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Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women
An urgent exploration of men’s entitlement and how it serves to police and punish women, from the acclaimed author of Down Girl.
In this bold and stylish critique, Cornell philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. Ranging widely across the culture, from Harvey Weinstein and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to “Cat Person” and the political misfortunes of Elizabeth Warren, Manne’s book shows how privileged men’s sense of entitlement—to sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, care, bodily autonomy, knowledge, and power—is a pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.
In clear, lucid prose, Manne argues that male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena, from mansplaining and the undertreatment of women’s pain to mass shootings by incels and the seemingly intractable notion that women are “unelectable.” Moreover, Manne implicates each of us in toxic masculinity: It’s not just a product of a few bad actors; it’s something we all perpetuate, conditioned as we are by the social and cultural mores of our time. The only way to combat it, she says, is to expose the flaws in our default modes of thought while enabling women to take up space, say their piece, and muster resistance to the entitled attitudes of the men around them.
With wit and intellectual fierceness, Manne sheds new light on gender and power and offers a vision of a world in which women are just as entitled as men to our collective care and concern.
In this bold and stylish critique, Cornell philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. Ranging widely across the culture, from Harvey Weinstein and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to “Cat Person” and the political misfortunes of Elizabeth Warren, Manne’s book shows how privileged men’s sense of entitlement—to sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, care, bodily autonomy, knowledge, and power—is a pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.
In clear, lucid prose, Manne argues that male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena, from mansplaining and the undertreatment of women’s pain to mass shootings by incels and the seemingly intractable notion that women are “unelectable.” Moreover, Manne implicates each of us in toxic masculinity: It’s not just a product of a few bad actors; it’s something we all perpetuate, conditioned as we are by the social and cultural mores of our time. The only way to combat it, she says, is to expose the flaws in our default modes of thought while enabling women to take up space, say their piece, and muster resistance to the entitled attitudes of the men around them.
With wit and intellectual fierceness, Manne sheds new light on gender and power and offers a vision of a world in which women are just as entitled as men to our collective care and concern.
269 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 11, 2020
About the author
Kate Manne
4 books625 followersKate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, having previously been a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2011-2013. She works in moral, social, and feminist philosophy. Her work has appeared in venues including The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine/The Cut, The Washington Post, Politico, as well as academic journals.
Manne's first book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, was awarded the 2019 PROSE Award for Excellence in Philosophy and in the Humanities by the Association of American Publishers. It also received the APA (American Philosophical Association) 2019 book prize. In 2019, Manne was voted one of the world's top ten thinkers by Prospect Magazine (UK).
Manne's second book, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, will be out with Crown (US) and Penguin (UK) on August 11 2020.
Manne's first book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, was awarded the 2019 PROSE Award for Excellence in Philosophy and in the Humanities by the Association of American Publishers. It also received the APA (American Philosophical Association) 2019 book prize. In 2019, Manne was voted one of the world's top ten thinkers by Prospect Magazine (UK).
Manne's second book, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, will be out with Crown (US) and Penguin (UK) on August 11 2020.
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March 8, 2023
‘Misogyny is typically (though not invariably) a response to a woman’s violation of gendered “law and order”’
Following her essential treatise on the nature of misogyny, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Dr. Kate Manne is back with a collection of essays to further examine the enforcement role misogyny plays in upholding the patriarchy. This time she turns her attention specifically on male entitlement, though in doing so addresses many of the systemic aspects of patriarchal control. In her own words, ‘Entitled tackles a wide range of ways in which misogyny ¹, himpathy, and male entitlement work in tandem with other oppressive systems to produce unjust, perverse, and sometimes bizarre outcomes.’ While Down Girl, for self-imposed reasoning, tended to mostly address misogyny from a white, cis standpoint, what is really welcomed in this collection is the way the essays give opening to discussions on misogynoir--the intersection of oppression on Black identity with misogyny as coined by queer Black feminist Moya Bailey--and trans individuals. Throughout the book, Dr. Manne takes an important look at the ways male entitlement is another vile tentacle of the patriarchy and emboldened of misogyny and looks at different aspects of society in which this is omnipresent such as entitlement to knowledge, power, sex, consent, medical care, bodily control domestic labor and the intersections of these.
The book opens with a concise portrait of her image of entitlement: ‘ the widespread perception that a privileged man is owed something even as exalted as a position on the Supreme Court’. Similar to her New York Times article on Brett Kavanaugh, Manne uses his SCOTUS interviews to illustrate many of the aspects of misogyny detailed in her philosophical treatise Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny to reestablish definitions and ideas in order to further investigate them in the following chapters. To recap the definition she arrives at in her previous work, Manne describes misogyny as ‘the “law enforcement” branch of the patriarchy,’ a system that upholds patriarchal norms and polices or punishes women and girls who threaten or deviate from the norms. ‘My account of misogyny counsels us to focus less on the individual perpetrators,’ she writes, ‘and more on misogyny’s targets and victims.’ Her rationale is that ‘misogyny doesn’t require us to know what someone is feeling,’ to identify that they perpetuate misogyny and mostly that
While often using individual examples to best grasp the concepts, Manne has an extraordinary ability to demonstrate how these become larger truths indicative of a systemic and systematic oppression and skillfully examines power structures or groups--such as INCELS and the poorly termed theocratic 'Pro-Life' movement--and the way they enforce the patriarchy at the expense of cis and trans women.
There is an exquisite flow to Dr. Manne’s writing, often threading an overarching study or story through her examinations of a subject in a way that builds a sort of narrative tension compelling you to read on, gripping the book like a thriller despite the disquieting subject matter. Her style is so utterly engaging and coupled with a mastery of discourse and elegant yet direct writing that make Entitled so endlessly readable. Which is cause for celebration, since this is such an important subject and her accessibility into the topic will make it easier to approach and learn from for others. I honestly can’t applaud her enough, though--full disclosure--she is an academic hero of mine and I just really want everyone to read this book and take it to heart. Dr. Manne draws from an impressive litany of scientific studies and cultural examples--even using the viral short story Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian at one point--to reinforce her arguments as well as demonstrate the ways in which her subject matter seeps into every aspect of society. The Milgram Shock Experiment, for example--which has been used as a touchstone for examining totalitarianism for decades--is put in a new perspective here as an example of how people can be socially coached into upholding oppressive institutionalized misogyny.
On the Entitlement of Admiration really kickstarts the collection with a probing look at the Incel community and the violence perpetrated by them in the name of misogyny. This chapter opens the prospects of examining how misogyny is an aspect of a perceived hierarchy--something pop-philosophers like the disgraced Jordan Peterson have upheld specifically for the purpose of perpetuating a patriarchal society towards their own benefits--that is racially coupled with white supremacy. This section also approaches the way in which perpetrators of misogyny often shift the narrative because they ‘perceive themselves as being the vulnerable ones.’ It is through gaslighting and himpathetic support that patriarch enforcers are able to establish and maintain this narrative control, which bleeds into every aspect of entitlement discussed later in the book.
The entitlements pertaining to sex and consent are particularly of note in the #metoo era and the ways that a women’s behavior is often more regulated and explained by society than those who have inflicted sexual violence upon them. Dr. Manne frequently aims the discourse towards the methods of silencing women and efforts to decenter them from their own victimization, particularly as the disbelief of women is amplified ‘for women who are multiply marginalized, because they are Black, queer, trans, and/or disabled.’ As women are significantly less likely to be believed or listened to, even in medical situations where studies have shown women are largely dismissed as being hysterical instead of believing their actual instances of feeling pain, this leads to a normalizing issues of ‘testimonial smothering’. The term, as coined by philosopher Kristie Dotson refers to ‘where a speaker self-silences, due to her anticipating that her wod will not receive the proper uptake, and may instead place her in an “unsafe or risky” situation.’ Consider this next time an accusation of rape of assault is met with accusations dismissing them for not coming forth sooner, or--in the larger scheme of things--the ways accusations are difficult due to the himpathy and rampant misogyny that has normalized disbelief in women’s testimonies. This is especially frightening in medical situations where already most medical models use cis male bodies as a standard metric.
Of particular note is the chapter on bodily control. This begins with a damning indictment of the Pro Life movement, their often theocratic aims, and the vicious marketing campaigns that brought it to a national political discourse. Dr. Manne step by step evicerates the movement by pointing out their many hypocracies--’the anti-abortion movement is not plausibly about life. It is not plausibly about religion, either’--before turning her attention to its origins and the way it Beginning with Nixon and his “Triple A: Acid, Amnesty and Abortion” smear campaign against McGovern, Dr. Manne demonstrates how the movement was never about abortion but garnering votes via bad faith arguments ².Overall, she demonstrates how the movement is an essential misogynist weapon that removes women from ownership of their own bodies.On the double standard normalized by the movement she writes:
Dr. Manne returns to the ideas expressed in earlier chapters that entitlement and male supremacy fixates not on the idea of woman as sub-human, per say (though the Incel rhetoric may place them in this hierarchy for their own vile convenience), but because ‘even if her humanity is not in doubt, it is perceived as owed to others.’ This is a succinct wrapping of misogyny over the whole issue, coupled with the aspects of white supremacy reinforcing it due to the undeniable fact that removing the pathways to legal abortion does not, in fact, reduce the number of abortions and exponentially causes harm to marginalized individuals ‘for when pregnancies are policed it is predominantly poor and nonwhite women who are liable to pay for it--and not only with respect to access to abortion.’ This chapter alone is worth a read as legislating away women's autonomy has become a major political platform.
Dr. Manne extends this discussion to bodily control over the trans community. Citing philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher, she points out how much of the violence perpetrated against trans women is due to an entitlement of men to know what sex organs are in their pants. ‘pensis and vaginas [are] seen...as “legitimate possessions” to which males and females respectively have moral entitlements.’ On the topic of bathrooms, Dr. Manne eloquently points out that the victims in the situation are not cis women hypothetically being preyed upon by fake trans people using identity as an avenue to violence but the actual trans women who have frequently been assaulted or killed. ‘The notional victims,’ she writes about these disproven ideas of bathroom assaults by trans individuals, ‘serve as a post hoc rationalization fro the preexisting desire to police the supposed moral offender.’ Most anti-trans rhetoric is largely bad faith arguments attempting to pre-impose a belief of violence on those who are actually most likely to be the victims of violence.
