What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future

by Rebecca Walker

Hardcover, 2004

Status

Available

Call number

GEND Walk

Publication

Riverhead Hardcover (2004), Edition: 1St Edition, 272 pages

Description

One of Timemagazine's 50 Future Leaders of America brings together novelists, essayists, men, and women to talk about the future of masculinity. What does it mean to be male in the twenty-first century? What does the concept of masculinity even mean in the wake of four decades of modern feminism? What makes a man a man today and a woman a woman? Are those distinctions even real anymore? In this groundbreaking collection, Michael Datcher, Michael Moore, Anthony Swofford, Ruth Bettelheim, and a whole host of the world's most influential authors address these questions and many others. Through diverse themes that touch all of our lives-including sex, grief, power, money, family, privilege, violence, marriage, and work-these accomplished contributors lend their unique perspectives as they share their thoughts, experiences, and stories on forging new men and defining masculinity in a constantly changing world. Rebecca Walker's feminist anthology, To Be Real, published nearly a decade ago, is a standard text in women's studies courses across the country. Considered one of the defining texts of contemporary feminism, To Be Realsuccessfully bridged chasms between generations and ideologies. Similarly revolutionary and challenging in scope, What Makes a Manwill be the first book to articulate and define the contours and concerns of a new generation of men.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Seven.Stories.Press
I am (obviously) not a man, but I am raising two boys, and so I bought this book wanting to learn a little more about the struggles that come with being and/or becoming a "man" in contemporary society. I was surprised that some of the essays are written by women (though, of course, Rebecca Walker
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is the editor), and some of the pieces didn't strike me as interesting as others, but Jay Ruben Dayrit's Pigfarm, Caitriona Reed's Not a Man, and Meri Nana-ama Danquah's Men Holding Hands made the anthology completely worth reading. I think there's always something touching about realizing men -- whom I've been taught are "tough" and "don't care" about feelings -- struggle with the same issues of introspection, self-reflection, and self-actualization that I encounter in my daily life. This book reminds me that even though we are so different, many of our struggles are human and, therefore, know no gender.
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Language

Original language

English

ISBN

1573222690 / 9781573222693

Rating

(9 ratings; 3.2)
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