Hanna RosinReseñas

No book trying to describe gender is going to be perfect, and Rosin seems to embrace that from the start with a title so off-putting I was worried what her perspective would be.

What I found was a thoughtful, well-written, primary-source-referencing summary of where she things we are, in regards to gender and relationships. I can’t tell you how much of this book helped me understand the sociological patterns that I’ve been immersed in. This has absolutely helped me understand why I’m conditioned the way I am, and what struggles men are facing as women become more and more active outside of the defined roles of the past.

I remember reading the Atlantic article which Rosin wrote as she was beginning her work on this book, and finding it intriguing. As someone who works in education and sees the disparity in the genders who are attending post-secondary school, it was interesting to learn how this is playing out on a larger sociological scale. The topic has been in the news lately, especially with the recent article also published in the Atlantic, about how women can't have it all.

To me, the most interesting aspects of Rosin's book were the chapters in which she addressed the gender gap in education and subsequent employability, though the issues and observations are not necessarily new (see "The Richer Sex," "Manning Up" and a plethora of others). The title will certainly stir up controversy and catch the attention of readers.

I recognize and have experienced the shift in American society that Rosin writes about. There is a real question about how we construct our relationships and the role women can select, at any age. I am a divorced, 50-something mother of two who has a wonderful partner and a very fulfilling life (the ex immediately got remarried, as men do very quickly after claiming marriage "isn't right for them"). Truthfully, the marriage wasn't that great for me (career-wise and certainly emotionally, though I have two gorgeous children), and I see no point in the future when my new partner and I will marry. I have an almost visceral rejection of the "obligation" of caring for yet another human, as my children become independent (and the shadow of my mother's and other's care looms). I have to cook more, clean more, entertain more, curtail the "wearing of the comfy pants," etc.

Maybe it is dropping estrogen, but I feel newly empowered to choose -- what do I want -- what works for me? I know men need women more (see above about cooking, cleaning and entertaining). My relationship is not built on economic inequality -- my partner is stable, a great dad, etc. But do I really want to put on the old coat of "marriage," with all that implies? Not that he has brought it up -- but I know that if I said I wanted this, it would happen. I am the one in control (for a long while I ascribed this to the "not head over heels in love" issue, but I think this question goes much deeper).

That said, there is a core of this book which I think is deeply wrong -- sure, women have different skills than men, and perhaps we are more collaborative, intuitive, and can "sit still and focus," as Rosin puts it (5). BUT that is a very dangerous road and one that I am exploring in a YA trilogy I am writing. That doesn't lead to "women are more peaceful, ecofriendly, collaborative, "good." That means they are humans who use a different skill set, but can still end up in an awfully dangerous place. Rosin gets around to this eventually:

A more female-dominated society does not necessarily translate into a soft feminine utopia. Women are becoming more aggressive and even violent in ways we once thought were exclusively reserved for men. This drive shows up in a new breed of female murderers, and also in a rising class of young female "killers" on Wall Street. Whether the shift can be attributed to women now being socialized differently, or whether it's simply an artifact of our having misunderstood how women are "hardwired" in the first place, is at this point unanswerable, and makes no difference. ... there is no "natural" order, only the way things are. (10)

So, she cites zero evidence for a "new breed" or murderers (I think this has always been there). But the point is valid -- "traditional" roles has a place in space and time that has changed. So what works now?

Rosin quotes someone who foresaw a dystopia of mass-produced boys that would "lock women into second-class status." (12) My Trilogy has exactly the opposite scenario -- mass-produced girls who have locked men into containments and plan to eliminate them all together.

But there is lots of weird stuff in this book:

1. Feminist progress is largely dependent on hook-up culture" (21) Wha???? Not at Duke, where sexual assault is epidemic and retains the disgusting rot of male privilege and violence.

2. I don't buy that male privilege and abusive porn culture is something women just shrug at -- it is pervasive, determined and shapes what young women think sex looks like (or what they should expect from sex -- anal, cum on face, multiple simultaneous partners, etc.) See Make Love Not Porn .

3. Women may have "hearts of steel" (29) but they are still woefully underrepresented in the echelons of financial and political power Rosin writes about. Is having a heart of steel or an easy way with blow jobs really helping them or is it just another version of subservience?

It's a good topic, but I agree with other readers that too much of it is anecdotal or very superficial. As someone who teaches at one of the universities mentioned (Duke) I am horrified by what my students face (male and female, gay and straight, since the violent assault culture shapes all of their views of college and life). Times are changing but not fast enough; and a female-led society is no guarantee of fairness, sustainability or peace.

Totally disappointed that the information on the school and its students weren't written about without bias and obvious patronizing condescension.