Many of the threads discussed through the book culminate in the later chapter, On the Entitlement to Power, in which Dr. Manne discusses the ways that misogyny not only harms women in the workplace but in the access to political power as well. If you are to only read one essay this year, make it this chapter. Manne references studies that show ‘a marked, consistent bias towards the male leader,’ and how this all relates to socially enforced perceptions of “likeability”. ‘[S]ocial psychologists have speculated that there’s something about women who seek the highest positions of power and the most masculine-coded authority positions that people continue to find off-putting.’ Many of these same traits people disdain in women they will praise in men, and there is an added emphasis that women must be considered kind and caring. ‘When it comes to demonstrable niceness, it’s an imperative for powerful women--and seemingly inconsequential for their male rivals.’ This is run through examples from recent American politics--Dr. Manne’s incredible essay on the Elizabeth Warren campaign is a noteworthy supplement--and also misogynist attacks on New Zeeland’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. This chapter is such a powerful amalgamation of the themes in the book and any voter should read it and consider how patriarchal systems perpetuate themselves through power struggles that enforce their viewpoints as the normalized reality when ‘[women] are not entitled to challenge the narrative put forward by their male counterparts.’
This is an essential read that is of vast importance in today’s society. There are many more aspects covered, such as the disparity of household duties between men and women and the mansplaining insistancy on the entitlement to knowledge that draws from the essay Men Explain Things to Me (read it here) by Rebecca Solnit. Dr. Kate Manne gives a brilliant and cutting overview in the many ways male entitlement is an oppressive force in society that harms women. In conclusion, she writes ‘although I am still far from hopeful, I am not so despairing anymore.’ The final section is a beautiful conclusion full of hope, and a necessary read for any parent, particularly those of young girls. While the obdurate patriarchal society is still at large and violently so, works such as this are a vital avenue to understanding and dismantling it.
5/5
¹ Himpathy, as defined by Dr. Manne: ‘the way powerful and privileged boys and men who commit acts of sexual violence or engage in other misogynistic behavior often receive sympathy and concern over their female victims.’ For further reading on a similar concept, this article on ‘male bumblers’ by Lili Loofbourow is an insightful read on the ways males play a ‘forgetful/unaware bumbler’ in order to wash their hands of misogyny or sexual violence.
² For further reading, it is important to consider how the Pro Life movement really took off as a deterrence towards Carter’s reelection, as discussed in this article by Politico. While many churches actively supported Row vs Wade--Southern Baptists twice drafted statements of support following the ruling--political marketers seized on abortion as a clever cover to attract evangelical voters who were upset that the IRS was threatening to remove tax exempt status for segregated schools.
Following her essential treatise on the nature of misogyny, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Dr. Kate Manne is back with a collection of essays to further examine the enforcement role misogyny plays in upholding the patriarchy. This time she turns her attention specifically on male entitlement, though in doing so addresses many of the systemic aspects of patriarchal control. In her own words, ‘Entitled tackles a wide range of ways in which misogyny ¹, himpathy, and male entitlement work in tandem with other oppressive systems to produce unjust, perverse, and sometimes bizarre outcomes.’ While Down Girl, for self-imposed reasoning, tended to mostly address misogyny from a white, cis standpoint, what is really welcomed in this collection is the way the essays give opening to discussions on misogynoir--the intersection of oppression on Black identity with misogyny as coined by queer Black feminist Moya Bailey--and trans individuals. Throughout the book, Dr. Manne takes an important look at the ways male entitlement is another vile tentacle of the patriarchy and emboldened of misogyny and looks at different aspects of society in which this is omnipresent such as entitlement to knowledge, power, sex, consent, medical care, bodily control domestic labor and the intersections of these.
The book opens with a concise portrait of her image of entitlement: ‘ the widespread perception that a privileged man is owed something even as exalted as a position on the Supreme Court’. Similar to her New York Times article on Brett Kavanaugh, Manne uses his SCOTUS interviews to illustrate many of the aspects of misogyny detailed in her philosophical treatise Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny to reestablish definitions and ideas in order to further investigate them in the following chapters. To recap the definition she arrives at in her previous work, Manne describes misogyny as ‘the “law enforcement” branch of the patriarchy,’ a system that upholds patriarchal norms and polices or punishes women and girls who threaten or deviate from the norms. ‘My account of misogyny counsels us to focus less on the individual perpetrators,’ she writes, ‘and more on misogyny’s targets and victims.’ Her rationale is that ‘misogyny doesn’t require us to know what someone is feeling,’ to identify that they perpetuate misogyny and mostly that
’misogyny may be a purely structural phenomenon, perpetuated by social institutions, policies, and broader cultural mores.’
While often using individual examples to best grasp the concepts, Manne has an extraordinary ability to demonstrate how these become larger truths indicative of a systemic and systematic oppression and skillfully examines power structures or groups--such as INCELS and the poorly termed theocratic 'Pro-Life' movement--and the way they enforce the patriarchy at the expense of cis and trans women.
There is an exquisite flow to Dr. Manne’s writing, often threading an overarching study or story through her examinations of a subject in a way that builds a sort of narrative tension compelling you to read on, gripping the book like a thriller despite the disquieting subject matter. Her style is so utterly engaging and coupled with a mastery of discourse and elegant yet direct writing that make Entitled so endlessly readable. Which is cause for celebration, since this is such an important subject and her accessibility into the topic will make it easier to approach and learn from for others. I honestly can’t applaud her enough, though--full disclosure--she is an academic hero of mine and I just really want everyone to read this book and take it to heart. Dr. Manne draws from an impressive litany of scientific studies and cultural examples--even using the viral short story Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian at one point--to reinforce her arguments as well as demonstrate the ways in which her subject matter seeps into every aspect of society. The Milgram Shock Experiment, for example--which has been used as a touchstone for examining totalitarianism for decades--is put in a new perspective here as an example of how people can be socially coached into upholding oppressive institutionalized misogyny.
On the Entitlement of Admiration really kickstarts the collection with a probing look at the Incel community and the violence perpetrated by them in the name of misogyny. This chapter opens the prospects of examining how misogyny is an aspect of a perceived hierarchy--something pop-philosophers like the disgraced Jordan Peterson have upheld specifically for the purpose of perpetuating a patriarchal society towards their own benefits--that is racially coupled with white supremacy. This section also approaches the way in which perpetrators of misogyny often shift the narrative because they ‘perceive themselves as being the vulnerable ones.’ It is through gaslighting and himpathetic support that patriarch enforcers are able to establish and maintain this narrative control, which bleeds into every aspect of entitlement discussed later in the book.
The entitlements pertaining to sex and consent are particularly of note in the #metoo era and the ways that a women’s behavior is often more regulated and explained by society than those who have inflicted sexual violence upon them. Dr. Manne frequently aims the discourse towards the methods of silencing women and efforts to decenter them from their own victimization, particularly as the disbelief of women is amplified ‘for women who are multiply marginalized, because they are Black, queer, trans, and/or disabled.’ As women are significantly less likely to be believed or listened to, even in medical situations where studies have shown women are largely dismissed as being hysterical instead of believing their actual instances of feeling pain, this leads to a normalizing issues of ‘testimonial smothering’. The term, as coined by philosopher Kristie Dotson refers to ‘where a speaker self-silences, due to her anticipating that her wod will not receive the proper uptake, and may instead place her in an “unsafe or risky” situation.’ Consider this next time an accusation of rape of assault is met with accusations dismissing them for not coming forth sooner, or--in the larger scheme of things--the ways accusations are difficult due to the himpathy and rampant misogyny that has normalized disbelief in women’s testimonies. This is especially frightening in medical situations where already most medical models use cis male bodies as a standard metric.
Of particular note is the chapter on bodily control. This begins with a damning indictment of the Pro Life movement, their often theocratic aims, and the vicious marketing campaigns that brought it to a national political discourse. Dr. Manne step by step evicerates the movement by pointing out their many hypocracies--’the anti-abortion movement is not plausibly about life. It is not plausibly about religion, either’--before turning her attention to its origins and the way it Beginning with Nixon and his “Triple A: Acid, Amnesty and Abortion” smear campaign against McGovern, Dr. Manne demonstrates how the movement was never about abortion but garnering votes via bad faith arguments ².Overall, she demonstrates how the movement is an essential misogynist weapon that removes women from ownership of their own bodies.On the double standard normalized by the movement she writes:
‘Boys will be boys, but women who get pregnant have behaved irresponsibly. We are so comfortable with regulating women’s sexual behavior, but we’re shocked by the idea of doing it to men.’
Dr. Manne returns to the ideas expressed in earlier chapters that entitlement and male supremacy fixates not on the idea of woman as sub-human, per say (though the Incel rhetoric may place them in this hierarchy for their own vile convenience), but because ‘even if her humanity is not in doubt, it is perceived as owed to others.’ This is a succinct wrapping of misogyny over the whole issue, coupled with the aspects of white supremacy reinforcing it due to the undeniable fact that removing the pathways to legal abortion does not, in fact, reduce the number of abortions and exponentially causes harm to marginalized individuals ‘for when pregnancies are policed it is predominantly poor and nonwhite women who are liable to pay for it--and not only with respect to access to abortion.’ This chapter alone is worth a read as legislating away women's autonomy has become a major political platform.
Dr. Manne extends this discussion to bodily control over the trans community. Citing philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher, she points out how much of the violence perpetrated against trans women is due to an entitlement of men to know what sex organs are in their pants. ‘pensis and vaginas [are] seen...as “legitimate possessions” to which males and females respectively have moral entitlements.’ On the topic of bathrooms, Dr. Manne eloquently points out that the victims in the situation are not cis women hypothetically being preyed upon by fake trans people using identity as an avenue to violence but the actual trans women who have frequently been assaulted or killed. ‘The notional victims,’ she writes about these disproven ideas of bathroom assaults by trans individuals, ‘serve as a post hoc rationalization fro the preexisting desire to police the supposed moral offender.’ Most anti-trans rhetoric is largely bad faith arguments attempting to pre-impose a belief of violence on those who are actually most likely to be the victims of violence.
