David Blum's Many Masculine Mistakes
David Blum once again demonstrates the rhetorical skill and journalistic integrity that marked his stewardship of the Village Voice with a review of Leslie Bennetts' new book, The Feminine Mistake, in the Sun. But wait! Is it a book review at all, really? It kind of reads more like a vitriolic ad hominem attack on Bennetts, followed by a misguided critique of the only two paragraphs of Bennett's book that Blum seems to have actually read. Odd, but not really so unexpected (to recap: Blum, Sun). It's towards the end, when Blum is criticizing Bennetts for wanting all men to become stay at home dads—something that Bennetts never actually does, or even implies in the book—that things really go off the rails.
Full-time fatherhood remains a Hollywood fantasy; it's no coincidence that so many movies and series involve dads still learning the basics about connecting with their children. Virtually every character on "Lost" has an unresolved daddy issue about their father who disappeared, or didn't care, or didn't love.
You're so totally right, David! If only Leslie had spent more time watching ABC instead of conducting hundreds of interviews with American women from every economic class, she could have written a much more necessary book. A True Feminine Mistake [Sun]