She poked fun at homeschoolers, Christians, Conservatives and everything that obviously doesn't fit her own opinion. Little House on the Prairie, whitewashed brains,and every Christian goes online to look up opinions.

This book was nothing more than a long version of a second rate op-ed. Such a waste of paper. Thankfully I borrowed it from the library, otherwise I would have put it to good use as kindle.

I wanted to learn more about the school and what I learned was the opinion of the author.

The book consists of transcriptions of the debate itself and individual interviews with the four debaters. The three-minute limit on each opening and closing argument doesn't allow for much content, but -- as well as being amused -- one gets some idea of where each of these women stands on the issue.

I don't advice reading this for anyone.

I don't advice reading this for anyone.

I had a real problem with this book. Not just its premise, though that bothered me; it was the technique. This book purports to be journalism on social science research, but it isn't. The author has a weird agenda based in an outlook on gender relations that is inherently combative, as though civil rights are a zero sum game. She identifies as feminist but this is not a point of view expressed by any modern feminists I know or read. The combativeness, as though it would be impossible to move toward a feminist world without hurting men, permeates and makes this hard to read.

In addition, I have a real problem with the way that Rosin describes much of the research summarized in this book. She briefly cites Armstrong & Hamilton as evidence of the lack of harm and power of women in so-called college hookup culture, but Armstrong & Hamilton's work -- both articles and their book, Paying for the Party -- is much more complex and nuanced than here. They would not subscribe to the views Rosin espouses. Similarly, Edin's work on marriage values and childbearing among low-income women is so much more complex than the short shrift it's given here. Anyone familiar with the literature on this topic will find Rosin's book far from compelling in its presentation, much less get to her very problematic conclusion.

Meanwhile there are random comments that simply don't make sense. She offhandedly dismisses that the Christian Right wants to restrict women's reproductive rights. Perhaps she is unaware how many states have passed restrictions on this in recent years? This is not something that can simply be dismissed.

I would have enjoyed interacting with a cogent opinion to which I don't subscribe, but this was so poorly argued that it just doesn't get there. Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the sociology literature will be especially appalled.½

Rosin made an excellent for the decline of "cardboard" men and the rise of "plastic" women although I really dislike those terms. Most of the assertions were well documented but I really dislike the use of television shows as examples of cultural acceptance or trends. When has television represented mainstream America? Rosin discusses the decline in industrial America as being a large part of the problem with men and mens' skill set but I this seems to me to be only one small part of the problem. I'm seeing sons of college educated middle class families that are uninterested in post-high school education. I think there are largerer social and economic forces at work along with the problems with education which The End of Men only touches on.

My opinion is that some of the chapters needed some pruning then a little more time could have been spent on the issues in schools and the current economic plight of the middle class. Growing disparities in income and the shrinking of the middle class must surely play into the plight of men. With these caveats I would recommend the The End of Men to anyone interested in gender issues.

This is an interesting, readable report on the shifting roles of men and women in contemporary society. Rosin does not limit her analysis to American society. The chapter on "the education gap" was especially enlightening and should be read every parent of boys so that they realize what their boys are up against in the current educational system.

I approached reading this book with a lot of distain for Hanna Rosin - comments she and other members of Slate's Double X have been appallingly judgmental and sometimes downright unfeminist - but the arguments she presents are great food for thought. Most of the book I found palatable and interesting, but parts of the chapter "The Top" really rubbed me the wrong way - at points it came off as feeling like women just needed to accept that they have to cow tow to sexist expectations of feminine softness to get to the top, and that that was somehow acceptable. Hanna Rosin's feminism can at times be a little (or a lot) dated, but the unique perspective she presents here makes "The End of Men" worth the read.

Other reviewers have interpreted Rosin's comments to mean that she is happy about what she is reporting. I didn't read it that way. She is putting out the theory that men are less "elastic" than women and have therefore not been as able to adjust to the changes in women's role in society. A lot of what she reports is alarming. Women have moved into formerly male occupations and have thrived. Men have floundered. Women have risen to the top in universities. Can men adjust? I hope so.½

Patrick Henry University - breeding place for the next conservative government -- at least, that's the plan. The students there are determined, driven, and intend to change the course of current American politics and government.

I found this book to be very informative and in some ways entertaining -- but really, a little bit depressing. I am a conservative myself, but I can't quite countenance the extreme idea(l)s driven into the student's every cell. The intention of the founder seems to me to be a good one, but he seems to have gone way over the edge in protecting his students from the evil ways of the world.

That said, the education itself seems fairly good, given the good internships these kids seem to obtain. But I question whether or not any of the graduates have a balanced enough experience of and view of life as it really is, sex, rock and roll, TV, homosexuality, miniskirts and all, to be truly able to change the country. In the end, I almost hope they don't succeed in doing so.