’[T]he anti-abortion movenent’s supposed pre-occupation with life belies the fact that it undermines the health and lives of cis girls and women, along with other people who may also become pregnant. Similarly, the anti-trans movement’s supposed preoccupation with sexual safety and lives of a particularly vulnerable class of people: namely, tans girls and women, who are disproportionately liable to be attacked, assaulted, and murdered, at rates that recently prompted the American Medical Association to declare this an epidemic.’
Many of the threads discussed through the book culminate in the later chapter, On the Entitlement to Power, in which Dr. Manne discusses the ways that misogyny not only harms women in the workplace but in the access to political power as well. If you are to only read one essay this year, make it this chapter. Manne references studies that show ‘a marked, consistent bias towards the male leader,’ and how this all relates to socially enforced perceptions of “likeability”. ‘[S]ocial psychologists have speculated that there’s something about women who seek the highest positions of power and the most masculine-coded authority positions that people continue to find off-putting.’ Many of these same traits people disdain in women they will praise in men, and there is an added emphasis that women must be considered kind and caring. ‘When it comes to demonstrable niceness, it’s an imperative for powerful women--and seemingly inconsequential for their male rivals.’ This is run through examples from recent American politics--Dr. Manne’s incredible essay on the Elizabeth Warren campaign is a noteworthy supplement--and also misogynist attacks on New Zeeland’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. This chapter is such a powerful amalgamation of the themes in the book and any voter should read it and consider how patriarchal systems perpetuate themselves through power struggles that enforce their viewpoints as the normalized reality when ‘[women] are not entitled to challenge the narrative put forward by their male counterparts.’
This is an essential read that is of vast importance in today’s society. There are many more aspects covered, such as the disparity of household duties between men and women and the mansplaining insistancy on the entitlement to knowledge that draws from the essay Men Explain Things to Me (read it here) by Rebecca Solnit. Dr. Kate Manne gives a brilliant and cutting overview in the many ways male entitlement is an oppressive force in society that harms women. In conclusion, she writes ‘although I am still far from hopeful, I am not so despairing anymore.’ The final section is a beautiful conclusion full of hope, and a necessary read for any parent, particularly those of young girls. While the obdurate patriarchal society is still at large and violently so, works such as this are a vital avenue to understanding and dismantling it.
5/5
¹ Himpathy, as defined by Dr. Manne: ‘the way powerful and privileged boys and men who commit acts of sexual violence or engage in other misogynistic behavior often receive sympathy and concern over their female victims.’ For further reading on a similar concept, this article on ‘male bumblers’ by Lili Loofbourow is an insightful read on the ways males play a ‘forgetful/unaware bumbler’ in order to wash their hands of misogyny or sexual violence.
² For further reading, it is important to consider how the Pro Life movement really took off as a deterrence towards Carter’s reelection, as discussed in this article by Politico. While many churches actively supported Row vs Wade--Southern Baptists twice drafted statements of support following the ruling--political marketers seized on abortion as a clever cover to attract evangelical voters who were upset that the IRS was threatening to remove tax exempt status for segregated schools.
August 24, 2020
During the twenty-four hours in which I read this book, a politician from Kansas, a Democrat, dropped out of a political race because of either his father was sick and/or he sexually harassed and bulled girls when he was 14. Currently he is 19. One of his victims tried to commit suicide. The amount of people excusing his behavior. “He was young,” “What young boy doesn’t do that” and so on. This reaction is hardly new. It happens all the damn time. Boys will be boys and that’s an excuse. Girls better be ladies or else.
On the day that the man dropped out of the race, AITA tweeted a story from a man who wondered if he was an asshole because he “sided” with his son’s ex girlfriend. Apparently, she became pregnant and because she refused to get an abortion, the son kicked her out of the apartment they shared. The poster and his ex-wife decided to support the ex-girlfriend giving her housing and support (her family disowned her for bringing shame on them). The poster, it should go without saying, is NTA. But the story illustrates the price that women pay that men never have to. She is judged (not by the poster) by a totally different standard than her sex partner is. Women are talked about like they get magically pregnant on their own.
IT takes two.
Manne’s book, a follow up to Down Girl, deals with issues like these – the question of himopathy and hererasue. Himpathy meaning sympathy for the man above all else (think Brett Kavanaugh or Brock Turner) and hererasure (the pain of the woman is forgotten, her experience is disregarded). Manne looks at various places where men have privilege that women don’t. Entitlement being a more operative word.
Quite frankly, while the whole book is engrossing and great and filled with material, the two stand out sections are the one about abortion (she dismantles the pro-life movement) and the other on health care, in particular care for Black women who are routinely neglected and disregarded. Manne admits her position of privilege (she is a white woman) but is careful to note the differences that privilege gives to white woman as opposed to others.
Additionally, she points out that society holds the women accountable for abortion but not the man. Why is this? Let us think.
The book covers mansplaining, rape, belief, power and so on. It is an important read.
On the day that the man dropped out of the race, AITA tweeted a story from a man who wondered if he was an asshole because he “sided” with his son’s ex girlfriend. Apparently, she became pregnant and because she refused to get an abortion, the son kicked her out of the apartment they shared. The poster and his ex-wife decided to support the ex-girlfriend giving her housing and support (her family disowned her for bringing shame on them). The poster, it should go without saying, is NTA. But the story illustrates the price that women pay that men never have to. She is judged (not by the poster) by a totally different standard than her sex partner is. Women are talked about like they get magically pregnant on their own.
IT takes two.
Manne’s book, a follow up to Down Girl, deals with issues like these – the question of himopathy and hererasue. Himpathy meaning sympathy for the man above all else (think Brett Kavanaugh or Brock Turner) and hererasure (the pain of the woman is forgotten, her experience is disregarded). Manne looks at various places where men have privilege that women don’t. Entitlement being a more operative word.
Quite frankly, while the whole book is engrossing and great and filled with material, the two stand out sections are the one about abortion (she dismantles the pro-life movement) and the other on health care, in particular care for Black women who are routinely neglected and disregarded. Manne admits her position of privilege (she is a white woman) but is careful to note the differences that privilege gives to white woman as opposed to others.
Additionally, she points out that society holds the women accountable for abortion but not the man. Why is this? Let us think.
The book covers mansplaining, rape, belief, power and so on. It is an important read.
April 28, 2020
Totally agree with the previous reviewer that this is a tough but necessary read. I was furious from about page 3 of this book till the end (actually, I've been furious since November 2016, but who's counting) but it is such a well-written commentary on what is happening in our society right now, and takes on timely topics like Brett Kavanaugh and the way his entitlement played a role in his confirmation. I was especially blown away by chapter 3, "On the Entitlement to Sex," which is a feminist topic I have never seen framed in this particular way and I have to wonder why not? The chapter on the Entitlement to Medical Care was also completely mind-blowing.
You might have to take some breaks while reading this to breathe or perhaps throw your Kindle across the room but you will be better for reading this when you are done. I wish the white men in my life (even the woke white men) would also read this book and consider their entitlements and their effect on the world. Kate Manne follows in the excellent footsteps of Susan Faludi with exceptionally researched and well-documented work on how far behind women still are in terms of equality.
You might have to take some breaks while reading this to breathe or perhaps throw your Kindle across the room but you will be better for reading this when you are done. I wish the white men in my life (even the woke white men) would also read this book and consider their entitlements and their effect on the world. Kate Manne follows in the excellent footsteps of Susan Faludi with exceptionally researched and well-documented work on how far behind women still are in terms of equality.
January 5, 2021
A good status update about modern misogyny.
I enjoyed Manne's Entitled but I wouldn't say this was an earth-shattering-must-read about the widespread entitlement of white men. Manne catalogs the egregious acts of rape, sexual assault and exploitation of powerful men from Kavanaugh to Weinstien to other lesser known recent accounts. While she does put forth some research into male entitlement, I found it cursory and sparse with constant anecdotes that litter these pages. I don't assert that Manne needs a whole lot of evidence to prove the phenomenon of male entitlement, because it is quite self evident. This work, however, was not as scholarly as I would've liked. Some of her handling of medical conditions of women were outright inaccurate (she claims that a woman who had an ovarian cyst risked having a blood clot that could've dislodged to the heart. This is physically impossible.)
Manne plays around with some new terms "Himpathy" and "Sherasure" which is all good and fine but I was really looking for a deeper analysis of the foundation, enabling forces and solutions to the invasive misogyny of our society. I mostly found egregious account after account, dialogue transcripts and anecdotal crimes. It felt like #metoo headlines from the last three years all stringed together with little analysis. I felt that this book aimed for sensationalism over in depth analysis. Despite this work being a little superficial, the message and condemnation is of the utmost importance and so I found Entitled to be worth the read.
I enjoyed Manne's Entitled but I wouldn't say this was an earth-shattering-must-read about the widespread entitlement of white men. Manne catalogs the egregious acts of rape, sexual assault and exploitation of powerful men from Kavanaugh to Weinstien to other lesser known recent accounts. While she does put forth some research into male entitlement, I found it cursory and sparse with constant anecdotes that litter these pages. I don't assert that Manne needs a whole lot of evidence to prove the phenomenon of male entitlement, because it is quite self evident. This work, however, was not as scholarly as I would've liked. Some of her handling of medical conditions of women were outright inaccurate (she claims that a woman who had an ovarian cyst risked having a blood clot that could've dislodged to the heart. This is physically impossible.)
Manne plays around with some new terms "Himpathy" and "Sherasure" which is all good and fine but I was really looking for a deeper analysis of the foundation, enabling forces and solutions to the invasive misogyny of our society. I mostly found egregious account after account, dialogue transcripts and anecdotal crimes. It felt like #metoo headlines from the last three years all stringed together with little analysis. I felt that this book aimed for sensationalism over in depth analysis. Despite this work being a little superficial, the message and condemnation is of the utmost importance and so I found Entitled to be worth the read.
