 | |
| Author | Kathleen Parker |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Gender studies |
| Published | June 2008 (Random House) |
| ISBN | 978-1-4000-6579-0 |
| 306.874/2 | |
| LC Class | HQ1090 .P367 2008 |
Save the Males: Why Men Matter. Why Women Should Care is a book written by Pulitzer Prize winner [1] Kathleen Parker, and was published in 2008 by Random House. The book's main theme is based around the premise that modern feminism isn't what it used to be; in the past, this movement was fighting for the equality of the genders.
Parker claims "as feminism has reached most of the goals of equality... women have become hostile toward men and maleness in what seems to be a spirit of retributive justice." [2] There are arguments for the idea that feminism has transformed from being something that was supposed to help women gain power in society. Instead it has become a tool for modern women to put men down. [2] Using references to popular culture such as Murphy Brown and The Vagina Monologues , Parker points out how the media has slowly begun to portray men as brutish idiots or sexual predators, [3] and the manners in which men are often portrayed today are doing more harm to families than many people realize. Murphy Brown and other shows that glorify the idea of being a single mother are doing a large amount of damage to the idea of the father as a possible caregiver. Ideas like this are used to support the argument that a more progressive, and male inclusive fourth-wave of feminism is in order. [2]
Reviews of Save the Males were mixed. Publishers Weekly said in their review, "Although Parker's deliberate provocations make for lively reading, the majority of her claims are too fanciful and unsubstantiated to be genuinely thought provoking or even interesting." [5] Dylan Hales, writing for the Charleston City Paper, expressed mixed feelings on the book, saying, "Parker's tone jumps wildly from cynicism to seriousness and back again. Her pithy one-liners and sharp-witted observations often make for laughs, but they take away from the serious discussion her book seeks to become a part of. At times, the book comes across like a string of op-ed columns... Parker’s instincts may be right and her prose can be delightful, but the scattershot tone of the book is a weakness." [6] The New York Times's Liesl Schillinger called it "arresting, entertaining and serious". [7] Christine Whelan praised "Kathleen Parker’s sharp and witty criticism of the American male-bashing culture". [8]
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other social divisions such as in race, class, and sexual orientation. The ideology and movement emerged in the 1960s.
Susan Charlotte Faludi is an American feminist, journalist, and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee commended for depicting the "human costs of high finance". She was also awarded the Kirkus Prize in 2016 for In the Darkroom, which was also a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in biography.
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Feminist legal theory, also known as feminist jurisprudence, is based on the belief that the law has been fundamental in women's historical subordination. Feminist jurisprudence the philosophy of law is based on the political, economic, and social inequality of the sexes and feminist legal theory is the encompassment of law and theory connected.The project of feminist legal theory is twofold. First, feminist jurisprudence seeks to explain ways in which the law played a role in women's former subordinate status. Feminist legal theory was directly created to recognize and combat the legal system built primarily by the and for male intentions, often forgetting important components and experiences women and marginalized communities face. The law perpetuates a male valued system at the expense of female values. Through making sure all people have access to participate in legal systems as professionals to combating cases in constitutional and discriminatory law, feminist legal theory is utilized for it all.
Feminist sociology is an interdisciplinary exploration of gender and power throughout society. Here, it uses conflict theory and theoretical perspectives to observe gender in its relation to power, both at the level of face-to-face interaction and reflexivity within social structures at large. Focuses include sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality.
Kathleen Parker is a columnist for The Washington Post. Parker is a consulting faculty member at the Buckley School of Public Speaking, a popular guest on cable and network news programs and a regular guest on NBC's Meet the Press, and previously on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
Since the 19th century, men have taken part in significant cultural and political responses to feminism within each "wave" of the movement. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in a range of social relations, generally done through a "strategic leveraging" of male privilege. Feminist men have also argued alongside writers like bell hooks, however, that men's liberation from the socio-cultural constraints of sexism and gender roles is a necessary part of feminist activism and scholarship.
