A Man's World: How Real Is Male Privilege-And How High Is Its Price?

Documenting mens' discontent and confusion as changing gender roles challenge accepted concepts of male identity, a combination of interview, reportage, and analysis investigates a growing social phenomenon. From the author of The Rage of a Privileged Class . $55,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Newsweek editor Cose follows his successful summary of the continuing discomforts of middle-class black Americans, The Rage of a Privileged Class , with a report on an old, reliable topic, the war between the sexes, as regarded from a fairly new perspective, that of the "masculinist" reaction to contemporary feminism. Citing prominent ideologues and authorities of both sexes and on both sides of the issues while maintaining neutrality himself, Cose expresses facets of his argument in terms of media catchphrases, "Man as Victim" (title of the first chapter), the endangered black male, the men's movement, the sensitive man, Mr. Mom, date rape, "Men Who Just Don't Get It" (another chapter title), fathering, feeling our (male/female) pain, and battered spouse syndrome. (The most absorbingly treated of these is fatherhood; all opinions seem to be converging in the understanding that fathers are essential to children's healthiest psychological development.) As usual for this kind of once-over, there's much here that is provocative, such as the many enormous discrepancies between the findings of sound social science and the claims ostensibly based on them made by radicals, both feminist (e.g., Andrea Dworkin) and masculinist (e.g., Warren Farrell). Although Cose's flat, reportorial style gets tiresome, particularly when one reads more than a chapter at a time, his book is a current awareness briefing well done. Ray Olson