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• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
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• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
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It's been almost two years since our last trial run here in MensLibrary where we read Circe by Madeline Miller, and we're ready to give it another shot. It is my hope that with enough participation we can justify reading 4(!) books this year with you. While tentative, that's 1 book on left-wing ideas, 1 book on gender, 1 book of fiction, and a wild card. This won't be possible however without you, and your participation.

The Book

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

Why We Chose it

The mods here at Menslib are huge fans on David Graeber and his work. Many of us have read his previous titles: Bullshit Jobs and Debt. Unfortunately he passed away suddenly in 2020 from necrotic pancreatitis. Graeber was a leading voice for justice in an age of inequality, he was at the forefront of the Occupy Movement and credited for coining the phrase "we are the 99%". The Dawn of Everything was published posthumously by his co-writer, having finished writing it only three weeks before Graebers untimely death.

Bullshit Jobs and Debt have really challenged us in unlearning the myths that we absorb without critical understanding in a capitalist society. In this book we hope to learn more about diverse early societies and the way they were structured before the global conflict of colonialization and imperialism left many of their histories lost to time and history books. Graeber and Wengrow seek to challenge the standard linear march of societal progression with modern and new anthropological evidence.

We often feel that one of the biggest factors in the decline of today's politics is a lack of imagination. Capital Realism that locks people into "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" of the status quo. Or the belief that something better just isn't possible. While speculative fiction and sci-fi have often been a backbone to utopic thinking, there might be insight in the past, an alternative "actually existing" political structure - a potential necessity in the Anthropocene.

​

Who are the Authors?

David Rolfe Graeber was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) and Bullshit Jobs (2018), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time.

David Wengrow (born 25 July 1972) is a British archaeologist and Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London

​

Give me the Blurb

A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution―from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality―and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike―either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.

​

Where can I buy it? (U.S.-Focused)

Physical ($35), MacMillan Publishing Direct

The book is available digitally on Amazon, Audible and any major ebook seller for around $17 including Google Play Books and Kobo, but please consider supporting your local bookshop or amazon competitors such as Barnes and Noble, Booksamillion or Half-Priced Books, . Because the book is new, only hardcover copies are available - if cost is an issue borrow from your local library. Overdrive and Libby are excellent services to borrow digitally.

​

Table of Contents, Discussion Thread Reading Schedule

Please keep in mind all discussion threads will be available from the start, entering the wrong discussion thread my contain spoilers. Please be extra vigilant in keeping comments in each thread consistent with the location of the book - even if you return to a previous thread for more discussion. Deadlines are included below for readers who prefer a more structured schedule.

*Page counts are based on my ebook edition, there is also a large bibliography in the back.

• Week 1 — Chapter 1 — 27 pgs — Jan. 9th - 15th
• Week 2 — Chapter 2 — 51 pgs — Jan. 16th - 22nd
• Week 3 — Chapter 3 — 42 Pgs — Jan. 23rd - 29th
• Week 4 — Chapter 4 — 44 Pgs — Jan. 30th - Feb. 5th
• Week 5 — Chapter 5 — 46 Pgs — Feb. 6th - 12th
• Week 6 — Chapter 6 — 39 Pgs — Feb. 13th - 19th
• Week 7 — Chapter 7 — 26 Pgs — Feb. 20th - 26th
• Week 8 — Chapter 8 — 52 Pgs — Feb. 27th - March 5
• Week 9 — Chapter 9 — 31 Pgs — March 6th - 12th
• Week 10 — Chapter 10 — 82 Pgs — March 13th - 19th
• Week 11 — Chapter 11 — 52 Pgs — March 20th - 26th
• Week 12 — Chapter 12 — 34 Pgs — March 27th - April 2nd

The expected completion date for this book is 3 months with an average of 60 pages a week.

Don't Forget to Subscribe to /r/MensLibrary

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
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Welcome to another re-opening of r/MensLibRary, a community for r/MensLib to read and discuss books that speak to men, men's issues, and masculinity. The last book we read was Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity, with mixed engagement. This time we're gonna read something a bit more fun and hope more people come along for the ride. This book won't have a purposeful tie-in to masculinity and all discussion is on the table. This book is intended to be purely recreational. If engagement is high, we will continue to host and discuss books with those who are interested. If engagement is low, the project may enter hibernation once again. So join us in this experiment, if you wish.

All standard redditquete and subreddit rules apply. Top level comments in discussion threads should be direct responses to the book. Those who are not reading along are still welcome to participate by asking questions or leaving comment replies to the book’s take-aways. Because everyone's situation is different in regards to their time (some are sheltering in place, some are working from home, other's unemployed, or maybe working overtime on the front-lines) I will be posting all discussion threads upfront. Meaning anyone can read and comment at their own pace. There will not be weekly deadlines but rather a suggested completion date. A directory for the discussion threads can be found below.

