The book is called Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys. The author is Kay Hymowitz, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to City Journal. She talks to National Review Online’s Kathryn Lopez of men who won’t grow up, and what women have to do with it.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Does Charlie Sheen need to man up?
Kay Hymowitz: Charlie Sheen needs to take a cold shower and take some heavy-duty meds — I mean the kind prescribed by a good psychiatrist, not the kind his dealer has been delivering to him. That said, Sheen is an interesting case of the way mental illness is filtered through culture. Sheen, the fabulously successful star of the series Two and a Half Men, is the extreme, mad incarnation of what I call the child-man — half man, half adolescent, reluctant to give up the pleasures of youth. Sheen is obviously far more noxious than the versions of the child-man in, say, Judd Apatow movies, but he’s not so far removed from Tucker Max. Max, for those who have never had the pleasure, is the (million-copy) best-selling author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, a chronicle of his drunken hook-ups, hotel-room trashing, and adventures on the toilet — and, even worse, off it.
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Lopez: Two and a Half Men actually does play into your book. Why is it important?
Hymowitz: Like so many Hollywood products, Two and a Half Men operates on two levels: conscious and fantasy. On the conscious level, we are laughing at Charlie’s immaturity, his good-natured misogyny, and his goofy narcissism. On the fantasy level, however, we find him immensely attractive. Men do, because they like imagining themselves as free and irresponsible, yet never lacking for the attentions of gorgeous, beddable women. Women viewers, on the other hand, love the bad boy, especially one they think might be redeemable by a good woman such as themselves.
Women’s continued attraction to the bad boy, by the way, is a source of much bitterness among young men. A lot of them feel that they’ve played by the rules they learned growing up — treat women as equals, be sensitive to their needs, etc. — yet, when it comes down to it, women often prefer the more exciting, slightly aloof, mysterious, even rebellious risk-taker. You know, like Charlie Sheen.
Lopez: How much are feminists to blame for the mess men’s lives are in today?
Hymowitz: It depends on which side of feminism you mean. I don’t believe that the feminists’ demand that women have a role in the workplace or in politics has to be bad for men.
But there has been a powerful strain of anti-male hostility in feminism. At its worst, it implied that men were all potential child molesters and rapists. More commonly, it appeared as a low-level drone of scorn and mockery. Think of the doofus TV dads — Homer Simpson, Ray Romano — the T-shirts saying, “girls rule, boys drool,” the “strong single mother” who needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, and the insistent chant of girl power. A lot of middle- and upper-middle-class boys got the message that confidence and decisiveness could come across the wrong way. That’s why you sometimes see a kind of passivity and uncertainty in young men. Women have been saved from their self-esteem crisis, assuming it ever existed; now men are the ones who appear to need an intervention.
Lopez: How does a guy man up? And why did I just call him a guy?
Hymowitz: You’ve nailed the problem just by asking the question. Guy — or, a bit more self-consciously, “dude” — is a more comfortable label than “man” because the culture is so ambivalent about men. Unlike men, guys aren’t threatening; they don’t make a big point of their masculinity, or if they do, it’s only to poke fun at it.
How does such a guy man up? That’s the point: No one knows.
Lopez: Aren’t women to blame for the mess their lives are in? They bought into what their foremothers sold them. Even when they saw it didn’t work — divorce, infertility, widespread unhappiness.
Hymowitz: Well, I’m not sure it’s all that much of a mess. The truth is, college-educated women are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than less educated women, though it’s true that because of later marriage they are more likely to suffer from infertility.
What I try to show in Manning Up, however, is they’ve gotten the idea from their parents and teachers that their only life task during their twenties is to build their career — that life’s biggest satisfaction will be pursuing their “passion,” as it is often put, in the workplace. I don’t blame young women for this; these messages were powerful all through their girlhood and adolescence.
"I’ve met wonderfully smart, attractive, successful, and competent 35-year-old single women who are in deep despair as they come to the recognition that they may not find a man they want to marry."
Isn't that the whole point. Perhaps if these women had more realistic expectations they would find a husband but instead they live in their fantasy world of finding a man who is some fantasy amalgam of Einstein, Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen and John Stewart.
HYMOWITZ: "Their parents have taken them on European trips, they’ve given them sushi for lunch, they’ve bought them BlackBerries and iPods and Macs."
Yes, and I know a lot of them, but how big is this demographic really? Ms. Hymowitz needs to get out (from her home office with the dog curled up) a little more and rub elbows with the rest of us.
