Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys

Women complain there are no good men left—that men are immature, unreliable, and adrift. No wonder. Masculine role models have become increasingly juvenile and inarticulate: think of stars like Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, or the dudes of the popular Judd Apatow movies. There are no rules for dating and mating. Guys are unsure how to treat a woman. Most importantly, dating in the pre-adult years is no longer a means to an end—marriage—as it was in the past. Many young men today suspect they are no longer essential to family life, and without the old scripts to follow, they find themselves stuck between adolescence and “real” adulthood. In Manning Up, Kay Hymowitz sets these problems in a socioeconomic context: todays knowledge economy is female friendly, and many of the highest profile areas of that economy—communications, design, the arts, and health care—are dominated by women. Men are increasingly left on the outskirts of this new, service economy, and take much longer to find a financial foothold. With no biological clock telling them its time to grow up, without the financial resources to settle down, and with the accepted age of marriage rising into the late 30s or even 40s, men are holding onto adolescence at the very time that women are achieving professional success and looking to find a mate to share it with. A provocative account of the modern sexual economy, Hymowitz deftly charts a gender mismatch that threatens the future of the American family and makes no one happy in the long run.

Essayist and provocateur Kay Hymowitz explores the unintended consequences of the feminist revolution—the infantilization of young men and the rise of lad culture

“A fascinating and important book—one that should be read by every man, woman and man-child in America.” —A.J. Jacobs

In Manning Up, Manhattan Institute fellow and City Journal contributing editor Kay Hymowitz argues that the gains of the feminist revolution have had a dramatic, unanticipated effect on the current generation of young men. Traditional roles of family man and provider have been turned upside down as “pre-adult” men, stuck between adolescence and “real” adulthood, find themselves lost in a world where women make more money, are more educated, and are less likely to want to settle down and build a family. Their old scripts are gone, and young men find themselves adrift. Unlike women, they have no biological clock telling them its time to grow up. Hymowitz argues that its time for these young men to “man up.”

Kay S. Hymowitz is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She also writes for many major publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.