Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4266020 in Books
• Published on: 1985-09-01
• Binding: Paperback

Customer Reviews

"STAND UP!" ~ James Dean to his emasculated Dad in the movie, 'Rebel Without A Cause.'

In the opening chapter of his 1985 book, 'MANHOOD REDUX: STANDING UP TO FEMINISM', C.H. Freedman states his premise: "I have long been convinced that some of the more militant feminists in today's so-called women's movement are the female counterparts of male [abusers]...That is to say, if Gloria Steinem, for example, had been born a man and had developed the same antipathy for the opposite [gender] she in actuality possesses now, she/he might well be spending her/his spare hours hiding in bushes in New York City's Central Park waiting for vulnerable female joggers to chance by."

And Freedman's last paragraph states the challenge: "It's time now for reasonable men to join reasonable women in ridding our society of extremist rule. It's time for men to be men again and women to be completely free to be women, in a rediscovered setting of mutual love and respect. That's how it was designed in the beginning. That's how it was through the proudest times of our national existence. And that's how at least a few of us are determined it's going to be once again."

In between these two paragraphs is a book that makes my all-time Top Ten list, and I don't mean just Top Ten pertaining to The Women's Movement; I'm referring to my Top Ten regardless of subject matter.

'MANHOOD REDUX*' (*Redux: bringing back, restoring - Cassell's New Latin Dictionary) is a fair and eminent assessment of the fallout from the Women's Liberation movement. It is filled with trenchant observations about the negative impact that this social reconfiguration has had on ALL parties - not just on men, but also on women, children, families, and society as a whole. Far from being a misogynist, Mr. Freedman clearly loves women and the ideal of Womanhood. (He believes that the most outstanding person in American history was a woman!) He does not shy away from admitting that "to a certain extent men have needed a jolt" and that the woman has similar needs and desires as the man and is "every bit as entitled to her dignity as he is to his." But he also notes with both passion and clearheadedness that a small, shrill, and unreasonable, man-hating fringe group has (with the help of Feminist males in positions of power) wrought great destruction upon a society of both men and women that is largely opposed to its agenda.

It is a real testament to Mr. Freedman's talent that he was able to write a book on a concept that's had disastrous effects on all of us, and also a subject so disturbing that, quite frankly, I find it very depressing, and yet his book was so enjoyable to read - a genuine pleasure. Now that takes some skill and personality! It rates as one of my favorites despite the "libbers' stridency and the brain-damaged man-hating" topic that the book addresses.

C.H. Freedman examines the repercussions of "allowing an unarmed group to so terrorize our society and so disrupt our value system", and he does so from nearly every conceivable angle -- some you might not have even considered.

What makes such an in-depth look at such a distressing social problem bearable - nay, pleasurable - is Freedman's clear vision, lucid analogies, and biting humor; he has the ability to actually make the reader think and to laugh-out-loud simultaneously. And he pulls no punches even if they are directed at (aggressive) females. But some of his most powerful blows land squarely on the noses of ignorant and spineless Feminist males. For example, in one place he comments on some male legislators who voluntarily imposed upon themselves gender inequality in the form of a males-only dress code. Freedman wrote: "Some especially obedient little dogs, of course, bring their masters their leash when they want to be harnessed up for a walk."

Things have gotten exponentially worse in the 20 years since 'MANHOOD REDUX' was published. It remains my favorite text on The Women's Movement even though it is no longer up-to-date. Its two decade age (and lack of an index) represents this book's only real weakness. But what has happened in the ensuing years? For one thing, Title IX has now taken its full deleterious effect on men's collegiate athletics. And Freedman clearly overestimated the sanity of the American women and underestimated the capacity for cowardice in this country's so-called "men" when on page 138 he says confidently regarding the idea of letting women go to combat in the armed forces: "It's never going to happen because Americans of both [genders] aren't going to let it happen." Boy did he give us too much credit there. As we all know, women are now dying on battlefields or being captured and abused! Kate O'Beirne once posed the question: "What kind of country sends its girls and mothers into combat?" The answer? A country just like ours! If I didn't have my "Betsy Ross" 13 American colonies flag to fly on the Fourth of July, I would fly no flag at all, because honestly, my country has become a major source of embarrassment for me.

I wish to close out this review with several observations that indicate a breakdown of society generally, but more specifically the degradation of the feminine psychology in the decades following the publication of Freedman's book. The following incidents would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago when I was in high school. And how much more so just 20 years before that in the mid-1950s?:

The newspaper, The Arizona Republic ("The Daily Disappointment") reported on May 31st of this year that nationally, the number of female state inmates serving sentences of more than a year grew by 757 percent between 1977 and 2004, nearly twice the 388 percent increase for men.

