In a time and world in which toxic masculinity is, let's be honest, a scourge, it's essential that we come to understand it more. It is especially important for men to understand, and in "For the Love of Men", Plank offers some smart and insightful information and examination. I'm sure it's not for everyone, but if you have any interest in understanding this damaging force, then you may well find what you're looking for here.

This book covers such a breadth of topics from a perspective that seems much less common in the literary world! I think some chapters work better than others as arguments, but the mix of research and memoir always managed to be interesting.

As someone who has spent years during work around gender and with masculinity specifically, the topic of this book wasn't new to be. However, the way that the author framed this issue was a new and welcome take. She explains the topic not in an attacking manner, but rather she gives considerations to encourage the reader to reflect on why things are how they are, and more importantly, how they could (and should) be different. She discusses issues from a place of care for men and boys, as well as for girls and women. What she's talking about is creating a safer, more equitable future for all. The reflections in this book are powerful, and I found myself nodding along as I read. This is a welcome addition to the topic of gender, and I so value the perspective this author shares on the topic!

Liz Plank's new book For the Love of Men is certain to be on the syllabi in many upcoming gender studies classes. It's an exploration of "toxic masculinity" in the context of contemporary society and how we got here. As an educator, I found this book particularly thought-provoking.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

A very important book to read! Liz Plank looks at toxic male culture from a different lens. WHY do we raise boys to be men that conform to specific gender norms? What is the history, how did we get to where we are today? A must read, and one that I hope folks will be talking about, as a starting point to help mend our societal gender dysfunction.

Discussed on Episode 84 of the Book Cougars Podcast airdate September 3, 2019

This book explains many of the curious rules of modern masculinity, and how those rules have changed over time, but do not serve society well today. Somewhat dense, but an interesting read.

This was an interesting book about how modern masculinity is not preparing men on how to deal with current social norms. I loved how the author incorporated many sources into this book, such as her own experience from travel, research she completed, and by interviewing individuals. I felt like this approach made the book a lot more credible.

If you are like me, and are constantly mystified about why men behave and think the way they do, even when it is obviously (according to the female viewpoint) counterproductive, this is the book for you. I was not expecting to be so excited reading this, but as I was presented with research and life stories supporting Plank’s ideas, I found that she had answered to my satisfaction many of the questions I’ve had about men all my life.

If you are a man, this book will also be enlightening because much of what society deems “masculinity” is subconscious and almost never discussed. Misunderstandings about the differences between male and female gender rules cause a myriad of problems for men and their partners and bringing them to light could greatly improve all areas of life or both genders.

She uses the term “toxic masculinity” to describe the rigid behaviors currently required for straight men to be acceptable to society. This complex system of rules are a heavy burden for men to bear, cause a lot of problems and pain for the men themselves as well as the partners who love them.

She points out that boys before puberty enjoy very close relationships with other boys and are psychologically open and physically comfortable with them. Then, something drastic happens about the time of puberty that causes them to keep relationships with other men on a superficial level and to be very uncomfortable with physical expressions of affection.

One example she gives is that there are rules regarding the use of urinals. These include, leaving an empty urinal between you and the next guy if possible (some guys actually go into the stalls if this is not available), and not making eye contact or talking unless you are close friends. Contrast this with the way women enjoy going to restrooms together as a kind of social event and feel free to discuss anything they want to and look anywhere they want to with each other or even with complete strangers in a very casual way.

This is just one small example of the complex system of rules that straight men generally must follow to avoid being ostracized for not being “masculine”. This is largely subconscious, and just accepted as they way things are. Most women have no idea what these rules are, and they remain mystified as to why their male loved ones think and behave as they do. Try discussing these ideas with someone of the opposite sex and prepare to be startled.

However, this type of “toxic masculinity” is fairly recent in our history. During the early history of our country, it was common for straight men to be physically demonstrative with male friends. They would often hire a photographer to take photos of them holding hands or sitting on each other’s laps, sleep together platonically, and call each other by affectionate pet names. These were prominent men, including presidents, and done in public without any embarrassment. Imagine today if straight men behaved this way. Things would not go well for them. We even have a special name, a “bromance”, for the sighting of straight men merely enjoying dinner together. What happened to make such a huge change in what we think of as masculinity? Plank believes it is homophobia and makes a strong case for this.

What I’ve described is just the tip of the iceberg. It is very comprehensive. Plank alternates clearly explained research studies supporting her ideas with true stories of people who have been impacted by them. This makes it very enjoyable to read.

