane ludicrous statement ever, the author seeks to destroy masculinity and anything that is considered masculine such as outdoors sports activities as wrong.
Thanks to feminists like her and others our society is in shambles divorce is higher then it has ever been and men and forgetting to be men and women are forgetting what it means to be a woman. Be warned this book is dangerous and misleading. Interestingly this book pops up with a lot of anti-feminist books, however, this is a feminist book to the core.
February 22, 2014
I'm a Latter-day Saint, and I come from a certain culture. I was married at 22 and now at 28 I have three daughters. There are certain cultural and sub-cultural attributes found within the American experience that I simply do not understand. Reading Manning Up was an eye-opening, enlightening, and, at times, disturbing glimpse into a culture that I have never belonged to and am glad I never did.
I heard about Kay Hymowitz's book while listening to the October 2012 General Conference—oddly enough, a Latter-day Saint semi-annual gathering. Elder D. Todd Christofferson quoted the book several times, which I found terribly intriguing since Apostles of the LDS Church choose their sources and quotations very, very carefully during something as public as General Conference. The title and especially the subtitle of the book—How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys—captured my attention, and I decided to give the book a go.
Manning Up's subtitle—How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys—doesn't, of course, do the book's nuances justice, and might have been a little too polemical just to get attention. Hymowitz does address in detail how women's changing role(s) in society has affected men within that same society, but there are a lot of details and variables involved in any cultural change, especially in one as consequential as this one. The author's arguments, theories, and suggestions in the book should not be ignored. There is very valuable commentary to be found here, and I feel even more interested in this important topic now that I've read Manning Up. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Hymowitz in her central thesis, Manning Up does provide an insight into the preadult culture that is both educational and shocking (at least for me). Society has changed, and Manning Up delineates a few of the ways in which it has.
I would recommend Manning Up. (To a certain extent, I think the book was tacitly recommended by someone far more influential than me). Regardless of your ideological and sociological viewpoints, you will find a lot to hate or a lot to love in Manning Up. I was more on the love side of things, but I understand how difficult it is to truly define cultural and explain its many variables. For what it's worth, Manning Up is a valuable contribution to the discussion.
http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com/
I heard about Kay Hymowitz's book while listening to the October 2012 General Conference—oddly enough, a Latter-day Saint semi-annual gathering. Elder D. Todd Christofferson quoted the book several times, which I found terribly intriguing since Apostles of the LDS Church choose their sources and quotations very, very carefully during something as public as General Conference. The title and especially the subtitle of the book—How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys—captured my attention, and I decided to give the book a go.
Manning Up's subtitle—How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys—doesn't, of course, do the book's nuances justice, and might have been a little too polemical just to get attention. Hymowitz does address in detail how women's changing role(s) in society has affected men within that same society, but there are a lot of details and variables involved in any cultural change, especially in one as consequential as this one. The author's arguments, theories, and suggestions in the book should not be ignored. There is very valuable commentary to be found here, and I feel even more interested in this important topic now that I've read Manning Up. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Hymowitz in her central thesis, Manning Up does provide an insight into the preadult culture that is both educational and shocking (at least for me). Society has changed, and Manning Up delineates a few of the ways in which it has.
I would recommend Manning Up. (To a certain extent, I think the book was tacitly recommended by someone far more influential than me). Regardless of your ideological and sociological viewpoints, you will find a lot to hate or a lot to love in Manning Up. I was more on the love side of things, but I understand how difficult it is to truly define cultural and explain its many variables. For what it's worth, Manning Up is a valuable contribution to the discussion.
http://thethousanderclub.blogspot.com/
May 5, 2012
I first heard about this book on NPR, and, having spent enough time around my boyfriend’s roommates, was immediately interested in hearing theories about the reasons why so many young men are extending their adolescence into their twenties and thirties.