The following item appeared in that same disappointing daily paper on June 19th of this year: "An apparent road-rage attack in south Phoenix left two dead and three others wounded Sunday when an unknown woman opened fire on a vehicle in the next lane. A vehicle containing seven friends was traveling west in the 4000 block of West Buckeye Road about 2 a.m. when a mid-1980s beige sedan began tailgating them, Phoenix police said. When the victims braked, the sedan pulled alongside their vehicle and a female passenger began firing numerous rounds at the victims."

This from a June 28th article on the internet: A Jacksonville man says he was duped and robbed by two girls after attempting to meet with a woman named Natalia whom he had met on the internet..."I went to [the apartment] and knocked on the door, and there was no answer. So I called her and said, `I'm here' and there was no answer." That is when two girls who were 14 and 15-years-old, approached him saying they knew Natalia, the girl he thought he'd be meeting...Now sensing something was wrong, he was ready to take off, but was stopped by a shocking discovery. "[One of the girls] took [a] gun out and put it to my head and told me to empty my pockets."

But then what can we expect from our teenage girls when they see a female Representative on Capitol Hill (Cynthia McKinney) strike a police officer when he goes to stop her after she walks through a security checkpoint and refuses to pause and identify herself? When we let this kind of behavior go unchecked at the highest levels of government, what kind of message are we sending to our kids? And when did a female Representative treat a Capitol Hill police officer with such disrespect in the 1970s?

Recently at a private high school in New York, the daughter of actress Dianne Wiest, along with two other female accomplices, attacked a male student, kicking and hitting him and stealing the boy's iPod. Nobody could have dreamed up such a situation in "my day" and not just because we didn't have iPods then! And that's a perfect segue into this...

I accidentally stumbled upon a 2003 internet poll conducted amongst high school students in which it was asked how many of them had witnessed a schoolyard fight in which the combatants were of mixed genders. 4,241 students answered in the affirmative. This blew my mind because during my time (1974-1977) at a big city high school in the Los Angeles area, a boy duking it out with a girl on the campus was not even imaginable. I saw many fights (even a couple between two girls - "cat fights"), and I myself was in a couple of fights, but never did I see one of mixed genders. Guys still had too much respect to hit a girl, and girls were still too feminine and still liked boys too much to think about striking one! But now almost all sense of propriety, chivalry and civility between the genders has been removed, and this is the result!

My Brother - I call him Napoleon - speaks fluent Spanish and sometimes likes to practice it while visiting Hispanic chat websites. Not long ago I happened to walk by and glance at his computer screen and what I saw there stopped me dead in my tracks. "Did she just write that she could kick your b*tt?" I asked him incredulously. "Yeah" he said and smiled at me. "She lives in Mexico and trains in kick boxing", he added. Nappy wrote back, "HaHa", but she insisted that she wasn't kidding. Now what you need to know about my Brother is that pound-for-pound, he is probably one of the baddest dudes walking around on this planet. He has some sort of innate, but truly freakish fighting skill (which he's too nice to ever use on anyone); he's stronger than Drano; he can punch with the speed and precision of Sugar Ray Leonard when that famous boxer was in his prime, and his fists literally feel like bricks - they will demolish anything they strike. I can state absolutely unequivocally that even if this young woman had been training in kick boxing since the age of 3, she could not possibly remain conscious for as long as ten seconds in the ring with Nappy (but neither could the vast majority of very large men, for that matter). However, my point is not to tell you how tough my Bro is, but to illustrate that today's women have been conditioned to have so little regard for men that they don't even tend to respect a man's God-given qualities of strength and aggressiveness. This girl just automatically assumed that she was physically superior to a man she had never even seen before. That's because since the advancement of The Women's Movement, women have generally perceived men to be weak beings IN EVERY RESPECT. And we seem to confirm their perceptions at every turn, don't we? Especially by letting this extremist conditioning continue. If you want to understand how our society has come to this, you will want to locate a copy of C.H. Freedman's great book, 'MANHOOD REDUX.'

I don't get out much anymore, but I have two coworkers who do attend concerts and sporting events from time to time. Both of them have told me that on several occasions, they have been in the men's room, taking care of business, when women who evidently didn't feel like waiting in the line at their own facilities, have simply walked into the men's room and gone into a stall to relieve themselves. If this doesn't illustrate a total disrespect for men in general, then I don't know what does! By their actions, these women are silently screaming, "You men don't matter; you have no rights that I need to respect!" But boy, let a male try that trick in the women's room and see where he spends the night, and see if he doesn't end up with a serious criminal offense on his record! (The first woman who ever walks in on me in a men's room is going to jail because I DEFINITELY WILL PRESS CHARGES! - that's where I draw the line on my "gentleman" status. Freedman is right: although he's speaking of war metaphorically, he says on page 225, "It has long been time for American men to stop being nice and to wage war against the feminist aggressors.")