​

The Book

Circe by Madeline Miller (2018)

Why We Chose it

Being both under a Shelter in Place order, and being laid off last week I needed more to do, and surely many of you have been put in similar circumstances. Rather assign a book that's relevant like World War Z (which is a good book IMO) or the upcoming The End of October, I figured we need more of an escape from the looming pandemic. We started with the Goodreads Best of 2018 list to make access to the book more available through re-sellers and library copies as well as to make sure wait times for the book are shorter than the more recently published Best Of list. In order to keep the list from being too long the poll was restricted to only include the top two books from several categories. Ussers were allows to select as many books as they thought they would be interested in reading. The book, Circe edged in a majority at 50.68% pf the votes and became MensLibRary's official Quarantine Selection. – I.P.

Who is the Author?

Madeline Miller (born July 24, 1978) is an American novelist, author of The Song of Achilles (2011) and Circe (2018). Miller spent ten years writing Song of Achilles while she worked as a Latin and Greek teacher. The novel tells the story of the love between the mythological figures Achilles and Patroclus; it won the Orange Prize for Fiction, making Miller the fourth debut novelist to win the prize.

Summary

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

Table of Contents, Discussion Thread Reading Schedule

Please keep in mind all discussion threads will be available from the start, entering the wrong discussion thread my contain spoilers. Please be extra vigilant in keeping comments in each thread consistent with the location of the book - even if you return to a previous thread for more discussion.

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapters 18-20

Chapters 21-23

Chapters 24-27

The expected completion date for this book is 2 months. You are free to treat the discussion threads as weekly assignments, but the goal for this Bookclub is to match pace with people's topsy-turvy lives during the pandemic.

Copies of this book can be purchased from Amazon, AbeBooks, or borrowed from your Local Library.

GoodReads Page.

If you have difficulty acquiring a copy, let me know and I'll see how I can help.

Don't Forget to Subscribe

Welcome Back

Welcome to another re-opening of r/MensLibRary, a community for r/MensLib to read and discuss books that speak to men, men's issues, and masculinity. The last book we read was Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity, with mixed engagement. This time we're gonna read something a bit more fun and hope more people come along for the ride. This book won't have a purposeful tie-in to masculinity and all discussion is on the table. This book is intended to be purely recreational. If engagement is high, we will continue to host and discuss books with those who are interested. If engagement is low, the project may enter hibernation once again. So join us in this experiment, if you wish.

All standard redditquete and subreddit rules apply. Top level comments in discussion threads should be direct responses to the book. Those who are not reading along are still welcome to participate by asking questions or leaving comment replies to the book’s take-aways. Because everyone's situation is different in regards to their time (some are sheltering in place, some are working from home, other's unemployed, or maybe working overtime on the front-lines) I will be posting all discussion threads upfront. Meaning anyone can read and comment at their own pace. There will not be weekly deadlines but rather a suggested completion date. When the book is selected there will be a directory to help you navigate all the threads.

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Vote Here...

and select any of the books you would be interested in reading. You can select as many as you'd like, the book with highest votes will be declared the winner and reading will begin immediately. Right now, I plan to close voting at Midnight on Friday U.S. Central Time. To convert this to your local time zone click here.

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The Book

A Book from the Goodread's Best of 2018 List

Why We Chose it

Being both under a Shelter in Place order, and being laid off last week I needed more to do, and surely many of you have been put in similar circumstances. Rather assign a book that's relevant like World War Z (which is a good book IMO) I figured we need more of an escape from the looming pandemic. I've gone with the 2018 list to make access to the book more available through re-sellers and library copies as well as to make sure wait times for the book are shorter than the more recently published best of list. In order to keep the list from being too long to choose from I will be including the top two books from several categories. – I.P.

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Don't forget to subscribe to the sub if you think you'll be joining us!

Nov. 11th 2019 — Chapters 18-21

• FATHERHOOD: The Vicarious Immortality of Voluntary Friendship
• FRIENDSHIP: Slaps on the Back form Strangers
• BODY: The One Thing That Really Shows
• CONCLUSION: Men’s’ Liberation – Past, Present, and Future

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

Nov. 4th 2019 — Chapters 14-17

• WOMEN: Those Who Know How to Open Doors
• SEXUALITY: Releasing a Revolutionary Force
• LADIES: A Few Words about Manipulators
• COUPLING: The Decline of Organized Marriage

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

Oct. 28th 2019 — Chapters 9-13

• VIOLENCE: A Dead-End Ploy
• WORK: The Making of Dull Boys
• DOMINANCE: An Impediment to Awareness
• POLITICS: The White House Staff as Football Team
• SIZE AND STATUS: The Bigger-Than-Thou Penis Syndrome

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

Oct. 21st 2019 — Chapters 5-8

• ROLES: Our Turn to Curtsy and Their Turn to Bow
• INSTINCTS: Will Men always be the Same?
• PLAYFULNESS: Recovering the Missing Ingredient
• COMPEITION: Winning isn’t Everything

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

Welcome to the first discussion thread for Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity by Jack Nichols.

