Hanna Rosin
Author of The End of Men: And the Rise of Women
Works by Hanna Rosin
Das Ende der Männer 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1970
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Stuyvesant High School, New York, New York, USA
Stanford University - Occupations
- journalist
- Organizations
- The New Republic
The Atlantic Monthly
Slate - Relationships
- Plotz, David (husband)
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Israel
- Places of residence
- Queens, New York, USA
Washington, D.C., USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
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Reviews
I had a real problem with this book. Not just its premise, though that bothered me; it was the technique. This book purports to be journalism on social science research, but it isn't. The author has a weird agenda based in an outlook on gender relations that is inherently combative, as though civil rights are a zero sum game. She identifies as feminist but this is not a point of view expressed by any modern feminists I know or read. The combativeness, as though it would be impossible to move show more toward a feminist world without hurting men, permeates and makes this hard to read.
In addition, I have a real problem with the way that Rosin describes much of the research summarized in this book. She briefly cites Armstrong & Hamilton as evidence of the lack of harm and power of women in so-called college hookup culture, but Armstrong & Hamilton's work -- both articles and their book, Paying for the Party -- is much more complex and nuanced than here. They would not subscribe to the views Rosin espouses. Similarly, Edin's work on marriage values and childbearing among low-income women is so much more complex than the short shrift it's given here. Anyone familiar with the literature on this topic will find Rosin's book far from compelling in its presentation, much less get to her very problematic conclusion.
Meanwhile there are random comments that simply don't make sense. She offhandedly dismisses that the Christian Right wants to restrict women's reproductive rights. Perhaps she is unaware how many states have passed restrictions on this in recent years? This is not something that can simply be dismissed.
I would have enjoyed interacting with a cogent opinion to which I don't subscribe, but this was so poorly argued that it just doesn't get there. Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the sociology literature will be especially appalled. show less
In addition, I have a real problem with the way that Rosin describes much of the research summarized in this book. She briefly cites Armstrong & Hamilton as evidence of the lack of harm and power of women in so-called college hookup culture, but Armstrong & Hamilton's work -- both articles and their book, Paying for the Party -- is much more complex and nuanced than here. They would not subscribe to the views Rosin espouses. Similarly, Edin's work on marriage values and childbearing among low-income women is so much more complex than the short shrift it's given here. Anyone familiar with the literature on this topic will find Rosin's book far from compelling in its presentation, much less get to her very problematic conclusion.
Meanwhile there are random comments that simply don't make sense. She offhandedly dismisses that the Christian Right wants to restrict women's reproductive rights. Perhaps she is unaware how many states have passed restrictions on this in recent years? This is not something that can simply be dismissed.
I would have enjoyed interacting with a cogent opinion to which I don't subscribe, but this was so poorly argued that it just doesn't get there. Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with the sociology literature will be especially appalled. show less
I recognize and have experienced the shift in American society that Rosin writes about. There is a real question about how we construct our relationships and the role women can select, at any age. I am a divorced, 50-something mother of two who has a wonderful partner and a very fulfilling life (the ex immediately got remarried, as men do very quickly after claiming marriage "isn't right for them"). Truthfully, the marriage wasn't that great for me (career-wise and certainly emotionally, show more though I have two gorgeous children), and I see no point in the future when my new partner and I will marry. I have an almost visceral rejection of the "obligation" of caring for yet another human, as my children become independent (and the shadow of my mother's and other's care looms). I have to cook more, clean more, entertain more, curtail the "wearing of the comfy pants," etc.
Maybe it is dropping estrogen, but I feel newly empowered to choose -- what do I want -- what works for me? I know men need women more (see above about cooking, cleaning and entertaining). My relationship is not built on economic inequality -- my partner is stable, a great dad, etc. But do I really want to put on the old coat of "marriage," with all that implies? Not that he has brought it up -- but I know that if I said I wanted this, it would happen. I am the one in control (for a long while I ascribed this to the "not head over heels in love" issue, but I think this question goes much deeper).
That said, there is a core of this book which I think is deeply wrong -- sure, women have different skills than men, and perhaps we are more collaborative, intuitive, and can "sit still and focus," as Rosin puts it (5). BUT that is a very dangerous road and one that I am exploring in a YA trilogy I am writing. That doesn't lead to "women are more peaceful, ecofriendly, collaborative, "good." That means they are humans who use a different skill set, but can still end up in an awfully dangerous place. Rosin gets around to this eventually:
So, she cites zero evidence for a "new breed" or murderers (I think this has always been there). But the point is valid -- "traditional" roles has a place in space and time that has changed. So what works now?
Rosin quotes someone who foresaw a dystopia of mass-produced boys that would "lock women into second-class status." (12) My Trilogy has exactly the opposite scenario -- mass-produced girls who have locked men into containments and plan to eliminate them all together.
But there is lots of weird stuff in this book:
1. Feminist progress is largely dependent on hook-up culture" (21) Wha???? Not at Duke, where sexual assault is epidemic and retains the disgusting rot of male privilege and violence.
