Barbara Ehrenreich

American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment

The Hearts of Men

Gavin

Unstereotypical gender sociology: traces the male revolt – years before the sexual revolution – against the comparably rigid breadwinner social role inflicted on them. At the time it was too universal to have a name; it was just known vaguely as 'Conformity' or 'Maturity'. On the white-collar worker:
 Their labor had a ghostly quantity that made it hard to quantify and even harder to link to the biochemistry of blood and tissues.


Its key virtue is that she sympathises (more with the Vidals and Roths than the Menckens and Kerouacs, obviously - but in general too). The key thesis:
 In psychiatric theory and popular culture, the image of the irresponsible male blurred into the shadowy figure of the homosexual... Fear of homosexuality kept men in line as husbands and breadwinners; and, at the same time, the association with failure and immaturity made it almost impossible for homosexual men to assert a positive image...

The Hearts of Men American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment

Reviews