December 23, 2022
will there ever be a time when feminist non-fiction doesn't completely infuriate me?
3.5+/5
3.5+/5
October 1, 2020
Unfortunately, unlike the many positive reviews here, mine is pretty similar to my reaction to her previous Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. It’s important to understand what Manne is out to accomplish and what she isn’t – unlike the original feminist theorists, Manne’s analysis isn’t about a radical rethinking of gender. That work has already been done and continues to be furthered by other hands. Neither is Manne undertaking any original sociological study or journalistic investigation or archival dig or historical inquiry. Instead, she is an analytic philosopher offering a new conceptual scheme to systematically arrange various feminist judgements and pop analysis of various events covered by American press. The aim of such an activity is presumably to supply a kind of coherence to these various splintered judgements, and ideally prime us to identity more not-yet identified cases in a similar manner to her own.
I. Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework she provides here is the same one she provided in Down Girl, and I’ve already indicated I think it’s a pretty neat one. Here misogyny is
Sexism is
Two tweaks (if I remember correctly) help further this account. First, she proposes that while misogyny itself is rife and everyone may participate to some extent, we save the label of misogynist for “someone who is an overachiever in perpetuating misogyny: practicing misogyny with particular frequency and consistency compared to others in that environment.” This sounds like good strategy.
Second, she clarifies that misogyny can target even “well-behaved” women and so isn’t just a mechanism targeted at those who break the norms of patriarchy.
I think it was good to adress this, but I'm still now really sure how this account would still cover cases like female human trafficking, where it's clearly a gendered situation, but not really one that's punishment, or because those women were representative of a type, or arising because of dissatisfaction. But alright.
II. Fitting into framework
Now for the positives - there are two that need to highlighted.
While it is true that Manne doesn't do any original case-studies (apart from reading a few documents like Elliot Rodger's manifesto) she does in fact draw from a lot of very cool sources. Her discussion of “exceptional clearance” (based on a 2018 investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting) was horrifyingly illuminating, and I definitely want to read Thick: And Other Essays now.
Second, and related, by bringing together a range of incidents, Manne does show that her association of misogyny with male entitlement does in fact fit quite a number of phenomena that feminist criticism usually tackles. She points to how disparity in housework can be fruitfully described as male entitlement on female time and labour. Similarly, mansplaining too fits this quite nicely:
As someone female on the internet, she picks out a certain kind of male entitlement there very well:
III. Complexity strikes back
However, there are all kinds of phenomena that don't fit very easily into her framework, which she still tries to. For example, when talking about trans people, she writes:
The need for gender legibility is hardly restricted to men, so I'm not sure if it is really a "plausible extension" that male transphobes are angry because...they want kids?
There's also a chapter on how women are not believed by various medical professionals (including female ones) and I'm not really sure how that's a case of male entitlement.
After recounting a case of a feminist scholar who says, "I wonder: How could my husband listen to me say what I said [about feeling sexually violated by him]—even once, even timidly—and sleep well that night, much less continue to insist on sleeping with me?", Manne simply says "My answer, of course, is entitlement." Diagnosing a marriage from afar is easy if you're a theorist!
I guess this takes me to the heart of why I'm ultimately not a fan of this kind of approach broadly. I have very little *intrinsic* interest in the moral judgements of a middle-class white American professor. Instead of going into the world and delving into the complexity of social dynamics over time or even trying to think through why someone like her holds the beliefs she does, Manne (like any analytic philosopher) is looking for justification for shoring up her worldview. So what she provides as "analysis" is really just her finding ways to convince us that she's correct and that her opponents can be conceptualized away.
Eg: Are there too many pro-life women to make abortion an easy story about male entitlement? Ok then just claim that they've just internalised the "moral code" of "white supremacist patriarchy." How did Manne, also a white woman avoid being so hoodwinked? Nevermind that. There's also all the standard liberal talking points - republicans can't be pro-life because they actually favour capital punishment. And even if they support the death penalty only for the guitly, that would be wrong because of racial disparities. All entirely reasonable! Except a total lack of interest in how these beliefs are actually held anyway by so many people, presumably some of whom at least aren't evil idiots. But Manne has access to "the true logic of anti-abortion activism: not preserving life, but controlling girls and women, and enforcing the prevalent expectation that women “give” designated men children." I think this is entirely fine for an activist trying to mobilize, it's at least out-of-place in what's meant to be a scholarly work trying to grapple with a world of people who think differently.
Since there's no empirical material she's bringing to already existing coverage, apart from fitting things into her analysis, she tries all kinds of free association. For example, try to follow the argument about why incels' self-reporting should be considered unreliable:
So because they are "looking for" a heirarchy they're unreliable about their status in the hierarchy? Manne also wishes to identify a hierarchy in society, does that make her unreliable?
Or consider the insidious work the "we" does in this second paragraph:
A serious and sustained contextual investigation could reveal particular people whose decisions lead to a particular situation. Instead, living in the universal logical space of philosophy, Manne weakly accuses some inchoate "we" of being responsible.
She also asserts that older men are more likely prone to being damaged by #MeToo allegations because of ageism and their loss of value in a capitalist system. Maybe, but it's hardly definite - older people also have more money and connections! So to make this argument anyway based on... how the older Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein got in trouble, while the younger Ed Westwick didn't... seems at best dubious.
There's also discussion of American pop culture classics of the Aziz Ansari saga, the Cat Person story, and some plot points of the television show Girls. This strikes me as trivial pop culture obsession instead of a serious study, but that could just be a discplinary divide.
Finally, there's the wading into American electoral politics. She admits to being a Warren supporter since apparently "Warren was arguably the most experienced, prepared, poised, and smartest of any of the Democratic candidates." Notice the "arguably," which saves her from actually having to argue that qualities like poise and intelligence are apparently now rankable, as well as how her preferred candidate is conveniently at the top of the list.
Support whomever you want, but this below is a pathetic defense of flip-flopping:
What does "it's at least unclear that... it should have been a deal-breaker" even mean? By what possible metric but idiosyncratic feeling can something like this even be judged? It's still again repeated near the end of section, when she complains about how women "are not entitled to accept money," which is at least deeply dishonest.
There's a rehash of the whole Sanders-thinks-a-woman-cant-win saga, except she claims the snake association came because Warren "challenge[d] the epistemic and moral authority of a trusted male figure" in a symmetrical situation, leaving out the salient point that popular perception was that Warren had leaked the comments herself in a cynical ploy to tar Sanders as sexist (as any politician plausibly might). Now maybe Warren didn't actually do that, but that was what people were responding to! While emphasizing people's believing Sanders over Warren because of sexism makes for a nicer story for Manne's thesis, it was just as much the perceived backstabbing of an ally, a somewhat gender-neutral crime, that led to the sudden Warren disapproal on the Left. In addition, others pointed to how Sanders had encouraged Warren to run in 2016, providing a directly relevant reason to believe that Warren had at best misunderstood since Sanders seemed to have thought a woman could have won even 4 years ago! But this episode's partial narration in the book encapsulates what the book is about - a neat framework which fits somewhat clumsily in the real world.
I. Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework she provides here is the same one she provided in Down Girl, and I’ve already indicated I think it’s a pretty neat one. Here misogyny is
the “law enforcement” branch of patriarchy—a system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations, and involves girls and women facing disproportionately or distinctively hostile treatment because of their gender, among other factors.
Sexism is
the theoretical and ideological branch of patriarchy: the beliefs, ideas, and assumptions that serve to rationalize and naturalize patriarchal norms and expectations—including a gendered division of labor, and men’s dominance over women in areas of traditionally male power and authority.
Two tweaks (if I remember correctly) help further this account. First, she proposes that while misogyny itself is rife and everyone may participate to some extent, we save the label of misogynist for “someone who is an overachiever in perpetuating misogyny: practicing misogyny with particular frequency and consistency compared to others in that environment.” This sounds like good strategy.
Second, she clarifies that misogyny can target even “well-behaved” women and so isn’t just a mechanism targeted at those who break the norms of patriarchy.
As we’ve seen, misogyny need not target girls and women universally; it often singles out those who are “bad” by the lights of patriarchal norms and expectations, and punishes them for their misdeeds, be these real or apparent. It’s important not to misunderstand this point by overgeneralizing it, however. There is ample room in my framework to acknowledge the obvious fact that misogyny can target or victimize almost any girl or woman, regardless of her individual, gendered “good” behavior. This is partly because women are often treated as representative of a certain “type” of woman, and effectively blamed or punished for the misdeeds of the whole collective. It is also partly because misogynistic aggression can stem from myriad forms of dissatisfaction (resulting from men’s being subject to capitalist exploitation, for example). And it may then involve displacement—colloquially, “punching down” behavior, directed at those who are vulnerable and available, who often happen to be women. If a woman faces this displaced aggression because she lives in a historically patriarchal world—in which men have long had, and continue to have, social permission to “act out”—she is still a victim of misogyny, according to my analysis. Finally, it bears mentioning that misogynistic social structures may have a reach that vastly exceeds their aim, and thus may punish a vast swath of women, beyond the intended or first-line targets.
I think it was good to adress this, but I'm still now really sure how this account would still cover cases like female human trafficking, where it's clearly a gendered situation, but not really one that's punishment, or because those women were representative of a type, or arising because of dissatisfaction. But alright.
II. Fitting into framework
Now for the positives - there are two that need to highlighted.
While it is true that Manne doesn't do any original case-studies (apart from reading a few documents like Elliot Rodger's manifesto) she does in fact draw from a lot of very cool sources. Her discussion of “exceptional clearance” (based on a 2018 investigation by The Center for Investigative Reporting) was horrifyingly illuminating, and I definitely want to read Thick: And Other Essays now.
Second, and related, by bringing together a range of incidents, Manne does show that her association of misogyny with male entitlement does in fact fit quite a number of phenomena that feminist criticism usually tackles. She points to how disparity in housework can be fruitfully described as male entitlement on female time and labour. Similarly, mansplaining too fits this quite nicely:
In particular, I believe that mansplaining typically stems from an unwarranted sense of entitlement on the part of the mansplainer to occupy the conversational position of the knower by default: to be the one who dispenses information, offers corrections, and authoritatively issues explanations. This is objectionable when and partly because he is not so entitled: when others, namely women, happen to know more than he does—and he ought to anticipate this possibility, rather than assuming his own epistemic superiority from the get-go.