You must read this book to get the full impact of how important it is. It is certainly going to influence my life in many ways. I have highlighted many passages and look forward to discussing them with friends, both male and female. I hope everyone reads this. I believe it would strengthen relationships and change the world for the better.

Very highly recommended.

Note: I received an advance copy of the ebook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC.

I was really excited by the description and topic of this book, and think it's absolutely something we need more discussion about. And yet I was disappointed with the execution of this. There's a lot of good points here, but it's written in a very dense style that's a little more academic and less pragmatic than I had wanted. There's plenty of great interviews here with a variety of different perspectives on modern masculinity, but also one with Tomi Lahren that I think weakens the argument.

I came to this book as someone who's already trying to be more mindful about the issues the book covers, which may be why it wasn't as great a read as I was hoping, but I also think it's not the best starting point for someone who wants to do take initial steps in thinking about this for themselves.

There is no question in my mind, and, clearly in the mind of Liz Plank, that the effects of toxic masculinity are damaging to all parties, and, as women band together with take of themselves and each other, the damage is increasingly to the male perpetrators of these behaviors. From health outcomes to life satisfaction, artifacts of patriarchal isolationism, violence, and competition effect the whole of humanity, not just the women and other men upon whom these behaviors are visited. This would be a sufficient area of exploration for any feature-length tome.

Enter Liz Plank, and her subsequent determination to explore every nook and cranny of masculinity in general, toxic masculinity, queerness and masculinity, health outcomes and masculinity, femininity and masculinity, fatherhood, male friendships, etc, etc. Perhaps one can already see the issue. In my opinion (After all, what is a review for?) this book reached too far, too quickly. Beyond issues of simple sentence structure (extra words, phrases from old edits left in) which may be chocked up to an advanced reader's copy, the narrative of this exploration is unclear and could benefit from some strict editing. Oftentimes, I found myself feeling like I was in left field of a topic, only to be jerked around to the original thesis of a chapter with alarming and glaringly disorienting speed. Subjects as far reaching as ISIS, gun violence, domestic violence, racism, misogyny, and "bromance," were all explored in the same passages at lightning-fast pace. Each of these chapters could have, and perhaps should have, been a book in their own right in order to truly explore the depths, rather than presenting anecdotal science with a sprinkling of unrelated and largely unexplored percentages and bits of research science.

Most jarring to me were the "Amuse-Bouche" anecdotes dotting the chapters. Presented as an amalgam of experiences in each of their respective categories (perhaps a delineation to be explored as reinforcing toxic humanity in general), the first two of these mini chapters particularly made me cringe. The first opens with a trite and reductive dress-down of the trans male experience as a simple injection of hormones over the course of a relatively short period of time. Perhaps this was meant sarcastically, but this passage is hugely problematic and immediately made me question Plank's overall thesis of humanitarian compassion and empathy, even as she was ostensibly writing a personal anecdote from a trans person. It contradicted her otherwise fairly sensitive discussions of queerness, but the sarcastic tone was inconsistent enough that I couldn't be sure if this was a stylistic choice or a Freudian slip. The second presents disability and manhood, but makes huge leaps between charm and being a "lady's man" within the first couple of sentences, which are as unrelated to each other as disability and manhood, a point which Plank seeks to elucidate using this anecdote. These leaps of personal narrative occur in almost all these little chapters, and, frankly, made much of this book painful to read.

To me, this particular book read as a bad impression of Brene Brown. It tried to be both anecdotal and research-based, tried to argue that women were responsible for men and that they weren't, that men were responsible for themselves and each other, and that they weren't, all while presenting what felt like disingenuous personal narratives that, perhaps, Plank put together herself. I picked up this book thinking that it would be a meditation on female interaction with toxic masculinity: how we, as women, participate and contribute and can help to dampen the damaging effects of toxicity in general, perhaps. I have no problem being wrong about a book, but I do have a problem being instructed with poor pacing and what might very well be falsification of experience.

This title caught my eye right away and read I read the book description I knew I needed to read it. I am the mother of two boys and the topic of "men" is certainly on my mind. Having grown up in a household of women, there have been many surprises along the way of parenting boys. One of the biggest one of all is how much society's expectations play into what we think men "should" be like, starting from birth. Plank shares research on the physical, mental, and emotional harm that impacts men because of these (sometimes) invisible bias.

In For The Love of Men, author Liz Plank dives into the topic of "toxic masculinity" and approaches this from every angle, including research and conversations with a wide range of men. Plank shares how expectations can differ so much depending on nationality, race, sexuality and class. This book is backed with plenty of research but the individual stories that were included added so much to the readability and accessibility of this topic.