Hymowitz begins with the luxury that most young Americans have in exploring their options prior to and after graduating from college, comparing it to previous generations’ expectation of childhood, adolescence, school, a job, marriage, and children. Using the term “preadulthood” to describe the period of transitioning from the teen years and college into full-fledged, salary earning, home-owning, semi-stable adulthood, the author considers the role of education, the economy, and new trends in the workplace as they have contributed to this: “What should I do with my life? It’s not just a good question; it’s a hard question. The preadult is stunned with possibility, a predicament unknown to most of the human race up until very recently” (35). The reader may be understandably confused as the next chapters focus on the history of women’s roles in the western world, focusing on American women and their move from the kitchen and home to the workplace. Later chapters address the metamorphosis of the man into the guy, including the deconstruction of mature manhood, women’s independence from men as breadwinners, and the emergence of the child-man who spends his time playing games and maintaining his adolescent attitude.
Overall, the book is not so much an analysis of the current trends in masculine gender role, but rather a look at current trends in young adulthood for both men and women. The scenarios that the author presented in the last chapter as examples of what is happening in the lives of young men and women are a little sad, but realistic, and include the neo-traditional, the Darwinian playboy, the single-and-loving-it woman, the choice mother, and the starter marriage, each of which reflects different trends in the American family culture. Hymowitz provides a lengthy bibliography which cites plenty of additional reading sources. This is a good overview of how we got to today’s gender roles, but deceptively titled.
Hymowitz begins with the luxury that most young Americans have in exploring their options prior to and after graduating from college, comparing it to previous generations’ expectation of childhood, adolescence, school, a job, marriage, and children. Using the term “preadulthood” to describe the period of transitioning from the teen years and college into full-fledged, salary earning, home-owning, semi-stable adulthood, the author considers the role of education, the economy, and new trends in the workplace as they have contributed to this: “What should I do with my life? It’s not just a good question; it’s a hard question. The preadult is stunned with possibility, a predicament unknown to most of the human race up until very recently” (35). The reader may be understandably confused as the next chapters focus on the history of women’s roles in the western world, focusing on American women and their move from the kitchen and home to the workplace. Later chapters address the metamorphosis of the man into the guy, including the deconstruction of mature manhood, women’s independence from men as breadwinners, and the emergence of the child-man who spends his time playing games and maintaining his adolescent attitude.
Overall, the book is not so much an analysis of the current trends in masculine gender role, but rather a look at current trends in young adulthood for both men and women. The scenarios that the author presented in the last chapter as examples of what is happening in the lives of young men and women are a little sad, but realistic, and include the neo-traditional, the Darwinian playboy, the single-and-loving-it woman, the choice mother, and the starter marriage, each of which reflects different trends in the American family culture. Hymowitz provides a lengthy bibliography which cites plenty of additional reading sources. This is a good overview of how we got to today’s gender roles, but deceptively titled.
July 1, 2011
The cover grabbed my attention. It was brilliant. Bracing for a vicious attack on males, I charged ahead any way.
The book doesn't really rip on men. The author bases a lot of the book an anecdotal data frequently citing book titles (not the book itself) and popular culture. It's not like "Child-man" is one of the categories in the US Census. Or if there really is a way to measure maturity.
It made me wonder ... what really makes a man? As my male friend said, sometimes I like to "stab things in the face" (in a computer game) and I do miss days where my most important task of the day was waking up in time to watch my favorite cartoon.
Perhaps, in this modern world where my generation doesn't need to grow up, we never do. I'm speaking of both men and women here. We don't have to forage or hunt. We don't have to gather wood for the fireplace. We don't have to learn to change our tires (thanks AAA) or really **do** laundry ... as opposed to just separating our clothes and dumping them into machine.
Life is funny that way. The easier we make our lives, the easier we waste our lives.
