Preamble: If Men Have All the Power How Come Women Make the Rules?
Share this compelling intro to the Men's Movement with your skeptical friends.
In 1994, my first book, Good Will Toward Men, was effectively canceled (before canceling was “a thing”) by the largely feminist staff of St. Martin’s Press, my publisher. The book would just not be actively promoted or sold.
You can read the details here, if you like.
The book died.
I had held high hopes for Good Will Toward Men. It was a nice book, a constructive book, a book of interviews with twenty-two women, most of whom were feminist in the best possible way: they believed in fairness and balance.
When my editor returned chapter-interviews to me with his notes, he was saying things like, “I am getting incredibly excited about this book.”
Next thing I knew he was calling to tell me he was leaving St. Martin’s Press. I never felt like I got the straight story from him; I wonder if St. Martin’s fired him because he was responsible for the book and gave him a severance package that required him to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
I was crushed, hurt, disappointed, incredulous. I’m not sure why I didn’t sue for breach of contract — publishers promise to do their best to promote their authors’ books — but I vaguely recall hearing advice to the effect of “If you make trouble, you’ll never get another deal from any publisher anywhere.”
Sadness, as it so often does when it is left to rot, turned to anger. A group of feminists, whose feminism was predicated on the idea that men have all the power and women have none, had murdered, strangled my dream, my optimism, my idealism.
“If men have all the power,” I mused, “how come women make the rules?” I had to write this book. I didn’t want to.
But I had to.
Tellingly, it is the book, of my three books, that wins the most agreement and appreciation from men, and from many women.
I am serializing it here, one section at a time.
I hope you will feel my pain, and recognize the ugly, harmful, hurtful truth that underlies it.
You might find this book useful as an introduction to male gender issues, for yourself and your friends. Many of my colleagues in the men’s movement say it is the best primer on our issues they’ve ever read.