And bring back the math quiz. That was so way cooler than the Image Verification captcha. It was, in fact, unique to NRO.
I'm just older than that (40s) but I'm also tired of the man-child. Many men of my generation married early, had kids, then got divorced for whatever reason about the time they hit 40. Now they want to relive their 20s with partying, motorcycles and endless hookups instead of putting their children first and trying to build a stable home for them. I blame feminism for most of this, but agree with many of the assertions of the author. It's a sad state of affairs for everyone.
Too bay Ms. Horowitz and Miss Lopez never heard of Spengler’s Universal Law of Gender Parity: “In every corner of the world and in every epoch of history, the men and women of every culture deserve each other.”
Disappointed NRO has become just another male bashing site.
"Einstein, Brad Pitt, Charlie Sheen and John Stewart"
WOW -- I wouldn't want any of those!
If MichaelK is right that some women are looking for that, (and I don't know if he is because I'm long out of the "market") then Amen to the rest of his comment.
"How does such a guy man up? That’s the point: No one knows."
No, we know.
The question Hymowitz, Gottlieb, Lopez, Parker, et al can't answer is "why"?
Except because "well, women want men to marry". Nice to know, I want lots of things too but I don't go around demanding others change to give it to me. Woman have yet to give a reason for men to "man up" and given we don't naturally have one, that's important.
Towards the end of the interview Hymowitz even admits this:
"As I put it in the book, pre-adulthood is in tension with women’s biology not with men’s."
I'll even go a step further. The modern single mom arrangement does meet men's biological desires for children without requiring them to give up their freedom. Women wanted freedom from marriage and having gotten it they realized freedom from marriage is much more enjoyable for men. Now they want men to give up that freedom but you can't unring a bell.
@MichaelK: What's revealing is Hymowitz has sympathy for that single young woman because she couldn't find anyone to marry but none for the many men who approached that same woman in her twenties offering just what she wanted and were rejected, often cruelly, for a variety of reasons.
Read Gottlieb's "Marry Him" for one woman's admission of as much. In fact, she includes a note from one woman in the same situation, single and unhappy about it pushing 40, who admits in her twenties it was fun to make men jump through hoops before rejecting them.
Yet it is the woman who, having done all that, that is worthy of the greater sympathy.
And then we get articles about "where did all the good men go".
My wife first heard about this book on CSPAN (let's hear it for dorky women) and told me about it. Although I haven't read Hymowitz's books (yet), I have to say I generally agree with her observations in this interview.
In my personal and professional life I am surrounded by men like the ones she describes. However I do worry about defining "manhood" narrowly along an axis of marriage. There are such things as puerile husbands and mature bachelors.
Michael K, I am not sure that men's expectations are any less unrealistic. How many guys are looking for a hot, motherly, subservient, outspoken, petite, make-you-want-to-cheat-with-her-but-she'll-never-cheat-on-you kind of woman? We are no less riddled with contradictions when it comes to what we want.
@Beardless Viking: "Michael K, I am not sure that men's expectations are any less unrealistic. "
I would say observation says men are more realistic even if their fantasy woman is no more realistic than a woman's fantasy man.
Why do I say that? How long does a man who genuinely wants to get married have to look before he does? How long does a woman?
How many mainstream books and articles are there telling men to have more reasonable expectations or wondering where did all the good women go?
Yet without even trying I can name multiples of both for the above if the genders are reversed.
Do men fantasized as much as women? Yes. Do men expect the world to provide that to the point of rejecting people who hit 9 out of 10, much less 7 out of 10, until they're single and 40 and wondering where all the decent women went? No so much.
Why? Maybe it's the hangover from the "you can have it all" attitude young girls have been feed from birth from the 80s on. Maybe it's biology. But the reality is women cling to the fantasy much more than men.
It seems to me that part of the problem is that parents have told their kids to "follow their passions" and to enjoy their youth while they have it. They have not emphasised personal and familial responsibilities. They have not been prepared by their parents to be adults. They have been encouraged to remain children and to pursue their own selfish interests.
This may be an outgrowth of the high divorce rates in their parents generation but it manifests in many ways.
I have a female friend in her late 40's who has remained unmarried. Why? She can't find a man. She's had lovers but she can't commit. Why? Her expectations are unrealistic, though she can't see that. She wants what she wants when she wants it and expects to be accepted as she is but will not accept the "man" for who he is.
Other women I know have married because it was time to marry and expected their husband to do all the heavy lifting and to treat her like a princess. When reality hits, they blame their husband instead of taking responsibility for their own role in the partnership.