February 23, 2013
Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys by Kay S. Hymowitz applies Manhattan Institute politics to factual demographics. Firmly anchored in Pew Research Center’s 2010 report, “The New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives,” (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1466), Hymowitz’s analysis relies primarily on journalists and bloggers for its vocabulary and sources. Her main concern is college educated “child-men” and the upper middle class women they are not marrying, yet she discredits Friedan, for example, for her 1950s suburban perspective on married women's lives. While these well educated “pre-adults” are partying their way through their 20s and into their 30s, more women are establishing successful careers in the knowledge economy only to find that the desirable men their own age are dating 20-somethings, and the nice guys they did not find exciting ten years ago are now the married dads of cute children. Less privileged young people are also marrying less and later, but they write fewer books and articles about it.
March 18, 2018
Sad. What happens we abandon marriage and its goals and responsibilities.
June 7, 2011
This book started out interestingly enough with plenty of statistics laying out how our job market has drastically changed in the last 20 years leaving modern young professionals without a clear path towards reaching their career goals. In my opinion it was a little long winded and the constant references to young adult comedies and television shows took away from some of the validity of her points, but again it was somewhat interesting for the first two thirds of the book. I should have been more alarmed when early on she referred to women as "the fairer sex," but I kept reading, finding the research somewhat topical and compelling. But THEN. Oh jesus.
THEN after buttering us up with all this evidence of woman power and encouraging stats about girls test scores and performace abilities, THEN she wraps the whole book up with this fear mongering bullshit chapter about how none of the progress matters because even in our modern world if you're a woman and unmarried at 30 you are statistically likely to be unhappy, unlikey to ever marry, and very unlikely to even be able to reproduce.
The take away from her sloppy shotgun conclusion was that after years of humilation endured, modern men who lack storng roll models or even a clear place in society are exacting their revenge upon modern women by giving them a sell-by date and taking up with younger women who don't have a biological ticking time bomb or "standards" to deal with.
Nevermind the ridiculous 180 this piece took ending on a distinctly anti-modern-woman note, but COME ON, this isn't even remotley orginal! Older men want to date younger women? Men aren't on the same biological time frame as women? Oh shit, STOP THE PRESSES! This could have been a mildly intersting essay but there was certainly no need to turn it into a time consuming book that leans heavily on "Knocked Up" quotes and advice stolen directly from the play books of over-anxious mothers of single women around the world.
THEN after buttering us up with all this evidence of woman power and encouraging stats about girls test scores and performace abilities, THEN she wraps the whole book up with this fear mongering bullshit chapter about how none of the progress matters because even in our modern world if you're a woman and unmarried at 30 you are statistically likely to be unhappy, unlikey to ever marry, and very unlikely to even be able to reproduce.
The take away from her sloppy shotgun conclusion was that after years of humilation endured, modern men who lack storng roll models or even a clear place in society are exacting their revenge upon modern women by giving them a sell-by date and taking up with younger women who don't have a biological ticking time bomb or "standards" to deal with.
Nevermind the ridiculous 180 this piece took ending on a distinctly anti-modern-woman note, but COME ON, this isn't even remotley orginal! Older men want to date younger women? Men aren't on the same biological time frame as women? Oh shit, STOP THE PRESSES! This could have been a mildly intersting essay but there was certainly no need to turn it into a time consuming book that leans heavily on "Knocked Up" quotes and advice stolen directly from the play books of over-anxious mothers of single women around the world.
December 9, 2011
Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys
Kay S. Hymowitz, Basic, $25.95 (187p) ISBN 978-0-465-01842-0
What do Adam Sandler movies, Maxim magazine, and South Park have in common? According to journalist Hymowitz's unpersuasive polemic, they are compelling evidence that "crudity is at the heart of the child-man persona," an increasingly ubiquitous personality type among men age 20–40 who don't grow up because they don't have to. Weaving together the socioeconomic and cultural paradigm shifts of the last half-century, Hymowitz identifies the appearance of "a new stage of life" in developed societies--pre-adulthood--where the traditional life-script: grow up, marry, have children, and die, is now: "What do I want to do with my life?" But in a world where social demands no longer equate manhood with maturity, frat dudes, nerds, geeks, and emo-boys can remain in suspended postadolescence, while women, whose biological clocks are ticking, are forced to choose between single parenthood and casting their lot with a "child-man." It's a provocative argument that Hymowitz advances with considerable spirit, but she conflates character with maturity, and her blaming feminism for the infantilization of men wrests more power and control away from men, suggesting that they can't develop a sense of responsibility without a woman's help.