Hanna Rosen’s book was all over the news a few months ago when it came out. It draws heavily from a couple of Atlantic articles she wrote (The End of Men, July/August 2010 and Boys on the Side, August 2012). The basic premise is that women are becoming the dominant force in everything from business to academia to the bedroom. Rosin uses a wealth of statistics, her own research, and personal anecdotes to make her case. I found her book compelling, thought provoking, and often frustrating. Ultimately, I found myself depressed by Rosin’s almost gleeful attitude on much of what she describes. I don’t find women dominating men to be any more desirable than men dominating women. Unlike Rosin, I also don’t think that women becoming as cavalier about sex as frat boys a good development. Regardless, I would recommend the book to almost anyone interested in some very important trends in our society. Or, you could save some time and read her two Atlantic articles!½

"The End of Men: And the Rise of Women" is very similar in topic and tone to "The Meaning of Wife" and "Where the Girls Are". All three interweave the authors' personal experiences with interviews and social science research. While the title of this book (at least the first part) leads the reader to think that the emphasis will be on the male "half" of the experience, the majority focuses on women's post-feminist movement advances in the workplace, in education and in family relationships. Some material is devoted to the disproportional impact of economic downturns on men, due to a post-industrial economy, but much of the book describes in detail changes in sexual relationships and traditional gender roles, stating that there is "no going back to the way things were". While in many cases this is a positive turn of events, in some situations it is not. I found myself wanting the author to answer the question, "So what now?"

Ms. Rosin does pay proper attention to differences in race and class, acknowledging that the "gender wars" don't look the same across those groups. In the end, her basic premise is that women have "risen" because of the greater flexibility allowed in their gender roles -- A "Plastic Woman" and a "Cardboard (inflexible) Man" have led to the current state of things. This is a highly readable book with current and relevant information; however, readers wanting more than just a description will be left wanting more.

Although I did not always agree with Hanna Rosin's arguments and conclusions, I did find this book compelling and thought-provoking. It relied a little too heavily on anecdotal evidence for my taste, but I recognize that it was not meant to be an academic work. More distressing is how overwhelmingly heterocentric the work is. I recommend it with reservations for readers interested in gender issues for the questions it raises.

This is an interesting study in how jobs have moved from male dominated to female dominated. I wished she had looked to some historical instances of this similar switch. Interesting read.

LibraryThing Early Reviewers book. I think the other reviewers have provided sufficient synopses so I won't go into that. I wanted to like this book but there were things that bothered me. The author backed up her arguments with sweeping generalizations, anecdote, and statistics. Several of her generalizations were stated in repetition in different chapters. Hopefully this is just an editing issue. I was also a bit relieved to get to the end of the book and find references. Hopefully these will be referenced in as footnotes. The final chapter dealing with Korean women was also oddly out of place. If you're going to go global, discuss several countries. Finally, the title and cover: it's too sensationalized and attention-seeking and doesn't accurately reflect the content of the book.

Can one review this book without making a political statement? The previous reviewer says that it is "a terrible book" and cites a whole raft of links to others who agree with her.

I don't agree with her: I don't think this is a terrible book. Indeed I think it is a moderately interesting presentation of some broad demographic trends that have been going on in the US for some time. Women are becoming better educated compared to men than they used to be, not just relatively but absolutely. Women are making up a larger percentage of the professions (at least up to a certain level), and women are moving into some job areas that used to be men's work. And, less positively, more and more women are opting for single motherhood -- as in most wealthy countries.

To extend these trends to "The End of Men", however, is carrying the arguement way too far. Statistical evidence shows that even if some women in some places are narrowing the pay gap, women as a whole are not. And women are taking in more of the burden of child rearing than they did in the past, when they worked less. Moreover, some of the relative economic shifts that Ms. Rosen notes probably have more to do with cyclical developments (a bad recession that slammed construction) than with any sort of gender regime shift.

Given the continued pay gap, and the continued lack of female representation at the top of most organizational pyramids, Ms. Rosin's title looks way overblown. Some of her critics may fear that her arguments give comfort to those who say, for example, that affirmative action for women is not needed.

It is always tempting to dismiss arguments entirely if parts of those arguments are suspect. It is particularly tempting when some of the political implications of the argument go in directions that are troubling to, for example, feminists. (As an old feminist who spent a career in Wall Street, I have trouble with the end of men view -- there, I knew I couldn't review this book without making a political statement).