I have known men who have wilfully refused to grow up. The thought of committing to one woman and having responsibility for their joint life and any children that may come from their union, terrified them. They felt inadequate and not up to the challenge. They felt unprepared for the responsibility.
I have also known other men who rush into marriage because they want the stability of a loving relationship but have chosen poorly; it as if they were desperate for their own Prince Charming fantasy but their princess turns out to be a spoiled brat.
I am married for over 20 years and neither one of us expected marriage to change us as individuals, change our goals, or our dynamic and how we related to each other. We entered the married state with eyes wide open.
All too often, many women I know have married with the delusion that marriage will correct the inadequacies of their partner or fix the problems in their relationship.
What makes men "man-up" is responsiblity. Having someone that depends on them. Given society as it is now there is less need to grow up. Maturity is realizing that you can't do everything when or how you want it and make the trade offs required to reach your goal. When men and women realize the maybe a less than perfect career and less than perfect child rearing timing might just add up to a good life. Perfect is always the enemy of good.
I'm married, 47, four kids, beautiful wife who's never worked, er, never worked "outside the home," as they say.
I've been working 22 years. The first 4 years of my professional life, I had 6 jobs in four cities. Whenever I didn't like what I was doing, or I felt my boss didn't like me, I made a move. I had a wife and a family who were all depending on me. It was that simple.
And the moves were easy. Where I went, my wife and kids went. Her career and her prospects were not an issue; our home life was a priority. Toward that end, both of us loving the south and warm weather, I "restricted" my job search to the southeast and southwest. Otherwise, it was an open field.
Eventually I settled with my current Company, where I've been for 15 years. In two years I'll be fighting for a promotion to lead my department when my boss retires; I may get it, I may not. I will fight for it though.
I'm not rich. Like I said, I've got four kids. We'd "have" a lot more, if my wife got a job. Here's my point for all you youngsters trying to order your priorities:
1. Work is work. Often it's not "fulfilling" and I'm not "passionate" about it; sometimes it's "fulfilling" and I am "passionate" about it. Regardless, it's never as fulfilling as watching my kid hit a baseball or make eagle scout, and I'm never as passionate about my job, as I am about my wife.
And I mean never.
Work is a means to an end, nothing more, nothing less. The end is the welfare of those you love. I'd add, in a religious sense, it's penance but that's not in play right now.
2. As the sole breadwinner, life can be hard, sometimes stresful. One of the by products has been, I save and invest my money. If I lose my job, my family's income drops to zero. It's been a good habit of mine but not a virtue that comes naturally to me; it's one that I adopted out of necessity. In any event, the stress is nothing next to the stress of two incomes, which often compete for primacy (in who gets to travel for work; who takes the kids here, there and everywhere; who's home for the kids; when the vacations happen; who cooks the meals; who cleans the house; who shops for groceries ... and so forth).
3. Joe Sobran once wrote, we used to have love affairs, now we have "relationships." I'd add, "partnerships." It's no wonder. Marriage, such as it is, truly is a utilitarian venture for those who marry but who prize their degrees, careers, "accomplishments". The way I see it, as Shakespeare wrote, "Love's not love when it's mingled with regards entirely aloof from the point."
Stereotypically, marriage used to subtract from men's worries, now it adds to them. Granted the old way was a bad deal for (many) women, we haven't found a new way yet.
Maybe things aren't so bleak after all. I just read Keith Scott's post and it was like reading my own biography. I can fully second his 3-point prescription.
"Manning-up" is about becoming one of the men you always respected.
Regarding TV and the ubiquity of the child-man, I think it is a recent phenomenon. Less than 10 years ago we had Mr. Arnold (Life Goes On) and Corky's dad (the Wonder Years).
@Keith Scott...would there were more men like you. I'm one of those 40-something never marrieds, but I don't think I have unrealistic expectations. I don't want an Einstein (too intense), a Brad Pitt (too pretty) a Charlie Sheen (an idiot) or John Stewart. Ok, well, maybe a little like John Stewart. What I want is a man, a lot like you described yourself. But I want a Christian man who puts God first, one who lives as the brave man God designed him to be, not a pusillanimous nancy boy. That is really hard to find.
I agreed with her up until the part about people who get married under 25 see higher divorce rates. Well, that's only part of the story. Those who get married between 20-25 have a 29 percent divorce rate compared to those 25 + older marriage who have a 25 percent increase, yes it's a difference BUT... It's those who get married under age twenty who have a 40 percent divorce rate. AND, guess what? Those who get married between 20-25 are in the happiest marriages.