Ending toxic and moving towards mindful masculinity is necessary in order for true gender equality to exist. For the Love of Men isn't against men, but rather it promotes everyone to practice more self-reflection, mindfulness, compassion, and empathy.

Plank's insightful writing is encouraging and hopeful that we can have a world where everyone can have control over their own emotions and mental health and this starts from learning these things from childhood. I got so much out of this book and I highly recommend this to both men and women who are looking for a wonderfully real yet optimistic conversation on moving past gender norms.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy.

This book could probably fit in to a lot of generations but fills oh so timely in the current political and social environment. As a Mother to a teenage boy, I try really hard to fight against the ideas of what a guy should and shouldn’t be and people are always remarking on his chill temperament and politeness. I try damn it. But the world has crushed it in some and that’s sad. I follow Liz on Instagram and always enjoy her feed and this book is so much more in depth and knowledgeable than I think most anyone else could have written. It’s fantastic .

Drop everything: This is the most important book of the year, and you need to read it.

Liz Plank pulls out the big guns in her first book, incorporating her international travel experiences, social experiments, various interviews, and well-cited research surrounding masculinity. Coming from an outsider's perspective, she approaches masculinity from every angle, peppering throughout her book interviews with a wide range of men, including a transgender man, a gay black disabled man, a mixed Native American man, an openly gay former NFL player, and the father of a teenage girl who committed suicide after she was raped by a group of teenage boys at a party. If that's not enough diversity for you, she includes extensive research and factoids on places from the U.S. to Denmark to Zambia, sharing her thesis that "toxic masculinity is an epidemic that knows no borders."

This will change your opinion on feminism and every form of masculinity. This book is different for the fact that it is feminism for men. Better yet, it is exactly as the title says: mindful masculinity. She does not condemn men as inherently evil or vile. She recognizes the problems and dangers of toxic masculinity as learned behaviors that keep many men in a box that they were placed in as boys. Plank shares research on the physical, mental, and emotional harm that impacts men that subscribe to traditional notions of masculinity, like going to doctors and therapists less than women because it isn't seen as a necessity. She also asserts that experiences of masculinity are different depending on nationality, race, ability, sexuality, and economic class. As the book is very research-heavy, she rarely tells anything about her personal life or her personal research, but when she does, it is intensely meaningful and connected to the overall theme of the book.

This book means so much to me and I'm so happy I got the chance to read the uncorrected version before publication. As a transgender man who has recently come out, I feel like this book has given me such a comprehensive look into masculinity in ways I never would have been able to get on my own, with suggestions for change too. I almost prefer that it was written by a woman because she has absolutely no biases, unless you consider "men should be allowed to be who they truly are" a bias. I also really appreciated and loved the fact that one of her interview chapters was from a transgender man. I felt very represented by that and here's my "thank you" to Liz Plank for giving so many different representations of masculinity a shout-out!

All in all, you need to read this book. If you have ever wondered anything about masculinity, you need to read this book. If you are a man, woman, child, or anywhere in between, you need to read this book. When it releases, I'm going to buy my own copy. I suggest you do the same and be ready to mark it up with highlighters and sticky notes.

For the Love of Men is a timely review of what is a hot button issue in our political landscape: gender and toxic masculinity. While this is a book that men and woman of all ages would benefit from reading, due to the divisive nature of these topics in our country, it'll be unfortunately ignored by a decent amount of people (including some of the very people a little more mindfulness could really work for).

Liz Plank's arguments about masculinity and the expectations we put on men as a culture are clear-headed and well thought out, and the conclusions drawn about the ill effects of pigeonholing youngsters into bygone ideals of manliness are often shocking. The book is well researched, covering far reaching topics such as children's toys, gun violence, terrorism, and economics. Plank also ends each section by giving an opportunity for real men to tell their stories about their cultural experiences, including a former white supremacist and a gay man living with cerebral palsy.

What I enjoyed most about the book is Plank's repeated assertion that overcoming entrenched, toxic ways in our culture can only benefit everyone in the long run. It's not a matter of "hating" or "emasculating" men as some commentators would have you believe, rather encouraging humanity to practice more self-reflection and empathy when it comes to policy change.

Recommended for everyone. One of the more important non-fiction reads of 2019.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to St. Martin's Press.**

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a very thorough, if somewhat depressing, layout of what toxic masculinity is and how it harms minute voice. It’s definitely a good 101 is for people who are relatively new to feminism and gender. Unfortunately it doesn’t give much and way of concrete solution besides “compassion”. And I have to say when women extend compassion to toxic man, well that always doesn’t work out so nicely. Probably going to book for trauma survivors. But it had a lot of good information. 3.5 rounded up