Buecher

Two books I've recently read:

I recommend Ann Crittenden's The Price of Motherhood. She demonstrates quite convincingly, using both social science data and vivid anecdotes, how care, particularly the care of children, is devalued in our society, and how caregivers, particularly mothers of young children, are systematically discriminated against. Depressing, but still an excellent, thoughtful read.

I cannot recommend Stephen Ducat's The Wimp Factor. The book's description makes it sound like a thoughtful psycho-sociological study of men's ideas about gender, and the way these ideas are expressed politically and theologically. Unfortunately, the writing is of extremely poor quality and the 'arguments' are mostly little more than psychoanalytic speculation. While I am inclined to think the author's thesis -- that ideological misogyny is closed tied to a personal gender identity he calls `anxious masculinity' -- is correct, he does a poor job of defending it.