The attitudes indicated by the activities I've mentioned above clearly show a pattern that has developed in the young female faction of our society. These attitudes were essentially unknown just 30 years ago, but are quickly becoming commonplace due to the negative ramifications of an extremist movement that is relegating our natural sense of civility and respect and concern for the common good into old-fashioned oddities. And just as the example above shows how little regard women generally have for men, this last illustration indicates that some of them no longer hold themselves in high regard either...

Earlier this year, a couple of ladies where I work pointed out two puddles in the parking lot of our business, and told me that just a minute earlier, two young women got out of their car, squatted down right there in the parking lot in full view of a 4-story glass building behind them and the windows of a restaurant immediately before them, and side-by-side, they proceeded to relieve themselves. When finished, they replaced their clothing and strolled into the restaurant that they had been facing. A restaurant, I might add, that not surprisingly has rest room facilities available for its patrons. In other words, women now seem to view themselves as no more demure than a trucker on the side of the road - only in the trucker's case, a rest room will not be found within thirty yards of his marked territory! Yeah, congratulations! You've come a long way, baby: from the women's room to the parking lot!

A Must-Read in the Small Genre of Men's Rights Books
Although published in 1985, C.H. Freedman's "Manhood Redux" is an essential work for reading in 2008. In less than 300 pages, it covers the numerous instances in which feminism is harming males, females, and society, and offers inspiration to disillusioned men who are confused about how to assert their masculinity in this unisex world. It is as relevant today as it was in 1985, as the differences between the sexes have slipped away even more since it was written. The book is available for less than $38.99 elsewhere on the internet and I wish it were better-known. It is a perfect place to begin your reading of anti-feminist literature and will open your eyes to the awful effects of feminism's going WAY too far, and will ultimately give you hope if you are one of a new profusion of lost men in today's society. I have nothing to add to the two extensive reviews already on this page except that I wish there were more men like C.H. Freedman in the world today. Many men don't even realize that they are today's second sex.

A perspective indictment of feminism by a man who loves women.
C. H. Freedman loves women too much to subject them to feminism. He points out, in great detail, that the results of feminism are to put women in danger attempting to be soldiers, police officers, and so on, and to doom the vast majority of women to despair and frustration when they don't achieve great success in some high-powered, prestigious career - something few men and far, far fewer women have the ability to do.

In addition, he shows that feminism is damaging to men AS WELL AS TO WOMEN. In his final chapter, he suggests a "realistic societal plan" in which women are perfectly free to be doctors or lawyers or whatever else they want, but: "They could not be police patrol officers, Green Berets, firefighters, dockworkers or the like because even if they were up to the job, which they most decidedly are not, their presence in such work amounts to an insult and put-down of men." It is very refreshing to see this treated as a legitimate concern for a change.

Most of the book is a chronicle of the totalitarian tactics of feminists, and of the damage their goals inflict on men, women, and children.

He devotes considerable space to an exposé of Betty Friedan. Friedan was an "egghead" in school and was unpopular, particularly with boys because of her unattractive appearance. Yes, just like the trite jokes about feminists, Friedan really did become a feminist because no one asked her to the prom. She channeled her unhappiness into making sure no other woman could have what she had missed out on: a happy and secure marriage, being treated like a lady, etc. Friedan is so unbalanced that even her fellow feminists found her too much to deal with. She was given, at the time this book was written, to issuing orders to prominent fellow feminists such as the vice president of NOW as if they were her personal staff, and if they declined to obey, the result would be an obscenity-ridden tantrum. She threw a screaming fit at Sally Jesse Raphael, who by the way remained calm and cordial throughout, when she appeared on her show. Not that she spares her enemies either; when Phyllis Schafly failed to wilt in debate with her, Friedan gave up debating and screamed, "I'd like to burn you at the stake!" No, feminists aren't being discreet about their true goals.

He chronicles the systematic censorship of textbooks by feminists. Such publishers as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill issued guidelines requiring that textbooks depict women as doctors, lawyers, etc., fathers as washing dishes, and other such nonsense. He also cites a far more serious case, that of a history text which was required to remove Bach, Napoleon and Mozart and include Phyllis Wheatley. I had to Google her to learn who she was; seems she was an African-American poetess who died before she was 30.

He quotes George Gilder's 1973 work Sexual Suicide at length, and then tells the sad story of how this very important work was scuttled by feminists. The first two printings were very successful, and Gilder was a bestselling author, but when he tried to get it reprinted again, feminists successfully intimidated every publisher in the business into avoiding the project. It never has been reprinted, but thanks to the male-invented Internet, you can get an old copy right here on Amazon very inexpensively.

