Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care

According to columnist Parker, men are an endangered species struggling against everything from mere hostility to literal emasculation. Starting in elementary school, where a teacher “most likely a feminist” will demand that boys sit still and listen and continuing through college, where freshmen must endure rape awareness workshops, men are besieged by disrespect. Belittled by bumbling portrayals in sitcoms, their importance as fathers is so devalued that they are perceived as little more than “sperm and a wallet.” Parker trots out the usual suspects—“mass culture,” unspecified “feminists,” The Vagina Monologues , Murphy Brown, metrosexuals and “girlymen”—to propose that a “feminist” campaign is afoot and eager to effeminize, denigrate and destroy American men. Although Parker's deliberate provocations make for lively reading, the majority of her claims are too fanciful and unsubstantiated to be genuinely thought provoking or even interesting (erectile dysfunction is caused by “young, sexually aggressive women”; women serving in the army put the nation at risk). Parker makes a poor conspiracy theorist, and her statistics and unverifiable theories are unable to make her case, however vehement or entertaining their presentation. (June)