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Oct. 7th-14th 2019 — Chapters 1-4

• INTELLECT: The Blind Man’s Bluff
• FEELING: “I Feel, Therefore I am!”
• INTUITION: a New Flash on What’s Happening
• MINDS: Toward an Androgynous State

​

Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

• Top Level Comments should be in response to the book by active readers.
• Please use spoiler tags when discussing parts of the book that are ahead of this discussion's preview. (This is less relevant for non-fiction, please use your own discretion).
• Also, keep in mind trigger/content warnings, leave ample warning or use spoiler tags when sharing details that may be upsetting someone else. This is a safe space where we want people to be able to be honest and open about their thoughts, beliefs, and experiences - sometimes that means discussing Trauma and not every user is going to be as comfortable engaging.
• Don't forget to express when you agree with another user! This isn't a debate thread.
• Keep in mind other people's experience and perspective will be different than you're own.
• For any "Meta" conversations about the bookclub itself, the format or guidelines please comment in the Master Thread.
• The Master Thread will also serve as a Table of Contents as we navigate the book, refer back to it when moving between different discussion threads.
• For those looking for more advice about how to hold supportive and insightful discussions, please take a look at u/VimesTime's post What I've Learned from Women's Communities: Communication, Support, and How to Have Constructive Conversations.
• Don't forget to report comments that fall outside the community standards of MensLib/MensLibRary and Rettiquete.

thumb

Welcome Back

Welcome to the re-opening of /r/MensLibRary, a community for /r/MensLib to read and discuss books that speak to men, men's issues, and masculinity. Recently we held an AMA with Liz Planck for her book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity. As preparation for the event some of the mods got a copy of the book, read and discussed it amongst ourselves. Since, a few of us have picked up this season’s official selection, Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity, and we’ve decided to open the conversation to the entire community. If engagement is high, we will continue to host and discuss books with those who are interested. If engagement is low, the project may enter hibernation once again. So join us in this experiment, if you wish.

All standard redditquete and subreddit rules apply. Top level comments in discussion threads should be direct responses to the book. Those who are not reading along are still welcome to participate by asking questions or leaving comment replies to the book’s take-aways. A Discussion Thread will be posted at the beginning of the week that the assignment is due for each section outlined at the bottom of this post. You can always refer back to this post as a map to all the discussion threads.

The Book

Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity by Jack Nichols (1975)

Why We Chose it

We wanted to get back to the foundation after our community has grown a considerable amount over the past year. With that is introducing and re-acquainting users to the history of the Men’s Liberation Movement which forms our namesake. This book was written in 1975 near the end of the Sexual Revolution where, like Feminism, conversations about gender roles and sexuality thrived. Today there is what’s often referred to as the “crisis of masculinity” formed from a lack of discussion around the changing world and its effects on male identity. In this discussion thread we hope to discuss some of the earliest conversations happening around Men’s Liberation in a contemporary world, what’s still true today, and what can be thrown back into the compost of ideas. – I.P.

Who is the Author?

Jack Nichols organized and led groups promoting sex-role freedom as early as 1961, when he was twenty-three. A job as Assistant to the Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Post brought him his first contract in writing. Since then he has coauthored two previous books on topics of concern to males and has been editor, managing editor, and consulting editor of several magazines and newspapers. He speaks Persian and is happily unmarried except to his many friends.

Excerpt – Introduction

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The shackled male can free himself only if he allows himself to be somewhat imaginative. Men lacking imagination cannot conceive of a life better than the one they know. When discomforts overwhelm them, they will realize they are suffering bondage, but most men born in cultural captivity walk their cells weighted by invisible chains.

“From what do I need to be liberated?” ask such men, assuming that talk about men's liberation is a media fad. Certainly dominant men are firmly in control, failing to see that no one is minding society’s store.

The perspectives criticized in these pages are not only those of old-fashioned stereotypical male. Although stereotypes still swagger in our midst, masculinism has been refined by today's American male. His role as provider and his tendencies to dominance, competition, control, rational structuring, and toughness have assumed new dimensions. The modern male hopes to show that his own brand of clobber power is of a much higher order than that of caveman wielding their clubs.