Freedman devotes a chapter to an overview of scientific data on the innate differences between the sexes, and to feminist reactions whenever this basic fact of life is mentioned. Even female, feminist researchers found themselves being literally screamed at for making the most mild of remarks delineating the differences between the sexes, just as happened to Larry Summers a couple of years ago. I'm not surprised; just last week, a female friend stopped speaking to me because I said that men and women are inherently different. The scary thing is, she's in college studying to be a scientist. And will no doubt have her career guaranteed by institutions that will hire her to avoid a lawsuit. But hey, facts are far less important than giving women jobs they can't do and respect they haven't earned.

Most disturbing is his account of female "cops". He tells us, "It is extremely difficult to compile data on the unsuitability of women on police patrol, because most cops are rightly afraid of speaking out." He interviewed several policeMEN on the subject, and every one of them insisted on anonymity. He then gives us a terrifying litany of policewomen being easily overpowered by male criminals, and mentions a couple of comical examples where a pair of policewomen didn't even try to deal with a routine situation, but instead called for (male) backup - that is, they called the police. Most horrifying are the many examples of male cops forced to work with female partners who failed to back them up. While the man was in a shootout or was physically apprehending someone, his female partner would be literally hiding behind the car. Two days after a policewoman froze up and stood by doing nothing while her male partner returned fire to perps who were shooting at them, wives of policemen marched in a demonstration against female cops on patrol. These women are the ones who are fighting for women's good: they were defending the right of policemen's wives to get their husbands home alive, and for the right of every citizen to be protected from criminals.

In fact, most women can't even get through the training. Standards are constantly adjusted or simply dropped for the simple reason that women can't meet them. One aspiring policewoman started crying the first time she was handed a gun. Another cried when she was supposed to arrest someone. This will not surprise anyone who attended co-ed school, where at any moment one can witness the fact that grown women cannot even stand up to 8-year-old boys.

He follows this with similarly appalling tales from firefighting and the military, tales that are sadly predictable in the era of Jessica Lynch.
Freedman points out at exhaustive length the inadequacy of female sports. Today, this seems like a fairly trivial subject; female athletes are out there, but not many people pay a lot of attention to them. But in 1985, when this book was published, feminists were still hoping that female athletes would demonstrate that women could be just as strong and tough as men, and a great deal of media attention focused on their progress. The media carefully ignored that even the best female athletes couldn't come close to their male counterparts. At the time, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were the highest paid tennis players in history, raking in more than the male champion of the time. And yet, when Chris Evert practiced with a 15-year-old boy who was ranked second in the 16-and-under group in Florida, she couldn't beat him. Ever.

Freedman mentions over and over that feminists do not, contrary to what they claim, represent women as a whole. Most women want to wear pretty clothes, to have doors held for them, to be treated like ladies, and to marry and be mothers. Even women in traditionally male professions, such as medicine, are well aware of the differences between men and women and like it that way. He points to the two nationwide women's strikes NOW tried to coordinate, the "Strike For Equality" in 1970 and the "Alice Doesn't" strike a few years later. The idea was that women would refuse to work for a day in protest at their horrible oppression and the nation would consequently grind to a halt. Instead, only a small handful of radical feminists participated in the strike, and no one but them noticed. (An internet search brought up a few sites referring to these strikes, which gushed with admiration for the dames who "coordinated" them, but glossed over the fact that no one came to the party.)

Similarly, a feminist named Susan Bolotin started asking women who didn't identify themselves as feminists why they didn't. She heard feminists described as "icy monsters, as women who had 'let themselves go physically,' who had 'no sense of style,'" etc. She saw this as a PR failure on the part of feminism, not as the accurate reflection of reality that it was and is.

The only flaw I find in this book is a throwaway remark in the last chapter. In proposing his "realistic societal plan", Freedman says, "Men can't be given absolutely equal consideration for custody because that's no more natural than for women to be given equal consideration at the fire departments." No, men can't be given "absolutely equal consideration", they must be given strongly preferential consideration. If we want to reverse the incalculable damage done to our society in recent decades, fathers absolutely must be given default custody in divorces unless there is a very compelling reason that he not be, such as that he is a convicted murderer. 75% of criminals and the majority of welfare recipients, and substance abusers are from fatherless homes. Mothers commit the overwhelming majority of child abuse, I suppose because, given those natural differences in strength feminists want to ignore, if women want to bully someone, they have no one to bully except a child. Stepfathers and "mommy's boyfriends" come in second on child abuse, often hospitalizing or killing the children who have been denied their natural protectors, their fathers. Finally, default mother custody encourages broken homes. In the 19th century and before, by law men could divorce their wives and take the children away, but almost never did. Nowadays, women can do this, and in overwhelming numbers, do.

Aside from this minuscule flaw, this book is indispensable for anyone who is fed up with feminist propaganda.