October 4, 2020
Good at indicating a “problem” but thin on proof. A lot of interviews and a lot of references to pop culture, but it’s hard to tell if the problem is deeply real. Are significant numbers of men unable to cope with women who earn money, have clear sexual desires, and have what everyone insists on calling “agency?” It’s hard to tell from the book if this is a media image of men or an actual serious social issue...although it’s clear that to some degree, she’s righ. Men are underperforming in college and high school. I can’t tell if their slackness extends beyond, say, age 30.
In any case I feel it very very difficult to feel anything but contempt for a man who retreats into video games and empty sex merely because women are “agents” of their own destiny. Do they wish for a “simpler era” wherein they could rest assured of their importance in marriage because women rarely had financial power? Poor dears. Toughen up and understand that you will henceforth need not only earn a few bucks but be emotionally available and (gasp) be married to someone who is better at life than you. Stfu babies.
In any case I feel it very very difficult to feel anything but contempt for a man who retreats into video games and empty sex merely because women are “agents” of their own destiny. Do they wish for a “simpler era” wherein they could rest assured of their importance in marriage because women rarely had financial power? Poor dears. Toughen up and understand that you will henceforth need not only earn a few bucks but be emotionally available and (gasp) be married to someone who is better at life than you. Stfu babies.
January 4, 2020
Pre-review:
Why I was interested in this book: A possible reference for my future essay(s) about fuckboys. Feels like I could have written it myself, esp the "Sex and the City" as inspiration for women to consider writing the ultimate profession... or something. YMMV but I remember a *lot* of diary-/writing-based books with female protagonists in the 2000s (Princess Diaries anyone?), definitely felt like it was a trend. So, interested to see how that pans out.
Why I'm starting to get put off: Well, because the whole premise of the book is that women('s autonomy and education) is to blame for men taking "extended adolescences". I mean, what?? Ngl I think this is where gender-based analysis falls apart...
Y'all I promise when I write my own it'll be anecdotes I was aware of, and then interviews. I may talk out of my butt but at least I wouldn't be this lady. (Collecting evidence to serve your own argument while disregarding the rest is gross.)
Why I was interested in this book: A possible reference for my future essay(s) about fuckboys. Feels like I could have written it myself, esp the "Sex and the City" as inspiration for women to consider writing the ultimate profession... or something. YMMV but I remember a *lot* of diary-/writing-based books with female protagonists in the 2000s (Princess Diaries anyone?), definitely felt like it was a trend. So, interested to see how that pans out.
Why I'm starting to get put off: Well, because the whole premise of the book is that women('s autonomy and education) is to blame for men taking "extended adolescences". I mean, what?? Ngl I think this is where gender-based analysis falls apart...
Y'all I promise when I write my own it'll be anecdotes I was aware of, and then interviews. I may talk out of my butt but at least I wouldn't be this lady. (Collecting evidence to serve your own argument while disregarding the rest is gross.)
August 9, 2011
Author explores cultural forces underlying media depictions of man children. She argues these depictions reflect an actual growing segment of the male population and outlines potential antecedents and consequences of this. For instance, the emphasis on higher education for jobs and cultural depictions of fathers unnecessary lead men to postpone assuming traditional male roles ( eg father and husband). Women have more reasons to pursue marriage and children due to biological limitations on fertility per author. Initially I was amused but a late chapter resurrects tired stereotypes of single life (hint: single women will live pathetic lonely lives plagued by health problems and resentful relatives - she makes no such dire predictions for the single male). No solutions here to the man child phenomenon- we're apparently doomed to rampant immaturity.
