Books reviews, current events, and other musings

In The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment, Barbara Ehrenreich traces how American men have viewed relationships, from the 1950's until the book's publication in 1983. The traditional expectations were quite well-defined.

By the 1950s and '60s psychiatry had developed a massive weight of theory establishing that marriage - and within that, the breadwinner role - was the only normal state for the adult male.

Ehrenreich analyzes the subsequent developments that altered those expectations. Some men felt stifled by the corporate lifestyle, their discontent expressed in The Organization Man and The Lonely Crowd. Playboy presented a hedonistic alternative to family life. The Beats, such as Jack Kerouac, rejected the responsibilities of being a provider. Doctors started linking heart disease among men to their high-stress work lives. New Age psychology movements and the counterculture of the 1960's each influenced how men viewed their role in society. The emergence of an openly gay subculture led to greater public acceptance of homosexuality, while allowing straight men to diverge from masculine stereotypes without being considered gay.

However, these factors don't fully explain how the male perspective has changed since the 50's. The image of men as breadwinners persists, though it has weakened somewhat. Since our social framework evolved significantly over the last two decades, a more recent book like Susan Faludi's Stiffed contains a better depiction of the current situation. Still, Hearts of Men does include an insightful critique of the women in the anti-feminist movement, many of whom are afraid that once women have equal rights, men will stop providing the financial support they depend on.