2. I don't buy that male privilege and abusive porn culture is something women just shrug at -- it is pervasive, determined and shapes what young women think sex looks like (or what they should expect from sex -- anal, cum on face, multiple simultaneous partners, etc.) See Make Love Not Porn .
3. Women may have "hearts of steel" (29) but they are still woefully underrepresented in the echelons of financial and political power Rosin writes about. Is having a heart of steel or an easy way with blow jobs really helping them or is it just another version of subservience?
It's a good topic, but I agree with other readers that too much of it is anecdotal or very superficial. As someone who teaches at one of the universities mentioned (Duke) I am horrified by what my students face (male and female, gay and straight, since the violent assault culture shapes all of their views of college and life). Times are changing but not fast enough; and a female-led society is no guarantee of fairness, sustainability or peace. show less
Maybe it is dropping estrogen, but I feel newly empowered to choose -- what do I want -- what works for me? I know men need women more (see above about cooking, cleaning and entertaining). My relationship is not built on economic inequality -- my partner is stable, a great dad, etc. But do I really want to put on the old coat of "marriage," with all that implies? Not that he has brought it up -- but I know that if I said I wanted this, it would happen. I am the one in control (for a long while I ascribed this to the "not head over heels in love" issue, but I think this question goes much deeper).
That said, there is a core of this book which I think is deeply wrong -- sure, women have different skills than men, and perhaps we are more collaborative, intuitive, and can "sit still and focus," as Rosin puts it (5). BUT that is a very dangerous road and one that I am exploring in a YA trilogy I am writing. That doesn't lead to "women are more peaceful, ecofriendly, collaborative, "good." That means they are humans who use a different skill set, but can still end up in an awfully dangerous place. Rosin gets around to this eventually:
A more female-dominated society does not necessarily translate into a soft feminine utopia. Women are becoming more aggressive and even violent in ways we once thought were exclusively reserved for men. This drive shows up in a new breed of female murderers, and also in a rising class of young female "killers" on Wall Street. Whether the shift can be attributed to women now being socialized differently, or whether it's simply an artifact of our having misunderstood how women are "hardwired" in the first place, is at this point unanswerable, and makes no difference. ... there is no "natural" order, only the way things are. (10)
So, she cites zero evidence for a "new breed" or murderers (I think this has always been there). But the point is valid -- "traditional" roles has a place in space and time that has changed. So what works now?
Rosin quotes someone who foresaw a dystopia of mass-produced boys that would "lock women into second-class status." (12) My Trilogy has exactly the opposite scenario -- mass-produced girls who have locked men into containments and plan to eliminate them all together.
But there is lots of weird stuff in this book:
1. Feminist progress is largely dependent on hook-up culture" (21) Wha???? Not at Duke, where sexual assault is epidemic and retains the disgusting rot of male privilege and violence.
2. I don't buy that male privilege and abusive porn culture is something women just shrug at -- it is pervasive, determined and shapes what young women think sex looks like (or what they should expect from sex -- anal, cum on face, multiple simultaneous partners, etc.) See Make Love Not Porn .
3. Women may have "hearts of steel" (29) but they are still woefully underrepresented in the echelons of financial and political power Rosin writes about. Is having a heart of steel or an easy way with blow jobs really helping them or is it just another version of subservience?
It's a good topic, but I agree with other readers that too much of it is anecdotal or very superficial. As someone who teaches at one of the universities mentioned (Duke) I am horrified by what my students face (male and female, gay and straight, since the violent assault culture shapes all of their views of college and life). Times are changing but not fast enough; and a female-led society is no guarantee of fairness, sustainability or peace. show less
A classic example of the posturing of the Anglo-Saxon middle class ogling at 'public intellectuals' performing like seals in pseudo-debates relying on predictable position-taking.
There is merit in some of Hanna Rosin's analysis of the economics underpinning power shifts between genders but even she is speaking of a game played by the middle classes that scarcely affects the lack of power wielded by most working people of both sexes.
The only one who has something of value to say is the show more redoubtable and ultimately humane Camille Paglia and even she is not at her best in the cheapening format of the public performance debate.
Good basic truths like the need to see men and women as persons who are equally under pressure (Moran) are lost in over-clever grandstanding. I am not sure what the point of Maureen Dowd actually is. Certainly it is not the elucidation of anything meaningful here
These debates purport to be political education but real political education is participative and consultative whereas these events are simply people who often confuse cleverness with genius speaking at or down to an open-mouthed audience of worshippers.
All the jocularity and in-jokes about American politics, cheap debating points and posturing in the end amount to less than a hill of beans. Go direct to Paglia and Rosin and make a judgment on their more considered writings.
Perhaps intended as 'edutainment', these debates are for intellectual lightweights. Here we have very little useful information and if you are entertained by this sort of thing you would probably be a bore at a decent dinner party. Otherwise, don't bother ... show less
There is merit in some of Hanna Rosin's analysis of the economics underpinning power shifts between genders but even she is speaking of a game played by the middle classes that scarcely affects the lack of power wielded by most working people of both sexes.
The only one who has something of value to say is the show more redoubtable and ultimately humane Camille Paglia and even she is not at her best in the cheapening format of the public performance debate.