As someone female on the internet, she picks out a certain kind of male entitlement there very well:
There is a certain kind of man who is unable or unwilling to cope with others expressing views that threaten his own sense of what has happened, or ought to happen. Such men cannot abide girls and women, in particular, evincing their own, legitimate sense of epistemic entitlement to state what is happening in the world, or what has to change, going forward.
III. Complexity strikes back
However, there are all kinds of phenomena that don't fit very easily into her framework, which she still tries to. For example, when talking about trans people, she writes:
An important corollary of the dynamic Bettcher identifies is the sense of entitlement, upon taking in someone whose gender presentation is that of a woman, to know her genital arrangements at a glance—even when she is fully clothed—without doubt or ambiguity. The entitlement to know a woman’s reproductive capacities at a glance seems a plausible extension of this—which would imply her obligation not to present herself as a woman, if she is not capable of “giving” cisgender men heteronormatively sanctioned sex and biological children.
The need for gender legibility is hardly restricted to men, so I'm not sure if it is really a "plausible extension" that male transphobes are angry because...they want kids?
There's also a chapter on how women are not believed by various medical professionals (including female ones) and I'm not really sure how that's a case of male entitlement.
After recounting a case of a feminist scholar who says, "I wonder: How could my husband listen to me say what I said [about feeling sexually violated by him]—even once, even timidly—and sleep well that night, much less continue to insist on sleeping with me?", Manne simply says "My answer, of course, is entitlement." Diagnosing a marriage from afar is easy if you're a theorist!
I guess this takes me to the heart of why I'm ultimately not a fan of this kind of approach broadly. I have very little *intrinsic* interest in the moral judgements of a middle-class white American professor. Instead of going into the world and delving into the complexity of social dynamics over time or even trying to think through why someone like her holds the beliefs she does, Manne (like any analytic philosopher) is looking for justification for shoring up her worldview. So what she provides as "analysis" is really just her finding ways to convince us that she's correct and that her opponents can be conceptualized away.
Eg: Are there too many pro-life women to make abortion an easy story about male entitlement? Ok then just claim that they've just internalised the "moral code" of "white supremacist patriarchy." How did Manne, also a white woman avoid being so hoodwinked? Nevermind that. There's also all the standard liberal talking points - republicans can't be pro-life because they actually favour capital punishment. And even if they support the death penalty only for the guitly, that would be wrong because of racial disparities. All entirely reasonable! Except a total lack of interest in how these beliefs are actually held anyway by so many people, presumably some of whom at least aren't evil idiots. But Manne has access to "the true logic of anti-abortion activism: not preserving life, but controlling girls and women, and enforcing the prevalent expectation that women “give” designated men children." I think this is entirely fine for an activist trying to mobilize, it's at least out-of-place in what's meant to be a scholarly work trying to grapple with a world of people who think differently.
Since there's no empirical material she's bringing to already existing coverage, apart from fitting things into her analysis, she tries all kinds of free association. For example, try to follow the argument about why incels' self-reporting should be considered unreliable:
The sad truth is that, like many oppressors, incels perceive themselves as being the vulnerable ones. They feel like the true victims, even as they lash out violently against others. And they feel they are in the right, even as they commit the most deplorable acts of wrongdoing. All the more reason, then, that we should be skeptical about incels’ self-reports about occupying a low rung, relative to other men, on an unjust hierarchy of attractiveness. More likely, they are looking for an unjust hierarchy to locate themselves on, thereby vindicating their preexisting feelings of inferiority and aggrieved resentment. Often, we might suspect, there is little to these complaints: they are merely a post hoc rationalization for an extant, and unwarranted, sense of victimhood—of being oppressed or persecuted by people who aren’t in reality wronging, thwarting, or even rejecting them. In particular, the women incels resent for these supposed sins are often just living their own lives and minding their own business.
So because they are "looking for" a heirarchy they're unreliable about their status in the hierarchy? Manne also wishes to identify a hierarchy in society, does that make her unreliable?
Or consider the insidious work the "we" does in this second paragraph:
What explains this apathy, this hostile, pointed indifference? Don’t we regard rape as a heinous, monstrous crime? Yes, in the abstract. Very well then, but in practice, why do we refuse to hold certain perpetrators accountable vis-à-vis certain victims?
One explanation that has the virtue of not only parsimony but sheer coherence is that we regard certain men as entitled to take sex from certain women. A white man who is in a relationship with an equally or less privileged woman, or who was once in such a relationship, is often deemed sexually entitled to “have” her.
A serious and sustained contextual investigation could reveal particular people whose decisions lead to a particular situation. Instead, living in the universal logical space of philosophy, Manne weakly accuses some inchoate "we" of being responsible.
She also asserts that older men are more likely prone to being damaged by #MeToo allegations because of ageism and their loss of value in a capitalist system. Maybe, but it's hardly definite - older people also have more money and connections! So to make this argument anyway based on... how the older Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein got in trouble, while the younger Ed Westwick didn't... seems at best dubious.
There's also discussion of American pop culture classics of the Aziz Ansari saga, the Cat Person story, and some plot points of the television show Girls. This strikes me as trivial pop culture obsession instead of a serious study, but that could just be a discplinary divide.
Finally, there's the wading into American electoral politics. She admits to being a Warren supporter since apparently "Warren was arguably the most experienced, prepared, poised, and smartest of any of the Democratic candidates." Notice the "arguably," which saves her from actually having to argue that qualities like poise and intelligence are apparently now rankable, as well as how her preferred candidate is conveniently at the top of the list.
Support whomever you want, but this below is a pathetic defense of flip-flopping:
Similarly, Warren plausibly lost a significant amount of support in some progressive quarters due to her decision, during the death throes of her campaign, to accept super-PAC money. Whether one agrees with this decision or not, it’s at least unclear that, for a would-be Warren supporter, it should have been a deal-breaker. But, again, women are held to gendered double standards, when it comes to both their steadfastness and their purity: any supported lapse on this front tends to be seized on mercilessly.
What does "it's at least unclear that... it should have been a deal-breaker" even mean? By what possible metric but idiosyncratic feeling can something like this even be judged? It's still again repeated near the end of section, when she complains about how women "are not entitled to accept money," which is at least deeply dishonest.
There's a rehash of the whole Sanders-thinks-a-woman-cant-win saga, except she claims the snake association came because Warren "challenge[d] the epistemic and moral authority of a trusted male figure" in a symmetrical situation, leaving out the salient point that popular perception was that Warren had leaked the comments herself in a cynical ploy to tar Sanders as sexist (as any politician plausibly might). Now maybe Warren didn't actually do that, but that was what people were responding to! While emphasizing people's believing Sanders over Warren because of sexism makes for a nicer story for Manne's thesis, it was just as much the perceived backstabbing of an ally, a somewhat gender-neutral crime, that led to the sudden Warren disapproal on the Left. In addition, others pointed to how Sanders had encouraged Warren to run in 2016, providing a directly relevant reason to believe that Warren had at best misunderstood since Sanders seemed to have thought a woman could have won even 4 years ago! But this episode's partial narration in the book encapsulates what the book is about - a neat framework which fits somewhat clumsily in the real world.
August 11, 2020
Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women is an exploration of male privilege, including male entitlement, both individual and systemic, to sex, power, and knowledge, and how this entitlement causes grave and deadly consequences for society at large, and women more specifically; this is the sophomore offering from prominent and well-respected Australian philosopher Kate Manne. From the dawn of time, misogyny has been an issue, albeit the term was not coined to describe the rampant inequality between the sexes until 1615 in a play written by Joseph Swetnam. Since then there has been a battle raging on many different fronts and here Manne scrutinises recent case studies of male privilege and misogyny deftly illustrating the consequences such behaviours have on society as a whole.
Gender should not be a prerequisite to success and it's time people realised that patriarchal structures are just as oppressive as any other form of discrimination. One of the reasons I feel there are quite a few detractors to the feminist cause of late is because it's meaning has slowly morphed into something that it was never intended to be — this move towards being wary of the cause was incontrovertibly brought about by radical feminists and those who have altered the meaning of feminism from a cause seeking equality between genders to one seeking to bestow superiority upon women and therefore merely subverting the status quo. From politics to medicine, consent to domestic chores, Manne creates a vast portrait of the ways in which male entitlement and misogyny intertwine.
This is an incisive and profoundly perceptive read which delivers a hard-hitting dose of reality to those who are asleep to the problems patriarchy causes. Just as I am writing this I noticed that on the author's Twitter she has stated that a pinned tweet advertising this book had been mass reported and then removed; I feel this is a damning indictment of those who wish the prejudice against women to continue unabated and will stop at nothing to ensure women do not feel empowered to fight for their rights instigated by inspiring, engaging and brutally honest books such as this. An accessible must-read for those interested in the way in which society currently works, Entitled teaches us to remember our value in a world that fails to reflect what we deserve back at us.
Women have won some hard-fought mini-battles, for the vote for instance, however, we are still fighting to be equal on other fronts, such as the right to equal pay in the workplace for two employees carrying out the same tasks. It is clear that we have achieved many smaller worthwhile victories but we are still yet to win the war. Many thanks to Allen Lane for an ARC.
Gender should not be a prerequisite to success and it's time people realised that patriarchal structures are just as oppressive as any other form of discrimination. One of the reasons I feel there are quite a few detractors to the feminist cause of late is because it's meaning has slowly morphed into something that it was never intended to be — this move towards being wary of the cause was incontrovertibly brought about by radical feminists and those who have altered the meaning of feminism from a cause seeking equality between genders to one seeking to bestow superiority upon women and therefore merely subverting the status quo. From politics to medicine, consent to domestic chores, Manne creates a vast portrait of the ways in which male entitlement and misogyny intertwine.