But the book is still worth reading. Women are improving their relative position, gradually, and this is a trend with social implications that deserve consideration. By taking (at least in her title) an extreme view, Ms. Rosin has certainly cranked up discussion of the topic of how social and economic roles are changing. That's a contribution.½

[The End of Men and the Rise of Women] by [[Hanna Rosin]]

We've all watched employment/unemployment trends and the effect of the end of the Industrial Age with interest and, some, with fear. Rosin focuses on the idea that strength and brawn are no longer necessary in the new technological age, and that people skills are more valuable. That means specifically, that with service and information being the current commodity, social intelligence, open communication and an ability to sit still and focus have increased in importance as employment and valuable work skills. These are all areas in which women equal and often excel over men in skill.

While reading the first part of the book, I felt sad, as the mother of a man, the wife of a man, and the daughter of a man. It was rather depressing seeing the statistics about men no longer getting as much formal education as women. The unemployment during this vast social shift may have hit men the hardest as far as self image goes. Because our gender split society has valued men as money makers and women as bodies, (sometimes symbolized by a dollar sign and a Barbie doll), when they lose this money making function, they may and indeed have been, cast aside in some cases. If they aren't bringing home an income, what is their purpose? Many haven't yet become skilled in the functions of homemaking or child raising, which are needed by their families as their wives become the major breadwinners.

However, don't become discouraged - keep reading! There is a happy ending for most. Just as many women have struggled to learn how better to be competitive and function at higher levels as executives, as well as letting go of some of their possessiveness as mothers and letting dads move in more, men have also risen to their challenges. They are learning that letting go of some of the more negative aspects of the macho culture can pay off in deeply emotionally fulfilling roles as fathers and nurturers, as well as partners in marriages. Both men and women are becoming more fulfilled, better adjusted, and less stressed people.

Rosin traces this pattern by examining current day marriages, the struggles of making adjustments, and the rewards of this newer model. She explores how these changes are taking place worldwide by closely examining this phenomenon in Korea and other countries. This new and deeper sharing of both the instrumental as well as expressive functions of working and parenting is paying off financially both for individual couples AND whole countries. Companies taking advantage of more women in their higher ranks are finding themselves prospering as they become more creative and innovative.

When I was teaching gender identity development, I emphasized how sexism hurts men, because there has been much written already about how it hurts women. Most people can easily answer the question of how sexism hurts women. This is a great book that shows not only how sexism has hurt women, but how devastating it has also been for men, and how we are all benefitting from our new movement toward equality.

Although this book covers some complicated research and complicated issues, it is very readable - a great read in fact. It is full of personal stories that illustrate the research presented. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed reading "The End of Men". I thought it was well-written and served as the thought-provoker I think Rosin intended. I'm not completely convinced that women have made it as far as she reports but I do see examples of the phenomena she covers in my sector of the world. I would recommend this book to others.

This is a terrible book. And I'm not the only one who thinks so

http://prospect.org/article/its-not-end-men-0

http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/men-at-work-objecting-the-end-of-men-and...

http://familyinequality.wordpress.com/

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/11/men_arent_ending/½

I found this book fascinating, even if the ideas behind it go against other well documented research and statistics. I was a bit distracted in my reading as the media world took on her book. All in all, it was nice to read a book that spoke to the plight of women in the workforce today, from their success to their struggles.½

It is an interesting topic but I didn't feel that the book was very rigorously researched. There were may sweeping generalizations. I felt unsatisfied by the lack of depth.

The topic is certainly interesting. Strangely, though, Ms. Rosin seems to disclaim being deliberately provocative - for instance, she ends the introduction with "For the moment, all I can say for sure is: There is no 'natural' order, only the way things are." That said, I interpreted a common theme in the chapters: women are grafting both positive and negative aspects of masculinity onto themselves while men become passive non-entities. Kind of depressing, actually. Of course, I'm not sure how much I believe Ms. Rosin's conclusions. The anecdotal evidence she used just seemed so extreme, full of emotionally twisted workaholic fembots dating - but not marrying! - idle layabout amoeba-men. She referenced various studies in sociology and anthropology and whatnot, but she only seemed to make cursory use of them: quoting single sentences in the end notes for example. By the way, I hate endnotes. Footnotes, publishers, footnotes. Anyway, there wasn't anything that looked to me like data analysis with oomph. Also, the writing style was a cross between conversational and what I can only call "lib arts undergrad term paper", which fairly or not triggers my suspicion that she's making conclusions her data doesn't support.

But like I said, it's an interesting topic. I've actually had two women - one a licensed engineer with two children and a stay-at-home househusband, and thus presumably the sort of woman Ms. Rosin's calling typical - ask me to loan the book to them, "to see if I can see myself in it" they said. May they have better luck than I did, because I sure didn't see myself having much in common with the book's examples of men. Although really that's a good thing: let the best man win, after all.