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Title: Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 by Gail Bederman ISBN: 0-226-04139-5 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Gender as a historical construction and analytical tool
Comment: After reading the reviews of this book I feel obligated to issue a contrasting view that many of the reviewers, oblivious to the gender system that invisibly yet inextricably contours their own behavior and sense of self, have missed; incidently, their reviews provide interesting insights not in any regards to the book as they utterly misinterpret the text, but rather themselves and the political texture of contemporary society.
Bederman illustrates how fin de seicle white men marshalled tropes of masculinity - their conceptions of manhood - to question African-American manhood. The narration of Ida B. Wells simply illustrates how she and other reformers inverted the gender discourse against the predominant, middle-class Anglo conception of manhood to crystallize their hypocrisy. Moreover, in no way does her feminism subvert or in some other way negate the value of this book, as it was, and remains a most valuable contribution for gender studies simply because the book shows how gender, and yes, men are gendered, is socially constructed.

Rating: 3
Summary: Subdued Bias
Comment: Bederman chronicles the lives and movements of four prominent figures in the 1880-1917 period: Theodore Roosevelt, G. Stanley Hall, Ida B. Wells, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. However this work seems more of a history of feminism than a cultural history as Bederman focuses mainly on the achievements of women, the attempts women made for suffrage and better working conditions, all the while trying to explain away the positions of the male counterparts as lacking, unfairly oppressive, or some other pejorative term. Bederman's portrayals are quite thorough and academic yet they are not without bias, even though the bias may be subdued in some places.

Rating: 2
Summary: Manhood is womanly
Comment: Like many others, I had to read this book, for college. Before telling us who the author was, we had to read the first two chapters. It was more than easy to tell that it was a woman. After all, she spends more time male bashing than discussing the issues critical to the text. Her development on HOW manhood is a social creation could use some help. How she develops it as it changes though time is interesting, but to bland. Some of her argument is based on stereotypes instead of facts. She may be a proffesor, but not everything she says is truth. Nevertheless, she does an exellent job adding storylines into her text to keep it interesting. I gave it 2 starz b/c the author writes well, but I would not recommend it to anyone unless the title was renamed Womanhood & other male bashing tales.

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