Ten Stupid Things Men Do To Mess Up Their Lives [Paperback]

However, the book is guilty of some uncharacteristically fuzzy thinking, which allows Dr. Laura to vent against some of her favourite foes--that monolithic block of fanatics known as "The Feminists" (who are a bitter, undifferentiated and irrational crew, in Schlessinger's opinion)--and to excuse men, to some degree, from their irresponsible and self-defeating behavior.

According to Schlessinger, one of the main causes of male irresponsibility in contemporary society is gender-role confusion caused by a culture dominated by "feminism," which she seems to equate with a very rigid style of liberal feminism that denies all psychological and biological differences between men and women, and which is fundamentally anti-male. As a feminist, who has taught Women's Studies (another one of Dr. Laura's nemeses), I can vouch authoritatively for the fact that feminism is a much more complex phenomenon than this, and by no means unformly, or predominantly, anti-male. By blaming "the feminists" (equated with "culture") Schlessinger manages, to some degree, to let men "off the hook" for their reprehensible behaviour--although Schlessinger never allows women the same latitude(feminist claims that women have been oppressed by centuries of male dominated culture--as evidenced by mere historical details such as women's deprivation of legal and civil rights relative to men's over the centuries--are, according to Dr. Laura, illegitimate and irrelevant in explaining women's self-defeating behaviours).

Dr. Laura's aggressively pro-male stance, ironically enough, leads the reader (at least the female reader) to a sense of despair over "mankind." Her chapter on "Stupid Husbanding," for example, presents such a lengthy litany of male irresponsibility, insensitivity and just plain stupidity that any sane woman would run screaming rather than commit to a relationship with a member of a sex so clearly unsuited to matrimony. Moreover, her biological determinism--maleness is an "animal" trait which must be overcome, but "being a man" is "human," and to be striven towards--is rather insulting to men. Male biology somehow makes men less than human, and huge amounts of effort must be exerted in order for them to achieve human connection and civilized behavior.

All this said, the book provides a wealth of detail and insight on men's behavior that will be illuminating to both men and women readers.

By the time I finished it was four-thirty in the morning, and I wasn't tired. What a book! I'm still a teenager, one who doesn't date, do drugs, have sex, drink, watch porno, etc, and even though this book was intended for men, adult men who have grown up and entered the working force and the world of realtionships and sex, I found it deeply insightful and clear. Dr. Laura lays morality on the table in an effective and entertaining way, and it makes sense, which is the problem with most messages coming from either side, the right or the left. She explains the workings of the male, and female minds and how they are different, and how they are the same, as well as the monumental difference between being male and being a man. She talks about self control and how having it can not only bring you respect, it can bring you true, healthy relationships, and she defines how to be an equal partner in marriage, a real equal partner, not the liberal feminist definition of equal partnership.

Five stars, an excellent book for the moral minded, and for the not so moral minded, who want to know what morals are.