July 5, 2020
Does the author know what her book is titled? She spends the first half of the book talking entirely about how good women supposedly have it with their careers, without once acknowledging that women are coming home from those careers and STILL doing all the cooking, cleaning, childcare, and mental workload. When she finally gets around to talking about the men (which are supposed to be the subject of the book)m she is quick to blame feminism for men's immaturity lack of achievement. News flash: men are acting exactly as they always have. Difference now is, women can control their own finances, decide when or if to have children, and live fulfilling lives without being forced to marry because all the jobs are closed to them.
March 21, 2011
The title and cover suggest this is just some cheeky book on the gender wars. However, this book is very well-researched and provides a great synopsis of cultural and socioeconomic shifts for both women and men in the U.S. I strongly urge any preadult (20-30 yrs.) to read this book. It makes a lot of sense, from the knowledge economy to the explicit and implicit expectations of cultural norms for both men and women.
December 14, 2012
Not sure I agree which the premise. Yes, I do see the lack of maturity in the young men of this generation but is it always the "parents fault"? Kay Hymowitz does state that society and media have a lot to do which the boys feeling "not needed". Is the women's empowerment to the detriment of these boys? I think not!
August 25, 2011
This book was really hard to get into, it took forever for me to finish it. Once I decided to plug through he last two chapters it was a tough pill for a 28 year old single woman to swallow. I definitely would have passed had I known it was so scientific and a real downer.
July 27, 2020
The toxic thoughts of a small mind. When life is a zero sum game, than yes, because some women cook less or they have the right to drive turns Hymowitz into whining loser, as it would take a higher sort of black magic than the contraceptive pill to make his stubby chin hairless again.
March 6, 2018
A very balanced look into the current climate of genders, dating, and families in the 21st century. It covers the history of both men and women in the market place and the home over the last century. Contrary to what some have surmised from the title, the book doesn't put "blame" on any one sex, but shows the complexity of how a quickly changing society is taking its toll on both sexes. That's not to say that some people won't take issue with this book. Feminist will spurn the evidence that shoots holes in the common myths of the wage-gap and the "patriarchy". Young men might take offense to being frequently labeled "child-men" and told that they really do need to "man up!" and take some responsibility for their life. But, frankly, both sides need to hear it.
March 16, 2025
I don’t think I learned a damn thing from this book. She manages to make hateful remarks on both men and women, the whole books covers the same exact points that a blog could’ve. She shit talks people who work entry level jobs, that if you haven’t found your “career” youre not a true adult. She repeatedly contradicts her points. And never really mentions men’s mental health. She always finds ways to talk shit on anything “nerdy” like video games, sci-fi, etc. and that it proved her point that men aren’t mature 🥴
Repeatedly perpetuates harmful societal norms/expectations for men in order for them to get women and be “man enough”
Repeatedly perpetuates harmful societal norms/expectations for men in order for them to get women and be “man enough”
December 27, 2017
The less discussed changes in the 21st family and american society pursuant to the advance of birth control and women's participation in work outside the home are the eroding raison d'etre of men. These advances, while liberating for both men and women, have an unforeseen consequence: Do women need a man to become a mother, to create a family, to carve out a life? According to the author, the answer is a resounding NO. And this should scare men to their core for their purpose in society is becoming unknown.
July 6, 2019
1.5
This book is quite bad. It's primarily based on gleeful, lazy caricature with minimal attempt to support her points with research. She spends a lot of time on niche movements like pickup artistry and on psychoanalyzing specific media like Maxim and Sex and the City, and uses that to apply broad conclusions to large swathes of society. I skimmed much of it. Giving it a .5 for some interesting tidbits about typical lifestyles for women in the 1950s, although who knows how accurate they are!
This book is quite bad. It's primarily based on gleeful, lazy caricature with minimal attempt to support her points with research. She spends a lot of time on niche movements like pickup artistry and on psychoanalyzing specific media like Maxim and Sex and the City, and uses that to apply broad conclusions to large swathes of society. I skimmed much of it. Giving it a .5 for some interesting tidbits about typical lifestyles for women in the 1950s, although who knows how accurate they are!