This is an incisive and profoundly perceptive read which delivers a hard-hitting dose of reality to those who are asleep to the problems patriarchy causes. Just as I am writing this I noticed that on the author's Twitter she has stated that a pinned tweet advertising this book had been mass reported and then removed; I feel this is a damning indictment of those who wish the prejudice against women to continue unabated and will stop at nothing to ensure women do not feel empowered to fight for their rights instigated by inspiring, engaging and brutally honest books such as this. An accessible must-read for those interested in the way in which society currently works, Entitled teaches us to remember our value in a world that fails to reflect what we deserve back at us.
Women have won some hard-fought mini-battles, for the vote for instance, however, we are still fighting to be equal on other fronts, such as the right to equal pay in the workplace for two employees carrying out the same tasks. It is clear that we have achieved many smaller worthwhile victories but we are still yet to win the war. Many thanks to Allen Lane for an ARC.
October 14, 2021
insightfully depressing with a sprinkle of hope. men should read this tbqh
April 10, 2020
*****WARNING: THIS NOT AN EASY READ****VERY GRAPHIC*****
This read is not for the faint of heart or those with a weak stomach. Anyone with a real conscience can empathize with the each individual woman who was sexually assaulted. All these cases have one thing in common; the men in question are rich and successful, so these heinous actions don't seem like a big deal to them. The author highlights Harvey Weinstein and Brett Kavanaugh just to name a few tat were big in the media and on television; as well as discussing how men have been the masterminds of mass shootings over the last twenty years. I like how she uses the term "toxic masculinity." Our current commander in chief falls into this category as well but that's all I'm going to say about that.
At some point in these insights, the author switches gears to explain that women are just as capable of these actions and sense of entitlement as men. This book doesn't make the male gender look very good as a whole especially in today's world. Very grim mood throughout the book also fused with anger about the senseless violence.
I think this is a necessary book and is a topic that shouldn't be taboo or an afterthought. I think this should be read by every man in politics and in a leadership role and be taken seriously to bring these horrific cases to a lower number. This needs to stop, PERIOD. Anyone and anything with heartbeat deserves more than that
Thanks to NetGalley, Kate Manne, and Crown Oublishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Available: 8/11/20
This read is not for the faint of heart or those with a weak stomach. Anyone with a real conscience can empathize with the each individual woman who was sexually assaulted. All these cases have one thing in common; the men in question are rich and successful, so these heinous actions don't seem like a big deal to them. The author highlights Harvey Weinstein and Brett Kavanaugh just to name a few tat were big in the media and on television; as well as discussing how men have been the masterminds of mass shootings over the last twenty years. I like how she uses the term "toxic masculinity." Our current commander in chief falls into this category as well but that's all I'm going to say about that.
At some point in these insights, the author switches gears to explain that women are just as capable of these actions and sense of entitlement as men. This book doesn't make the male gender look very good as a whole especially in today's world. Very grim mood throughout the book also fused with anger about the senseless violence.
I think this is a necessary book and is a topic that shouldn't be taboo or an afterthought. I think this should be read by every man in politics and in a leadership role and be taken seriously to bring these horrific cases to a lower number. This needs to stop, PERIOD. Anyone and anything with heartbeat deserves more than that
Thanks to NetGalley, Kate Manne, and Crown Oublishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Available: 8/11/20
August 28, 2021
Prepare to get enraged within the first three pages of this book. Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women gives us a deep dive into different social areas women are constantly having to work harder, smarter and be better than their male companions. We see how male privilege women hurt women in dating, raising children, knowledge, medicine and the law. I mean the fact that the dummies they use to test seatbelt effectiveness are built like men.... come on!
A lot of the books Kate Manne references have been ones I thoroughly enjoy reading including The Second Shift, All The Rage... . Kate Manne drops bombs of wisdom and leaves you feeling furious. Well researched and presented.
A lot of the books Kate Manne references have been ones I thoroughly enjoy reading including The Second Shift, All The Rage... . Kate Manne drops bombs of wisdom and leaves you feeling furious. Well researched and presented.
April 4, 2022
I really wanted to love this book -- and people rave about the author in reviews everywhere. While her writing style is very clear, logically organized and she has excellent sources and examples -- it's not more impactful or original than secondary source materials written through the 70s-90s on the same topic. It's distressing that we have progressed so little. Taking a cue from the author's closing chapter -- what I want my daughter to know is that I aborted her in 1990 (and 1996) because not only could I imagine living my life connected to her male genetic contributor but being a woman is distinctly not fun or great. I could not then, and can not now, see a good reason to bring more people -- especially Americans -- into the world.
Even as a 52 year old adult professional woman with advanced education -- my female doctors dismiss my concerns about my own body and make it difficult to get treatment. I am assaulted verbally and physically when alone in public by men who think that I am the obvious and convenient target for their personal frustration and simmering rage at having to share the road, the sidewalk or air with me. So, just nope. Entitled is a depressing, though accurate, portrayal of the static nature of gender inequity in our culture. It's not novel and it's not providing a plan for change. The author simply reiterates what we already know -- but it doesn't seem like there's much hope.
Even as a 52 year old adult professional woman with advanced education -- my female doctors dismiss my concerns about my own body and make it difficult to get treatment. I am assaulted verbally and physically when alone in public by men who think that I am the obvious and convenient target for their personal frustration and simmering rage at having to share the road, the sidewalk or air with me. So, just nope. Entitled is a depressing, though accurate, portrayal of the static nature of gender inequity in our culture. It's not novel and it's not providing a plan for change. The author simply reiterates what we already know -- but it doesn't seem like there's much hope.
August 13, 2020
I can’t think of a more useful book to understand the U.S. right now. Whereas Manne’s earlier book Down Girl focused on the ways in which society polices women who violate or even question patriarchal codes, Entitled looks at the extent to which men behave in ways not afforded to women. Manne looks at Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, Elizabeth Warren’s failure as a presidential candidate, incels, the unequal distribution of housework, the often horrible ways rape victims get treated, and other topics. Her chapter on female pain—and the ways medical professionals too often believe men while discounting women, even though it’s entirely possible that women actually experience more pain than men—is both heart-breaking and infuriating. Whereas Down Girl ended with near-hopelessness at thought that anything would ever meaningfully change, Entitled has a far more optimistic ending. Indeed, the final half dozen pages or so contained some of the most beautiful writing I’ve seen all year.
April 10, 2021
This book has all the slickness and depth of an internet thinkpiece, which is to say: an incredibly glossy surface over a very shallow puddle. It is certainly useful for its bibliography of other, more interesting and thoughtful books, but that's about it.
This is a disappointment for me, to be frank. I found several of Manne's concepts from Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny incredibly useful and interesting, and I wanted to see more from her, but it's a bit like she shut off her brain to write this book. I suppose if it's intended as Baby's First Primer on Misogyny, then I get it, but the various congratulatory quotes on the back cover really made me expect something explosive: "not just timely but timeless," "a clarion call to undo the intimate ravages of patriarchy," Manne being called one of "the greatest political philosophers of her time," with a "special talent for articulating and expanding on the implicit norms of patriarchal society"... Really? This book?
Each brief chapter collects sources related to a given topic--entitlement to consent, to labor, to bodily control, etc.--and summarizes them with the faintest smattering of Manne's own analysis. It reads like a literature review from a college undergraduate, not the work one hopes for from a philosophy professor with a history at MIT and Harvard. The twee coinages of "sherasure" and "himpathy" appear, annoy, and then vanish again, whether because Manne forgot about them, or because she's trying to think as few of her own thoughts as possible.
It's frustrating indeed that Manne's own thinking and concepts only show up in the most obnoxious ways. One example is the above-mentioned "sherasure" and "himpathy." Another is in her analysis of medical care, where she repeatedly resorts to dehumanizing, misogynist constructions such as "menstruating bodies," "people who menstruate," and "non-male" when analyzing the work of Caroline Criado Pérez, who never uses such terms anywhere in the cited book, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. It is fascinating that one of the greatest political philosophers of our time cannot think her way through to using the word "female."
Simply put, I would not recommend this book to any thinking, capable feminist. I might recommend it as a gift for the very stupid man in your life who still struggles to understand that women are people. Then again, given that Kate Manne can't figure that out, either ("non-male"? "menstruating bodies"? REALLY?), maybe there's no hope.
This is a disappointment for me, to be frank. I found several of Manne's concepts from Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny incredibly useful and interesting, and I wanted to see more from her, but it's a bit like she shut off her brain to write this book. I suppose if it's intended as Baby's First Primer on Misogyny, then I get it, but the various congratulatory quotes on the back cover really made me expect something explosive: "not just timely but timeless," "a clarion call to undo the intimate ravages of patriarchy," Manne being called one of "the greatest political philosophers of her time," with a "special talent for articulating and expanding on the implicit norms of patriarchal society"... Really? This book?
Each brief chapter collects sources related to a given topic--entitlement to consent, to labor, to bodily control, etc.--and summarizes them with the faintest smattering of Manne's own analysis. It reads like a literature review from a college undergraduate, not the work one hopes for from a philosophy professor with a history at MIT and Harvard. The twee coinages of "sherasure" and "himpathy" appear, annoy, and then vanish again, whether because Manne forgot about them, or because she's trying to think as few of her own thoughts as possible.
It's frustrating indeed that Manne's own thinking and concepts only show up in the most obnoxious ways. One example is the above-mentioned "sherasure" and "himpathy." Another is in her analysis of medical care, where she repeatedly resorts to dehumanizing, misogynist constructions such as "menstruating bodies," "people who menstruate," and "non-male" when analyzing the work of Caroline Criado Pérez, who never uses such terms anywhere in the cited book, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. It is fascinating that one of the greatest political philosophers of our time cannot think her way through to using the word "female."
Simply put, I would not recommend this book to any thinking, capable feminist. I might recommend it as a gift for the very stupid man in your life who still struggles to understand that women are people. Then again, given that Kate Manne can't figure that out, either ("non-male"? "menstruating bodies"? REALLY?), maybe there's no hope.
September 2, 2020
Down girl is one of the greatest books I've ever read; it affected me profoundly, and gave me the intellectual ammunition that I occasionally use in my little feminist crusades.
