… if anybody is going to be liberated, it’s men who must be liberated in this country. – Barbara Jordan
I don’t know the context of Jordan’s remark, but I tend to agree. Susan Faludi’s book “Stiffed” is a chronicle of our disappointment and disenfranchisement:
“By century’s end, the dictates of a consumer and media culture had trapped both men and women in a world in which top billing mattered more than building, in which representation trumped production, in which appearances were what counted. The commercialized, ornamental ‘femininity’ that the women’s movement diagnosed now has men by the throat. Men and women both feel cheated of lives in which they might have contributed to a social world; men and women both feel pushed into roles that are about little more than displaying prettiness or prowess in the marketplace. Women were pushed first, but now their brothers have joined that same forced march.”
Jonathon Miles, in a Salon review of “Stiffed” wrote:
“Search the back pages of any men’s magazine and you’ll find a burst of glossy ads for hair-growth creams, penis enlargers, videotaped sex lessons: a host of bulletins alerting men to a sad litany of their flaws — in the same way women are still badgered about, say, cellulite — and offering quick, high-priced fixes. But then, truth to tell, one doesn’t even need to turn the pages that far back; the features themselves reveal the shift in emphasis.”