Book Review - "For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity
I’ve been holding on to Liz Plank’s For the Love of Men: A New World Vision for Mindful Masculinity since shortly after its release. As part of my New Year’s goal setting, I’ve pledged to read at least one book a month for all of 2021. Given my own interest in feminst theory, a book on gender seemed like the perfect place to start. Plank’s work as a journalist first caught my attention around 2015 when she created content for Mic, and I’ve followed her career as she graced panels and shifted over to Vox. I began to follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Her coverage of current events through a gender-conscious lens coincided with my first exposure to feminist political theory. Through her use of modern mediums, including TikTok and podcasts, the points she makes are accessible and digestible, while also helping to frame larger discussions about culture, identity, and politics.
At just under 300 pages, For the Love of Men: A New World Vision for Mindful Masculinity demonstrates how the patriarchy harms men. The book’s structure is reminiscent of the early days of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legal advocacy for gender equality. Like Ginsburg’s early arguments, Plank contends that the expected roles of men in the workplace, family, and society restrict their ability to achieve work/life balance, act as fully-present parents, express a full spectrum of emotion, and a number of other limiting factors.
The book’s thesis on toxic masculinity draws compelling evidence from both academic studies and the anecdotal experience of men themselves. The testimonies of these men (all from different backgrounds and life experience) help to expose deeply held socialized beliefs about masculinity that we start to learn at a very young age. Plank’s work is full of gripping observations about the dire need to address how consequential gendered messaging can be. Just two pages into her exposition, she observes:
“It reveals itself in the way we’re more comfortable with the image of a boy playing with a toy gun rather than a boy playing with a toy doll, because we’re more comfortable seeing a boy hold something that kills rather than something that cries” (Plank, 2019).
As a whole, For the Love of Men: A New World Vision for Mindful Masculinity frames gender equality as an issue that must be approached from an endless amount of different perspectives and considerations. There are sadly almost endless examples of how the patriarchy has a tremendously damaging impact on both a global and personal scale, especially for individuals who are women, genderfluid, or nonbinary. But, by calling attention to issues and trends that uniquely impact men, such as shorter life expectancy and strikingly higher rates of death by suicide, we learn that sexism fails to consistently benefit even the most privileged segments of the population. So if the system isn’t working for most people, why do we so closely guard gender experience and expression?
Plank’s observations reveal that gender equality makes everyone better off. However, in order to move towards this constantly-shifting and abstract benchmark, changes are needed both in terms of socialization and policy that permit men to move through the world with more flexibility. For the Love of Men: A New World Vision for Mindful Masculinity offers some insight into how we can get started in making changes in how we package and practice masculinity.