He gives the impression of complexity and intellectual force. He reads and “proves” his knowledge by taking tests. He can construct rational arguments that are unique and potent. He tries to speak in a dominating tone of voice. He is not given to emotional displays, and he prides himself on being realistic, having come to grips with the “tough facts” of existence.

At the same time, he is often at odds with members of the opposite sex. Women, once docile and undemanding, seem to be asking for the moon. Some are actually aggressive! Although he does not discuss the intimate aspects of such problems with other men, the modern male is not easily satisfied by conventional romantic commitments.

As it now stands, he is somewhat antidomestic. He would like to travel. He would like to be closer to his children, but he may wish that the responsibility for their “nourishment” did not keep him chained tightly to one location. He believes, though, that it is his duty - his primary function - to support his family. The laws of the state insists he do so. Once married, he is usually cut off from old buddies, from friends of the opposite sex, and from passionate attachments to other man which might suggest he is peculiar. In the midst of such alienation, he struggles with romantic jealousy, his own and that of his partners.

His salary buys less, but his pride begs him to say, “The woman in my life doesn't have to work, and I like it that way.” What he really may mean is that although his harem has only one occupant at a time, he does not want her wandering about to freely without the veil that the home provides. He is not nearly as secure in his masculine role as he would have others believe, and he allows his mate’s growing independence to threaten him emotionally.

The first four chapters of this book are the most complex. It is necessary to see how our culture teaches men to use their minds. These culturally induced modes of thinking affect all aspects of living examined throughout the rest of the book. “As a man thinketh.,” we are told, “so is he”; although it seems more difficult for men to turn their critical faculties inward rather than toward externals, the first four chapters, by criticizing reliance on the intellect, demonstrate the influence that structured mental constructs have over daily matters. These chapters suggest that men incorporate the lengthy route they take over theoretical scaffolding into a shorter one: intuitive perception, which cultivates and utilizes feelings as primary instruments of perception.

The concerns of men have been tied to appearances of achievement. Since appearances are deceiving (men confuse symbols with reality), there is usually a painful schizophrenia shining between the way a male looks to others and his self-image. The conflict is most painful to men who try to appear confident but are not. The modern world abounds with such men. They use symbols and follow rites to give the illusion of being whatever masculinist values teach them as worthy. Their attempt at convincing others that these illusions are real cause havoc in present-day relationships.

I hope the following pages will open thoughtful men to the kind of self-examination that brings new insight into their roles, their leisure, their work, their emotions, their sexuality, and their relationships with children, friends, parents, and their own bodies. I hope too that these pages will suggest new values for political activity, optimism for relationships between the sexes, and visionary alternatives for future living patterns that each man can freely choose for himself.

Table of Contents, Discussion Thread Reading Schedule

Oct. 14th 2019 — Chapters 1-4

• INTELLECT: The Blind Man’s Bluff
• FEELING: “I Feel, Therefore I am!”
• INTUITION: a New Flash on What’s Happening
• MINDS: Toward an Androgynous State

Oct. 21st 2019 — Chapters 5-8

• ROLES: Our Turn to Curtsy and Their Turn to Bow
• INSTINCTS: Will Men always be the Same?
• PLAYFULNESS: Recovering the Missing Ingredient
• COMPEITION: Winning isn’t Everything

Oct. 28th 2019 — Chapters 9-13

• VIOLENCE: A Dead-End Ploy
• WORK: The Making of Dull Boys
• DOMINANCE: An Impediment to Awareness
• POLITICS: The White House Staff as Football Team
• SIZE AND STATUS: The Bigger-Than-Thou Penis Syndrome

Nov. 4th 2019 — Chapters 14-17

• WOMEN: Those Who Know How to Open Doors
• SEXUALITY: Releasing a Revolutionary Force
• LADIES: A Few Words about Manipulators
• COUPLING: The Decline of Organized Marriage

Nov. 11th 2019 — Chapters 18-21

• FATHERHOOD: The Vicarious Immortality of Voluntary Friendship
• FRIENDSHIP: Slaps on the Back form Strangers
• BODY: The One Thing That Really Shows
• CONCLUSION: Men’s’ Liberation – Past, Present, and Future

Discussion Threads will be posted a week prior to the assignment due dates. A book overview sticky post will provide links between each discussion thread as well as an introduction to the book, author and conversation.

Copies of this book can be purchased from Amazon, AbeBooks, or borrowed from your Local Library.

A Digitally scanned copy can be borrowed from archive.org with a free account and read either in-browser or off-line with Adobe Digital Editions.

GoodReads Page.

Reminder, please tag your spoilers for things not in these stories or previous ones, the formatting is in the sidebar.

Reminder, please tag your spoilers for things not in these stories, the formatting is in the sidebar.