Jessica Valenti is an American feminist writer. She was the co-founder of the blog Feministing, which she wrote for from 2004 to 2011. Valenti is the author of five books: Full Frontal Feminism (2007), He's a Stud, She's a Slut (2008), The Purity Myth (2009), Why Have Kids? (2012), and Sex Object: A Memoir (2016). She also co-edited the books Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape (2008), and Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World (2020). Between 2014 and 2018, Valenti was a columnist for The Guardian. She currently runs the Abortion, Every Day newsletter on Substack. The Washington Post described her as "one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation".
Sperm donation is the provision by a man of his sperm with the intention that it be used in the artificial insemination or other "fertility treatment" of one or more women who are not his sexual partners in order that they may become pregnant by him. Where pregnancies go to full term, the sperm donor will be the biological father of every baby born from his donations. The man is known as a sperm donor and the sperm he provides is known as "donor sperm" because the intention is that the man will give up all legal rights to any child produced from his sperm, and will not be the legal father. Sperm donation may also be known as "semen donation".
Feminist political theory is an area of philosophy that focuses on understanding and critiquing the way political philosophy is usually construed and on articulating how political theory might be reconstructed in a way that advances feminist concerns. Feminist political theory combines aspects of both feminist theory and political theory in order to take a feminist approach to traditional questions within political philosophy.
Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethics through a holistic feminist approach to transform it.
Feminist views on sexuality widely vary. Many feminists, particularly radical feminists, are highly critical of what they see as sexual objectification and sexual exploitation in the media and society. Radical feminists are often opposed to the sex industry, including opposition to prostitution and pornography. Other feminists define themselves as sex-positive feminists and believe that a wide variety of expressions of female sexuality can be empowering to women when they are freely chosen. Some feminists support efforts to reform the sex industry to become less sexist, such as the feminist pornography movement.
The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's liberation, reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. The movement's priorities have expanded since its beginning in the 1800s, and vary among nations and communities. Priorities range from opposition to female genital mutilation in one country, to opposition to the glass ceiling in another.
Maternal feminism is the belief of many early feminists that women as mothers and caregivers had an important but distinctive role to play in society and in politics. It incorporates reform ideas from social feminism, and combines the concepts of maternalism and feminism. It was a widespread philosophy among well-to-do women in the British Empire, particularly Canada, from the late 19th century until after World War I (1914–18). The concept was attacked by later feminists as accepting the paternalist view of society and providing an excuse for inequality.
Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women is a 2010 non-fiction book written by the American journalist Rebecca Traister and published by Free Press. The book focuses on women's contributions to and experiences of the 2008 United States presidential election. Traister places particular focus on four main political figures—Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Elizabeth Edwards—as well as women in the media, including the journalists Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow, and the comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who portrayed Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, respectively. Traister also describes her personal experience of the electoral campaign and her shift from supporting John Edwards to Hillary Clinton.
Paper abortion, also known as a financial abortion, male abortion or a statutory abort, is the proposed ability of the biological father, before the birth of the child, to opt out of any rights, privileges, and responsibilities toward the child, including financial support. By this means, before a child is born, a man would be able to absolve himself of both the privileges and demands of fatherhood.
Male expendability, the relative expendability argument, or the expendable male hypothesis is the idea that the lives of human males are of less concern to a population than those of human females because they are less necessary for population replacement. Anthropologists have used the concept of male expendibility in their research since the 1970s to study such things as division of labor by gender role, polygyny, and matrilinearity. Men's rights advocates have adopted the idea to explain and defend their own views of society.
He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know is a 2008 book by feminist writer Jessica Valenti. The 244-page work, commenting on 50 double-standards in expectations for women, is Valenti's second book.
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality is a 2021 nonfiction book by journalist Helen Joyce that criticizes the transgender rights movement and transgender activism. It is published by Oneworld Publications, their fifth book in the Sunday Times bestseller list. Reviews of the book ranged from positive to critical.
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism is a 2021 book by Kathleen Stock which explores issues related to transgenderism and feminism. The book reached number 13 on the UK list of best selling non-fiction charts.