This book is, in a word, courageous, in one sense in particular: it exposes how ideologies, “isms”
based on an assumed superiority in which one group feels entitled to power over another, have no
place in the quest for social justice, equality among human beings, because a state of inequality is
inherently undermining of human well being. The example presented by Paul Nathanson and
Katherine K. Young of McGill University, in their book Legalizing Misandry, is that of ideological
feminism. This is the second book in their trilogy, Spreading Misandry being the first and Transcending
Misandry the forthcoming concluding volume.
Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men, despite
its breadth, may have only skimmed the surface of the topic of institutionalized hatred against men
in North American society, a “top-down” phenomenon with ideological third wave feminism as its
source. Yet the book brings the full range of the current anti-male discourse in US and Canadian
academic and legal circles into the spotlight, examining, among other issues, sexual abuse, violence
against women, workplace harassment, child custody, prostitution and pornography, and human
rights as entitlements.
From New Male Studies: An International Journal – Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 82-84.