February 9, 2018
Obviously a critique of men I read it to understand these criticisms. Her essay prompted the book. Basically this is another zany attempt to straw-man by defining men in the worst paossible way and tearing them down. It seems that only women have no self-compunction at describing men as they wish - while viciously attacking any man who might attempt the same trick on them.
April 11, 2019
Overtly opinionated. Offers little proactive advice. Read Iron John by Robert Bly instead.
December 4, 2019
I really enjoyed Ms. Hymowitz's book, The New Brooklyn, but this book was filled with too many statistics which left me bored and disinterested. I stopped reading midway.
January 20, 2020
Waiting several years to finish this book was a mistake. The same content that seemed really insightful and novel (I read one of her articles and my wife summarized for me when she read it) now seems a bit tone deaf, even if many of the points are still valid. I was annoyed with her sarcastic derision of "pre-adults" when she doesn't seem inclined to offer any solutions or celebrate positive developments. Her examples and support seemed to be a bit heavy in pop culture, which I recognize is one important component, but because I picked it up a few years late, many references are stale and don't hold weight.
June 23, 2022
A good theory on why young men have bought into extended adolescence - what she calls preadulthood- . It's a problem and this book is a good place to ask and answer questions
May 1, 2011
I picked this book after reading Hymowitz's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. I was thoroughly prepared to hate it, but in spite of my best efforts, I found it hard to argue with many of its conclusions. First off, it must be said that this book's title is a bit misleading. It primarily addresses the 'new life phase' that has been emerging for young college-educated Americans between the completion of their undergraduate degree and settling down to start a family. The book explains some causes for pre-adulthood, and makes the pretty compelling case that female pre-adults are out-performing their male peers.
This book is surprisingly well-researched, at least when making this case of the rise of young, professional women; while it uses plenty of anecdotal and pop-cultural examples (the author is particularly smitten with the film Knocked Up as an illustration of the differences between male and female pre-adults), there are also plenty of hard statistics included to provide a foundation. Hymowitz is also more sympathetic to the male and female pre-adults she profiles than I would have thought. Even though she takes the position that pre-adult men are, generally, immature jerks, she does her best to explain why. That explanation, mind you, seems far more off-the-cuff and anecdotal than her treatment of women, which is disappointing. I would have welcomed some reasonable explanations for declining male college enrollments and comparative wages, but all Hymowitz seems to come up with is 'porn and video games', with no real evidence to back this up.
This book feels incomplete at the end, as it leaves some unanswered questions. While she advises female pre-adults to be more conscious of the biological limits on their fertility and its consequences for their romantic lives, for men, all she can say is: "They need to man up." Seriously, that's the last line of the book, but there's no explanation as to why or how this manning up will take place. That all being said, I still think this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the backstory and realities of the emergence of pre-adulthood, but the dudes' half of the story is short-changed.
This book is surprisingly well-researched, at least when making this case of the rise of young, professional women; while it uses plenty of anecdotal and pop-cultural examples (the author is particularly smitten with the film Knocked Up as an illustration of the differences between male and female pre-adults), there are also plenty of hard statistics included to provide a foundation. Hymowitz is also more sympathetic to the male and female pre-adults she profiles than I would have thought. Even though she takes the position that pre-adult men are, generally, immature jerks, she does her best to explain why. That explanation, mind you, seems far more off-the-cuff and anecdotal than her treatment of women, which is disappointing. I would have welcomed some reasonable explanations for declining male college enrollments and comparative wages, but all Hymowitz seems to come up with is 'porn and video games', with no real evidence to back this up.
This book feels incomplete at the end, as it leaves some unanswered questions. While she advises female pre-adults to be more conscious of the biological limits on their fertility and its consequences for their romantic lives, for men, all she can say is: "They need to man up." Seriously, that's the last line of the book, but there's no explanation as to why or how this manning up will take place. That all being said, I still think this is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the backstory and realities of the emergence of pre-adulthood, but the dudes' half of the story is short-changed.
