What books would you like others to read?

SirSkeptic · 2015-08-05T11:14:41+00:00

The Myth of Male Power - Warren Farrel

It's the Men's rights 101 primer. He's very fair and describes his own journey from ideological feminist on the board of the National Organization for Women. To uncovering the lies and exaggerations. To his expulsion for asking questions. To taking a fresh look at gender through unclouded eyes. It's a great introduction egalitarianism and he's so even handed that you can't take offense.

We bought 8 copies and gave them to friends families and local school libraries.

GenderNeutralLanguag · 2015-08-05T11:25:46+00:00

Who Stole Feminism - Christina Holf Summers

This book details how where and why feminism went off the rails from what could reasonably be described as a human rights and gender equality movement to the bigotry we see today.

Providence_Island · 2015-08-05T12:45:44+00:00

Sidebar recommends:

The Myth of Male Power - Warren Farrell

The War Against Boys - Christina Hoff Sommers

Who Stole Feminism - Christina Hoff Sommers

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - Steven Pinker

I've heard good things about:

The Privileged Sex

The Second Sexism

Spreading Misandry

No More Sex War

Sex and Culture

My personal interest is anthropology. I would especially recommend:

Hierarchy in the Forest - examines the roots of egalitarian behaviour

Sex at Dawn - examines promiscuity in primitive societies

The Forest People - extensive ethnography of the egalitarian mbuti pygmies

Fragments of an anarchist anthropology - anarchistic tendencies amongst hunter-gatherers

And of course: the collected works of Andrea Dworkin. Know thine enemy.

SantaVirus · 2015-08-05T12:18:10+00:00

Common Sense - Thomas Paine.

I believe this short pamphlet challenges our current society now more than when it was written prior to the American war for independence.

azazelcrowley · 2015-08-05T13:33:11+00:00

About mens rights, or just in general?

The sidebar recommendations are good. But also you can prime people subtly by giving them works of fiction with genderbent roles.

Worm by Wildbow is a good example. (MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.)

It doesn't actually talk about sexism and all that.

It tells a story about supervillains.

But therein lies the subtle priming. It demonstrates male victims of domestic abuse and rape, women serial killers, etc, etc. The main character is a woman, and her love interest eventually becomes PTSD and needs her for support, etc. Crucially it's not a straight up reversal, rather, all these elements are included alongside their traditional counterparts. This prevents people pulling the "Well it's just reversed" shit.

This kind of priming with fictional texts can make it far, far easier to then give them a book about sexism against men in my opinion.

You've just got to get them to accept that it's possible. The quickest way to do that is to throw stats and such at them, but that causes them to lock down.

Far more successful to get them to read a really good work of fiction with a few traditional roles reversed, then talk to them about it. They suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy the story. They let down their defenses.

That's how you get them. Especially if they start really liking the story. Because it means they'll be forced to think the character is unrealistic and the story is stupid if they say that the notion of male victimization is stupid, and that attacks their identity too.

Compiling a list of non-traditional non-feminist gender role depictions would be useful probably.

Wildbows Worm is fantastic and all, but I don't think he'd want to be associated with any political movement. He's a fiction writer and pretty much sticks to that. But i'm sure some of you have already considered some potential books.

Since i've already started talking about it, let me take off my MRA hat and put on my nerd one.

Ohmygodyouguys, wildbows worm, just, ohmygod. Best novel ever.

My taking hostages like this? It had been my idea, so help me. As horrible as it was, it had been necessary. The worst case scenario was some regular schmuck in the ____ pulling some stunt and getting themselves or others hurt or killed. I couldn't let that happen, if I was in a position to help it. If it meant keeping them quiet and out of the way, I was willing to terrorize them.

"Doing the wrong things for the right reasons."

(ok, so i gave out two minor spoilers. Hopefully that's enough of a hook. )

Other than that one and the sidebars, like I said, go for gender reversed portrayals of victimhood and shove that at them. It'll open them up to the idea.

MRSPArchiver · 2015-08-05T10:33:13+00:00

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WaitingToBeBanned · 2015-08-05T13:52:44+00:00

Oxford English Dictionary.

MonkeyCB · 2015-08-05T15:50:43+00:00

Not a book, but a research paper. "Fate of empires". It's a good TL:DR on history and how women were never oppressed, just that the nations/empires where women were treated equally eventually collapsed.

pokemon_fetish · 2015-08-05T16:36:34+00:00

Not listed on the reading suggestions on this sub are:

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker and One Nation Under Therapy by Christina Hoff Sommers

jb_trp · 2015-08-05T18:42:15+00:00

Essential reading (and listening):

The Myth of Male Power - Warren Farrell

The War Against Boys - Christina Hoff Sommers

Who Stole Feminism - Christina Hoff Sommers

Men on Strike - Helen Smith

2015-08-05T21:54:56+00:00

I especially like older books that illustrate things like gynocentrism from a historical perspective.

Generation of Vipers, by Philip Wylie - has a chapter in which he coins the term "momism" to describe gynocentrism. Published in 1942 also cites the stat that women make 80% of purchasing decisions - in 1942!

Ten Years in Nevada, by Mary McNair Mathews. Memoir that takes place in the 1870's and shows how much power and respect women had in 19th century America. Basically refutes many of the myths that we believe about women's status back then. Very interesting read.

The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain. Also illustrates how gynocentrism has been around a long time. One female character commits murder, is acquitted because of feelz and goes on to become rich off the lecture circuit.

Title	What books would you like others to read?
Author	SantaVirus
Upvotes	5
Comments	18
Date	August 5, 2015 10:32 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/3fuzsz/what_books_would_you_like_others_to_read/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/what-books-would-you-like-others-to-read.973955 https://theredarchive.com/post/973955

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