Man-Bashing

In the comments on my last post Elizabeth asked whether anyone else had noticed the man-bashing. Given the level of discussion, I suspect that many of us are not finding the book worth reading. So here is the short version from pages 155-157 for those who would like to chime in.

Black or white, married women agree that, more than occasionally, the men they most love are, well, just plain impossible. More than once, out of the blue, a woman has said to me, "You know, the trouble with men is that they always want to be with you." And it matters not at all that she is echoing an oft-heard complaint that men file against women.

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But then, I would have trouble thinking of a woman I know, of any age, class, color, or ethnicity, who has a family and does not consider time alone in her own house a luxury. An old friend of my mother blurted out that her dream was to be alone, pull the shades, strip off her clothes, and eat a pint of ice cream without interruption. Michale, like many other husbands, wants companionship and attention at home--just to have Martha sit next to him to watch the news or something like that. "He really needs that." His desire for her company makes it difficult for her to just shut herself "in the other room and do schoolwork."

Martha recently confessed that one of her pet peeves was Michael's tendency to interrupt without apparent thought to what she might be doing: "It just kills me. I'm busy in the kitchen and he'll see something on television and he'll say, 'Hey, Martha, come here,' as if I'm not doing anything." But if the tables are turned, if he has work to do, "then you've got to leave him alone. You can't go near him." And I have yet to meet a woman of any race at any level of income or education who does not agree. Men just never seem to understand that women need privacy as much as they do.

For as long as anyone can remember, women have had their lists of the ways in which men who claim to be serious adults behave like thoughtless boys. Martha Miller thinks her husband even shops like a boy.

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Countless women in all income brackets, like their grandmothers and mothers before them, patiently and impatiently share complaints about men's incorrigible thoughtlessness: Men talk through women's silences as if women had no private thoughts; men never assume their full share of domestic responsibilities; men flip the television channel in the middle of something you are watching. But like the many other women who complain knowingly of men's predictable failings, we could not wait to get home, and, to many people's amazement, each of us expected to have dinner waiting for us on the table.

What do you think?