Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young argue that since the 1990s men have been portrayed in popular culture as evil, inadequate, or honorary women, from Designing Women, Home Improvement, Oprah, and Cape Fear to Hallmark cards, comic strips, and the New York Times columns of Anna Quindlen. The first of a three-part series, Spreading Misandry offers an impressive critique of popular culture to identify a phenomenon that is just now being recognized as a serious cultural problem - misandry, the sexist counterpart of misogyny.
Nathanson and Young urge us to rethink prevalent assumptions about men that result in profoundly disturbing stereotypes that foster contempt. Spreading Misandry breaks new ground by discussing misandry in moral terms rather than purely psychological or sociological ones and by criticizing not only ideological feminism but other ideologies on both the left and the right.
Review quotes
"Genuinely intelligent and insightful. Spreading Misandry is provocative in the very best sense and will help point the way toward social harmony and away from bickering and fingerpointing." Donna Laframboise, columnist for The National Post and author of The Princess at the Window: A New Gender Morality
"An important book. Nathanson and Young do a good job on introducing the average reader to the positions of various intellectuals as they relate to this moral issue and to moral issues in general." Charles H. Long, emeritus, religious studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
"Spreading Misandry turns the tables on the gender wars. It's not men ganging up on women. It is just the reverse--a long and gradual cultural attack on men. This book is a brilliant and perceptive overstatement, but one that is needed to discover the truth that will heal the rift between the sexes." Don Browning, University of Chicago and co-author of From Culture Wars to Common Ground
Paul Nathanson is a researcher, religious studies, McGill University, and author of Over the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America.
Katherine K. Young is James McGill Professor, religious studies, McGill University. She has published extensively on women's issues and ethics.
