Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide [Paperback]

This book isn't simply about man bashing. Both genders get it in equal measures. Dowd is a perceptive observer and touches on a number of issues, including marriage, gender, appearance, biology and pharmacology. It may appeal more to an American audience, but it's worth a look all the same. Dowd has a great sense of humour which means the book isn't a mindless rant. She gets it wrong sometimes, but I think that there is enough right in this book to recommend it.

Dowd is a fabulously sarcastic writer. When my opinion synches with hers, I revel in the deliciously wicked way that she expresses herself. It is a good laugh and the writing is truly unique. But when I don't agree, I find her style and opinions irritating and superficial, that is, unwilling to look beneath the surface in either a constructive or a genuinely insightful way. I suppose that is why she is a great columnist - you never have to get beyond about 800 words and you can forget her opinions as you step off the subway.

Well, this book in my opinion brings out the worst in her. She masses statistics about why so many talented women remain unattached, and makes an argument that it proves feminism has failed: because men basically want bimbos and women want to "trade up", the most interesting women (like, uh, her) get left without enduring relationships. Behind this funny and elegantly written argument, Dowd utterly fails to ask herself any of the harder questions that require introspection. Why can't she find a good relationship? Why do certain types of men approach her? Etc. It is not she who is deficient or somehow repellant to those who might love her, but men as a category and even society as a whole that come up short. This is OK for a pithy column, but in a book it wears awfully thin after the first chapter. Her lack of introspection is, well, depressingly relentless on such a personal subject. This is singularly unimpressive.

Moreover, what about all the talented women who DO find relationships that work? I am married to one of great talent and intelligence, who challenges me constantly and does not allow the marriage to stand still, even when it hurts. To have it any other way would be boring. My wife is, I think, an example of feminism as applied to married life and I dare not take anything for granted.

But my greatest disappointment in this book is that it posed no questions that got me to ask myself questions about who I am as a man and why I want what (or whom) I do. I learned nothing from this, even while I admired her writing style. There is more pose than substance and I don't believe this book is intended just for the humor.

Not recommended.

I thought Katha Pollitt was a little hard on this gushy but sassy book in her Virginity or Death!; maybe it's a generational thing. But Headline never shoulda ditched the original Dowd-commissioned Owen Smith 'pulp' cover (see hardback); it tells you all you need to know