While reading Entitled, I was nagged by the idea that this book, however great and well written, it barely scratches the surface of some virulent and ubiquitous misogyny. But it's not Manne's fault, she outright admits that her work is concerned with misogyny in the western hemisphere, and analyzing it on a general level shall be above her pay grade, which is totally plausible.
But the thing is, while reading, I felt that we -females who don't live in the western hemisphere- we just don't have the luxury to discuss these forms of misogyny (some of them really subtle albeit harmful). The forms we face are much more flagrant, much more in-your-face. People still -in our very days- debate over whether women should dress as they please and not get harrassed violently in the public spaces. Some still debate over the moral soundness of honor killings, of wife beating, of harmful polygamy. Prominent figures go as far as absloving sexual harassers and rapists. As far as interpreting paedophilia as a result to women's inappropriate sartorial choices.
The problem was with me, with the lack of our own feminist literature, and with me resorting to read anything trying to make sense of this lopsided world.
Kate Manne is one of my heroines, her work is always galvanizing, and no matter what, Im bound to find something in it that speaks to me on a deeper level. In this book it was the chapters regarding women's pain and the shameful failure of health care providers to recognize it, and of course the one on abortion. As an aspiring doctor I was intrigued.
The end note was a masterpiece. Holding my breath for her upcoming projects.
While reading Entitled, I was nagged by the idea that this book, however great and well written, it barely scratches the surface of some virulent and ubiquitous misogyny. But it's not Manne's fault, she outright admits that her work is concerned with misogyny in the western hemisphere, and analyzing it on a general level shall be above her pay grade, which is totally plausible.
But the thing is, while reading, I felt that we -females who don't live in the western hemisphere- we just don't have the luxury to discuss these forms of misogyny (some of them really subtle albeit harmful). The forms we face are much more flagrant, much more in-your-face. People still -in our very days- debate over whether women should dress as they please and not get harrassed violently in the public spaces. Some still debate over the moral soundness of honor killings, of wife beating, of harmful polygamy. Prominent figures go as far as absloving sexual harassers and rapists. As far as interpreting paedophilia as a result to women's inappropriate sartorial choices.
The problem was with me, with the lack of our own feminist literature, and with me resorting to read anything trying to make sense of this lopsided world.
Kate Manne is one of my heroines, her work is always galvanizing, and no matter what, Im bound to find something in it that speaks to me on a deeper level. In this book it was the chapters regarding women's pain and the shameful failure of health care providers to recognize it, and of course the one on abortion. As an aspiring doctor I was intrigued.
The end note was a masterpiece. Holding my breath for her upcoming projects.
October 4, 2020
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man humblebragging about giving money to the homeless on Facebook will get a hundred more likes than the woman who opens a shelter, a man crying over a bunion more sympathy than a recent widow, and a man making the same tired cultural references will be deferred to (often by women teeming with female relational aggression) as a wit and a default expert, a veritable creative soul. Entitlement to power, to admiration, and to knowledge. It’s all here. That said, this feels a bit too much like a retread of Down Girl. You can skip one if you’ve read the other. Rebecca Solnit’s essay, discussed at unnecessary length in one chapter here, was revolutionary in that it tied misogyny and male violence to subtler social dynamics. Here, we get that with well-publicized examples, but I would have liked a little less on Elliot Roger and Brett Kavanaugh (Manne discussed Roger and Kavanaugh in her previous book and we’re well-versed in the horrifying double standards they reveal) and more on those dinner parties at which we’re cut off and forced to listen to the same tired stories again and again.
October 16, 2020
Save yourself the trouble and read Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men instead.
April 13, 2023
This book was devastating and hurt quite alot to see that things that I had thought we're gone were very much alive and harming people today. It's painful to challenge your own beliefs but worth it
December 13, 2020
‘If truth is not our property, then neither is authority. Listening to women becomes superfluous, …’
I have seen quite a bit of change over the past 60 or so years. Some of those changes have been good, but right now it is hard to feel positive about the battle for equality. By the time I finished this book, I felt profoundly depressed. Why?
Ms Manne starts this book with a series of anecdotes about male privilege and how it motivates some men to act in particular ways, but specific instances quickly become a general narrative about the corrosive effects of entitlement. It hurts to recognise and acknowledge this. Not all men act in this way, but those who do seem to have way too much impact.
I read through the chapter entitled ‘Involuntary – On the Entitlement to Admiration’ (Chapter Two) with its incidents of ‘incels’ murdering women who have spurned them or whom they imagine have spurned them. I read through the chapter entitled ‘Incompetent – On the Entitlement to Medical Care’ (Chapter Five) and wept for those women who have not had their medical presentations taken seriously.
And the other eight chapters? Seven of them are a reminder (with examples) of how far we have yet to travel. The final chapter, written for Ms Manne’s daughter, contains a note of optimism.
‘Indelible – On the Entitlement of Privileged Men’ (Chapter One)
‘Unexceptional – On the Entitlement to Sex’ (Chapter Three)
‘Unwanted – On the Entitlement to Consent’ (Chapter Four)
‘Unruly – On the Entitlement to Bodily Control’ (Chapter Six)
‘Insupportable – On the Entitlement to Domestic Labor’ (Chapter Seven)
‘Unassuming – On the Entitlement to Knowledge’ (Chapter Eight)
‘Unelectable – On the Entitlement to Power.’ (Chapter Nine)
‘Undespairing – On the Entitlement of Girls’ (Chapter Ten)
While I do not think we’ll see true equality during what remains of my lifetime, Ms Manne’s optimism lightens my depression a little.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I have seen quite a bit of change over the past 60 or so years. Some of those changes have been good, but right now it is hard to feel positive about the battle for equality. By the time I finished this book, I felt profoundly depressed. Why?
Ms Manne starts this book with a series of anecdotes about male privilege and how it motivates some men to act in particular ways, but specific instances quickly become a general narrative about the corrosive effects of entitlement. It hurts to recognise and acknowledge this. Not all men act in this way, but those who do seem to have way too much impact.
I read through the chapter entitled ‘Involuntary – On the Entitlement to Admiration’ (Chapter Two) with its incidents of ‘incels’ murdering women who have spurned them or whom they imagine have spurned them. I read through the chapter entitled ‘Incompetent – On the Entitlement to Medical Care’ (Chapter Five) and wept for those women who have not had their medical presentations taken seriously.
And the other eight chapters? Seven of them are a reminder (with examples) of how far we have yet to travel. The final chapter, written for Ms Manne’s daughter, contains a note of optimism.
‘Indelible – On the Entitlement of Privileged Men’ (Chapter One)
‘Unexceptional – On the Entitlement to Sex’ (Chapter Three)
‘Unwanted – On the Entitlement to Consent’ (Chapter Four)
‘Unruly – On the Entitlement to Bodily Control’ (Chapter Six)
‘Insupportable – On the Entitlement to Domestic Labor’ (Chapter Seven)
‘Unassuming – On the Entitlement to Knowledge’ (Chapter Eight)
‘Unelectable – On the Entitlement to Power.’ (Chapter Nine)
‘Undespairing – On the Entitlement of Girls’ (Chapter Ten)
While I do not think we’ll see true equality during what remains of my lifetime, Ms Manne’s optimism lightens my depression a little.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 19, 2020
I just finished it last night, and y'all, it is SO GOOD. Read it! The final chapter, in which she lays out her hopes for her baby daughter, what she hopes her daughter will grow to know she is entitled to (and responsible for)...it's everything I want for my own daughter. And even the place where Manne finds herself lost for words is precisely where I find myself lost: How do I teach my daughter that she is entitled to say "no" - to anyone, but especially to men, and empower her to do so, while also making her aware of the very real risk that comes with saying "no" to someone who feels entitled to you? I don't feel that I can ethically empower her to say "no" without letting her know those risks, but I don't want her to engage with the world from a place of fear, either.
The other thing I really liked about the book was all of the footnotes. There are A LOT. Like, the "end" of the book was only 62% of the way through the ebook. It was just really gratifying to see that all of these things I've been trying to write and think my way through these last 3 years or so, just thinking about entitlement and gaslighting and misogyny based on my own experiences, and the things that have become public thanks to #metoo...there are people who've thought deeply about these issues and have theories and research and I don't know, it's just gratifying to know that the things I've thought, and tried to put words to, are seen as "real" by people whose job it is to study them. That's really powerful for me.
The other thing I really liked about the book was all of the footnotes. There are A LOT. Like, the "end" of the book was only 62% of the way through the ebook. It was just really gratifying to see that all of these things I've been trying to write and think my way through these last 3 years or so, just thinking about entitlement and gaslighting and misogyny based on my own experiences, and the things that have become public thanks to #metoo...there are people who've thought deeply about these issues and have theories and research and I don't know, it's just gratifying to know that the things I've thought, and tried to put words to, are seen as "real" by people whose job it is to study them. That's really powerful for me.
March 3, 2021
Recommended reading for everyone.
This is everything that I ever wanted to say about male privilege in the world, but couldn't find the words to do so. Australian philosopher Kate Manne gave my inchoate thoughts about feminism legs to stand on.
In the last few pages, she talks about how she had a very pessimistic outlook about us ever being able to get people to take this problem seriously. I have the same views as her, I am not one to easily see hope.
She had this change of mind after she had her first child - a daughter.
Yes, this is something I can get on board with.
This is everything that I ever wanted to say about male privilege in the world, but couldn't find the words to do so. Australian philosopher Kate Manne gave my inchoate thoughts about feminism legs to stand on.
In the last few pages, she talks about how she had a very pessimistic outlook about us ever being able to get people to take this problem seriously. I have the same views as her, I am not one to easily see hope.
"Although I am still far from hopeful, I am not so despairing anymore. I think it's because I made an intellectual mistake : I confused the intransigence of some people with the unwillingness of most people to think soberly and deeply about the problems facing girls and women."
She had this change of mind after she had her first child - a daughter.
"Giving up no longer feels like a viable option. I increasingly feel the need to keep fighting, regardless of the outcome. Hope, to me, is a belief that the future will be brighter, which I continue to not set much store in. But the idea of fighting for a better world - and, equally importantly, fighting against backsliding - is not a belief; it's a political commitment that I can get on board with.
