It’s time someone addressed this subject. Men are being made disposable and women are being forced to become something they were not meant to be. Under the sub-title “Sex, Love, and Money — Your World Through Darwin’s Eyes,” the author divides the sexes into hunters and gatherers. This important division runs through the book.
This study is divided into four sections following a chronological organization. It starts with the Big Bang and moves on into the future. In 287 pages the study attempts to prove — ”The individual and collective detachment from our natural heritage is the primary culprit behind the marginalization of men, the overburdening of women, and the failing of modern relationships.”
This handbook looks at the current situation in which the man is pretty much an appendage. It sees men as the hunters of old. They would go out. Get the food. Bring it home. The women were gatherers. They would prepare the food. Cook it. Carry the child in the womb. Take care of the child.
What we see today is the woman can go out and be the hunter. She can get a job. Provide for the family. Yet she must also be the gatherer. Get pregnant. Carry the child. In fact, today, all she needs is the sperm, not the father. Technology has made it that easy. The woman has the pill. If she should decide she doesn’t want the child she has the right to an abortion and she doesn’t have to tell her husband or sperm donor about it. He has no rights, yet he has the responsibility to pay for the child even if it is not his; it is her word against his.
We may hear the cry of feminism. The author is clear that the American feminist movement dates back to 1848 when the feminist activists at that time argued for: “Equality under the law, the right to vote, full access to education, the woman’s right not to work, to stay home and weave the social fabric.” So much was lost, according to the author, in the second wave of feminism emerging in the 1960s which put a new spin on it. The woman was empowered. She became a separate class of victimized citizens.
Gilbert points out, “If there is nothing special about femininity, there’s no need to make masculinity special either. Women can now go to war and fight and die along side the men.”
Also, they can go to work now at unisex offices. “The unisex office serves only to further confound the confused male, who is born a bit bewildered and reared around neutered schoolrooms and playing fields.
“Unable to detect or unwilling to admit to distinct inclinations between men and women, sexual dynamics in the workplace open up another playpen for social and legal agitation,” the author points out. “Under current interpretations, harassment can be reduced to just about anything that creates feelings of displeasure or embarrassment.”
This is the point of the book. We, as a society, are evolving and sometimes the evolution is not beneficial. “In its’ purest interpretation, evolution dictates no particular outcome,” the author points out. There is a price to pay.
This handbook is a good start to understanding what should be done.
Michael Gilbert is a Santa Monica Resident.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2007. Read the original PDF.