The Male Paradox--: Why Men Feel Like the Weaker Sex and How the Struggle Between Sexuality And.......

Men, Ross surmises, wish for what they fear the most: love, oneness and emotionality, all of which they stereotypically associate with women. A clinical psychologist who teaches at the Cornell and New York University medical centers, Ross presents numerous case histories of men who sabotage themselves or are terrified of self-assertion. His readable, popularly written study analyzes straying husbands' hidden resentment of their wives; probes the regressive defiance of newly divorced men; incisively portrays incestuous fathers as infantile males who betray and degrade victims in whom they see their own childish selves; and sifts the angers and fears triggered by such ordeals as job loss, severe illness, persistent sexual failure and the care of a disabled child. His party-line psychoanalytic view that homosexual men subconsciously fear effeminization and pulverization by women is highly debatable, but in almost all other areas Ross unmasks the essential vulnerability behind male posturing with rare insight and sensitivity. (Oct.)