Yes, this is something I can get on board with.
October 16, 2020
Though difficult to read at times, this book is an interesting and deep journey that cuts to the core of "why are men." As a man who has been in therapy working through a lot of the issues detailed in this book, I encountered many moments of self-reflection that reinforced the idea that many of us have a lot of work to do. To any men reading this, start with this: it's ok to receive criticism. It is what you do with the criticism - your feelings about it and your actions afterwards - that really matter. I wouldn't say that there is anything groundbreaking in this book necessarily, but rather it really aligns with where I am currently and I think it can be a useful tool for others who want to make progress on themselves and for others.
February 4, 2021
I wish every white, straight, cis woman in my life could read this. I cried through much of this book because of Manne’s ability to articulate the framework of my entire life. Wow. I am grateful for a new vocabulary for expressing my experience, and to untangle so many whys. Manne gave me several lightbulb moments, and I feel a deep relief that how I’ve been conditioned (and has made me feel yucky since I was a little girl) can actually be unpacked and examined/criticized for what it is.
April 4, 2021
Male sexual entitlement hadn't been discussed enough until now and had even been normalized. It is real, prevalent, and deeply ingrained. The book doesn't cover anything new, and I must admit I am quite fed up with the emotional labor and social responsibility that are solely on women's shoulders. When do men start writing about their share of work?
September 4, 2021
Poignant, indignant, and wholly necessary read.
August 31, 2020
More later after I have a chance to process (and am at a real computer), but for now let me assure you, Kate Manne has produced another tour de force that (almost) makes me wish I had continued in with philosophy instead of going to law school!
Longer version:
White privilege means never having to worry that you are being oppressed BECAUSE of the color of your skin. White is seen as the default, and everyone else is a deviation from the norm. White people are able to ignore skin color, and take for granted that they will not be judged negatively because of their race.
Kate Manne has taken a deep look at male privilege, and comes to similar conclusions. Being male means that one is entitled to various things, merely because you are male, rather than because you have in some way earned that entitlement. In contrast, females must constantly prove that they are entitled to those very same things, and are expected to provide males with various forms of support, merely because they are female.
I pause to note that Prof. Manne carefully notes that this binary is too simplistic. That the entitlement really belongs to those perceived as cis males, and that everyone else, including non-binary, trans, and other gender nonconforming people do not share this entitlement. Similarly, she carefully notes that race adds another dimension, which means that Black women are doubly disadvantaged. With that in mind, the focus of this book is male entitlement.
Professor Manne examines this hypothesis in several different contexts. She begins with what she terms "himpathy": the tendency of people to sympathize with males, even when they are the ones who have inflicted harm on women. This is often seen in rape cases, where public concern is often focused on the fact that a man's life has been "ruined," while the woman (or even women) who were his victims are often ignored. The fact that the Michigan gymnastics coach was only demonized after dozens of women made similar accusations is contrasted with the scorn shown to some of his first victims--even by their own parents--who were uniformly disbelieved.
Other examples include a male entitlement to power. Prof. Mann cites several studies where identical resumes are shown to people--with the only difference the perceived gender of the applicant. Overwhelmingly, the same credentials are viewed as more suitable for positions of power when assigned to a person perceived as male. She uses this as a springboard to examine the difference in the way male and female candidates are treated--which appears to be linked to the prestige and power of the office they are seeking.
From heights of public office, Prof. Manne also focuses on the more day-to-day issues of the division of household labor, analyzing in depth the various studies showing that while men do more of the household work than ever before, they continue to lag behind women, and almost never carry the burden of the higher level organizational tasks. For example, men may do cleaning, run errands, do shopping, and wash clothes, but it is almost always the woman who keeps track of the family calendar to make sure that these tasks all get done on time.
After 200 pages spent delving into the philosophical underpinnings of male entitlement, Prof. Manne concludes with a short, very personal chapter about becoming the mother of a baby girl. She despairs having to teach her child how to resist these entitlements, in the face of society's deeply ingrained epistemological biases. But she concludes that hope is in fact real, and in itself is a form of resistance. While she does not cite this book (but does cite several of her other works), Prof. Manne's conclusion reminds me very much of Professor Solnit's book, Hope in the Dark.
In sum, a book very much worth reading, and (as with her earlier book, Down Girl) is published at exactly the right time.
Longer version:
White privilege means never having to worry that you are being oppressed BECAUSE of the color of your skin. White is seen as the default, and everyone else is a deviation from the norm. White people are able to ignore skin color, and take for granted that they will not be judged negatively because of their race.
Kate Manne has taken a deep look at male privilege, and comes to similar conclusions. Being male means that one is entitled to various things, merely because you are male, rather than because you have in some way earned that entitlement. In contrast, females must constantly prove that they are entitled to those very same things, and are expected to provide males with various forms of support, merely because they are female.
I pause to note that Prof. Manne carefully notes that this binary is too simplistic. That the entitlement really belongs to those perceived as cis males, and that everyone else, including non-binary, trans, and other gender nonconforming people do not share this entitlement. Similarly, she carefully notes that race adds another dimension, which means that Black women are doubly disadvantaged. With that in mind, the focus of this book is male entitlement.
Professor Manne examines this hypothesis in several different contexts. She begins with what she terms "himpathy": the tendency of people to sympathize with males, even when they are the ones who have inflicted harm on women. This is often seen in rape cases, where public concern is often focused on the fact that a man's life has been "ruined," while the woman (or even women) who were his victims are often ignored. The fact that the Michigan gymnastics coach was only demonized after dozens of women made similar accusations is contrasted with the scorn shown to some of his first victims--even by their own parents--who were uniformly disbelieved.
Other examples include a male entitlement to power. Prof. Mann cites several studies where identical resumes are shown to people--with the only difference the perceived gender of the applicant. Overwhelmingly, the same credentials are viewed as more suitable for positions of power when assigned to a person perceived as male. She uses this as a springboard to examine the difference in the way male and female candidates are treated--which appears to be linked to the prestige and power of the office they are seeking.
From heights of public office, Prof. Manne also focuses on the more day-to-day issues of the division of household labor, analyzing in depth the various studies showing that while men do more of the household work than ever before, they continue to lag behind women, and almost never carry the burden of the higher level organizational tasks. For example, men may do cleaning, run errands, do shopping, and wash clothes, but it is almost always the woman who keeps track of the family calendar to make sure that these tasks all get done on time.
After 200 pages spent delving into the philosophical underpinnings of male entitlement, Prof. Manne concludes with a short, very personal chapter about becoming the mother of a baby girl. She despairs having to teach her child how to resist these entitlements, in the face of society's deeply ingrained epistemological biases. But she concludes that hope is in fact real, and in itself is a form of resistance. While she does not cite this book (but does cite several of her other works), Prof. Manne's conclusion reminds me very much of Professor Solnit's book, Hope in the Dark.
In sum, a book very much worth reading, and (as with her earlier book, Down Girl) is published at exactly the right time.
February 9, 2021
To give this book credit, I found it to be well written, well organized, and it got across the points it was trying to; however, I don’t think I learned anything or was encouraged to reflect on any ideas in a new way while reading. I found this book to be very “Feminist 101”, or perhaps a state of the union on how American democrats currently understand and recognize feminism. The only new ideas that were presented to me in this book were the very buzzy, hashtag-able words “himpathy” and “sherasure”, which no doubt describe very real social phenomena, but are not necessarily important to identifying, analyzing or addressing the workings and consequences of male entitlement. While Manne often acknowledged the varied and extreme ways that of women of color and transwoman experience misogyny and sexism, she still centered the stories of many cis white women, and particularly cis white women in positions of power. For many of the chapters, I felt that I had recently encountered a more nuanced, complete analysis of the subject matter. Notably, I felt that her analysis of Incels and their entitlement fell short compared to Contrapoint’s video essay on the subject, and the section on gaslighting felt sparse compared to the rich, creative writing on the same subject published by Carmen Maria Machado in In the Dream House. Overall, I would not recommend this book to most of my friends, but if perhaps it could serve as an accessible read for people just beginning their feminist education, to help them gain some understanding and perspective about the pervasiveness of sexism and misogyny that exists in our society today.
September 19, 2020
An excellent examination of the role that misogyny/male entitlement play in all aspects of human life including sexual encounters, power, reproductive rights, politics, and relationship dynamics. I did not agree with everything she had today but I found her ideas thought provoking.She covers a wide range of topics including the Me Too Movement, Hilary Clinton's & Elizaabeth Warren's misadventures at the polls, incredibly unjust verdicts in recent sexual assault cases, and how couples struggle over who does what in the household. A must read and I guarantee spirited dinner conversation.
October 9, 2020
DNF. This book just felt like someone screaming in the liberal echo chamber of twitter. I wanted actual data or actual research on the various ways male privilege is exercised and the way it benefits men. Instead it's basically a summary of things most women have experienced or know. In a weird combination of current events and media/pop culture discussions. Not sure who the audience would be, but it was not what I had hoped for.
September 28, 2020
This is a thoughtful discussion about misogyny and male entitlement, much of it so structural, ubiquitous and embedded in the very norms of society that it takes a special kind of social/philosophical anthropologist to bring it into the light of day, and help women describe and understand their shared experience and demand change.
Kate Manne is exactly that kind of brilliant anthropologist.
Kate Manne is exactly that kind of brilliant anthropologist.
April 24, 2021
this is a devastatingly well-researched, well thought out, and well articulated manifesto on the ills of patriarchy and its damaging effect on society. its wildly good.
it is also, i am ashamed to admit, likely my first real introduction to feminist theory as a political philosophy - and way Kate Manne guides you through, incident by incident, the web of misogyny and toxic masculinity makes abundantly clear how just how vital feminism is for the advancement of all.
to be clear- this is really fucking good book.
it is also, i am ashamed to admit, likely my first real introduction to feminist theory as a political philosophy - and way Kate Manne guides you through, incident by incident, the web of misogyny and toxic masculinity makes abundantly clear how just how vital feminism is for the advancement of all.
to be clear- this is really fucking good book.
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