Manning Up

Hymowitz, Kay. Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys. New York: Basic Books, 2011.

This book attempts to answer the question, "Where have all the men gone?" Men are staying boys longer and longer, choosing to live in their parents' basement, playing video games and watching Adam Sandler movies.  So why has this happened? When did men stop being men, and who's to blame for this?

This book was absolutely fascinating.  Hymowitz discusses the "girl power" movement, the rise in popularity of higher education, and the advent of a new stage in life: pre-adulthood, the time between adolescence and true adulthood.   The discussion of the evolution of the alpha-girl and her antithesis, the child-man, illustrates perfectly the phenomenon we have experienced over and over in our society: a good thing, when taken to an extreme, produces unpleasant consequences.  This book is definitely worth checking out of the library.