Good basic truths like the need to see men and women as persons who are equally under pressure (Moran) are lost in over-clever grandstanding. I am not sure what the point of Maureen Dowd actually is. Certainly it is not the elucidation of anything meaningful here
These debates purport to be political education but real political education is participative and consultative whereas these events are simply people who often confuse cleverness with genius speaking at or down to an open-mouthed audience of worshippers.
All the jocularity and in-jokes about American politics, cheap debating points and posturing in the end amount to less than a hill of beans. Go direct to Paglia and Rosin and make a judgment on their more considered writings.
Perhaps intended as 'edutainment', these debates are for intellectual lightweights. Here we have very little useful information and if you are entertained by this sort of thing you would probably be a bore at a decent dinner party. Otherwise, don't bother ... show less
In the event you've been in a media blackout since July 2010, Rosin originally wrote an article for The Atlantic under the same sensationalist title (a title which she apologizes for as the book dedication; perhaps that's when you should rethink your marketing strategy?). Said article was one of a rash of journalism-lite pieces proclaiming the 2008 recession a "he-cession" and suggesting that as male unemployment rose it was women who stood to gain in both economic opportunity and political show more and social power. "The End of Men" painted a bleak picture of a future "matriarchy" in which high-powered, controlling women run the world while their college dropout loser husbands hang out with soiled toddlers ignoring the responsibilities of grown-up life. The End of Men is essentially a book-length elaboration on this apocalyptic vision of an upturned gender binary that -- rather than creating space for more egalitarian, gender-independent relationships -- merely reverses the stark hierarchy of the most aggressive patriarchal society.
...The strange beings who populate The End of Men appear to have no inner life or motivation beyond fulfilling (or overcoming) the fact of their gender. Religious beliefs or social justice values? A sense of how, as an individual, the person wants to shape a meaningful life? What sort of parent they want to be, where their creative passion lies, none of this matters. The only value any being in Rosinland seems to possess is monetary, and whether their monetary fortunes go up or down seems to be a question of how skillfully they perform gender. The women who populate Rosinland are a breed of Amazonian high-achievers whose interest in people with penes seems wholly dependent on their material utility (and possibly their genetic matter and/or ability to provide fucks on a somewhat regular basis). She actually invokes Charlotte Perkins Gilman's embarrassingly racist Herland as a literary example of the world she believes we're charging toward.
And cites it as a victory for the feminist agenda. Once again, I failed to get that memo.
Because Rosin thinks women only want men for their economic assets, she is obviously puzzled by the couples she encounters where women are (for example) pursuing advanced degrees while their partners are content with a quieter life. In Rosinland, deliberately picking a low-key job in order to have time to go fishing with your buddies, play video games, or (gasp!) be a stay-at-home dad are sneer-worthy life choices.
Excuse me for living, but men are hardly the only ones to value friendships and leisure time, fandoms and family over a high-paying career that might bring in over $100k per year but demand eighty hours per week in return. I kept waiting for The End of Men to take me on a tour of hetero relationships that have found equitable footing (I know a number of them!), where the partners actually, you know, care about one another as people rather than monitoring their significant other for how well they're fulfilling a prescribed social role. Yet in Rosinland these relationships do not exist.
Read the rest at: http://annajcook.blogspot.com/2012/09/booknotes-end-of-men.html show less
...The strange beings who populate The End of Men appear to have no inner life or motivation beyond fulfilling (or overcoming) the fact of their gender. Religious beliefs or social justice values? A sense of how, as an individual, the person wants to shape a meaningful life? What sort of parent they want to be, where their creative passion lies, none of this matters. The only value any being in Rosinland seems to possess is monetary, and whether their monetary fortunes go up or down seems to be a question of how skillfully they perform gender. The women who populate Rosinland are a breed of Amazonian high-achievers whose interest in people with penes seems wholly dependent on their material utility (and possibly their genetic matter and/or ability to provide fucks on a somewhat regular basis). She actually invokes Charlotte Perkins Gilman's embarrassingly racist Herland as a literary example of the world she believes we're charging toward.
And cites it as a victory for the feminist agenda. Once again, I failed to get that memo.
Because Rosin thinks women only want men for their economic assets, she is obviously puzzled by the couples she encounters where women are (for example) pursuing advanced degrees while their partners are content with a quieter life. In Rosinland, deliberately picking a low-key job in order to have time to go fishing with your buddies, play video games, or (gasp!) be a stay-at-home dad are sneer-worthy life choices.
Excuse me for living, but men are hardly the only ones to value friendships and leisure time, fandoms and family over a high-paying career that might bring in over $100k per year but demand eighty hours per week in return. I kept waiting for The End of Men to take me on a tour of hetero relationships that have found equitable footing (I know a number of them!), where the partners actually, you know, care about one another as people rather than monitoring their significant other for how well they're fulfilling a prescribed social role. Yet in Rosinland these relationships do not exist.
Read the rest at: http://annajcook.blogspot.com/2012/09/booknotes-end-of-men.html show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Awards
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