February 7, 2012
If you can get used to the fact that the title has little to do with the book (a better one might be Alpha Girls and Child-men) you'll find a nifty pop sociology text on the changing status of men and women in the information age.
The book's premise is that many factors have combined to reverse the usual results of the battle of the sexes. Due to the rise of the knowledge economy, the Second Industrial Revolution, and the shift to more of a consumption-based economy, women find themselves on top. They graduate college in higher numbers than men, fit better into an economy which rewards feminine qualities more than male on average (though not at the very top,) and have more freedom in determining their romantic life.
On the other hand, men seem a lot more aimless in a culture which doesn't really reward traditional masculine values. Unfortunately rather than men evolving into a post-masculine idea, they instead regress into a child-like state. Both sexes are affected by the modern idea of pre-adulthood, but only men slip into a passive child-man state. 30 year olds whose main ambition weekend nights is to go home and play Xbox with the boys, with men in popular culture being portrayed as The Adventures of Captain Underpants when they are not oafs or boobs.
This causes no end of problems to women, and unfortunately the author seems more interested on how child-men make it hard for women when they are finally ready to get married. Surprisingly, for a book with the title she has given, most of the book is actually about women, and she has no real solutions or even reasons why child-men should "man up." Or even if that's possible due to the reason why they are is more structural than anything. This makes it unsatisfying except as a diagnosis of a problem.
But what a problem it is. Without a solution it will only get worse as behavior reinforces behavior. A great read.
The book's premise is that many factors have combined to reverse the usual results of the battle of the sexes. Due to the rise of the knowledge economy, the Second Industrial Revolution, and the shift to more of a consumption-based economy, women find themselves on top. They graduate college in higher numbers than men, fit better into an economy which rewards feminine qualities more than male on average (though not at the very top,) and have more freedom in determining their romantic life.
On the other hand, men seem a lot more aimless in a culture which doesn't really reward traditional masculine values. Unfortunately rather than men evolving into a post-masculine idea, they instead regress into a child-like state. Both sexes are affected by the modern idea of pre-adulthood, but only men slip into a passive child-man state. 30 year olds whose main ambition weekend nights is to go home and play Xbox with the boys, with men in popular culture being portrayed as The Adventures of Captain Underpants when they are not oafs or boobs.
This causes no end of problems to women, and unfortunately the author seems more interested on how child-men make it hard for women when they are finally ready to get married. Surprisingly, for a book with the title she has given, most of the book is actually about women, and she has no real solutions or even reasons why child-men should "man up." Or even if that's possible due to the reason why they are is more structural than anything. This makes it unsatisfying except as a diagnosis of a problem.
But what a problem it is. Without a solution it will only get worse as behavior reinforces behavior. A great read.
July 2, 2011
This book has a lot of interesting insights into our current socio-cultural state. It looks at men and how they have come to be more children than men. . . playing video games, loving potty humor and supporting media along the lines of the Hangover with its frat boy lifestyle rather than the previous Bruce Willis action packed adventures. It also looks at women and how we have come to be more independent and not asking men to grow up because we can do it ourselves. We have even gotten to the point where there are no good men out there and instead of calling them to man up and be good husbands and fathers, we go to sperm banks (where men are paid for pleasuring themselves) and picking up sperm so we can raise children on our own.
I didn't agree with every point the book offered, but it certainly gave a lot of food for thought. The one thing I didn't like about the book was that it had a negative perspective on a lot of the points it offered. It wasn't simply stating facts, but doing so with a negative jab thrown it. At first I thought it was more of a political statement, but the further I read, I realized that it was just a general theme. I would have preferred if it would have been more objective. Otherwise though, it was an interesting read.
I didn't agree with every point the book offered, but it certainly gave a lot of food for thought. The one thing I didn't like about the book was that it had a negative perspective on a lot of the points it offered. It wasn't simply stating facts, but doing so with a negative jab thrown it. At first I thought it was more of a political statement, but the further I read, I realized that it was just a general theme. I would have preferred if it would have been more objective. Otherwise though, it was an interesting read.
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