| 商家名称 | 信用等级 | 购买信息 | 订购本书 |
 |
 |
Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide |  |
 |
|
Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide | |
With hands on hips and eyes wide open, Dowd surveys gender relations in contemporary settings such as the workplace, the White House, the mall, and the media, comparing and contrasting as she goes. And while her secondary sources are endless--and, let''s face it, the subject of gender inequality is not exactly new--Dowd manages to produce a fair share of bons mots. To wit, this pearl on the subject of plastic surgery and men: "I have yet to see a man come out of cosmetic surgery without looking transformed into some permanently astonished lesbian version of himself," Dowd quotes a source as saying. "It''s terrifying. My friend''s father had just his eyes done by the best, most highly sought-after cosmetic surgeon in New York City. And he doesn''t look refreshed or well rested. He looks like he''s being stabbed to death by invisible people." Dowd''s generously dispersed anecdotes, though seldom as funny, are equally readable. In the end, though, one wishes Are Men Necessary? went beyond simply grocery listing examples of sexual disparity to offer concrete suggestions for change. Then again, maybe that''s too great a task even for a woman like Dowd. --Kim Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
Dowd''s Bushworld, collecting her amped New York Times op-eds, hit big during the 2004 presidential campaign. This follow-up is as slapdash as the earlier book was slash-and-burn. What Dowd seems really to want to do is dish up anecdotes of gender bias in the media, which she does with her usual aplomb—everything from how Elizabeth Vargas was booted out of Peter Jennings''s vacant chair at ABC during his illness ("I''m not sure if she has the gravitas," opines an exec) to the guys who won''t date Dowd because she''s got more Beltway juice (and money) than they. The rest is padding: endless secondary source and pundit quotes ("In Time, Andrew Sullivan wondered: ''So a woman is less a woman if she is a scientist or journalist or Prime Minister?'' "); examples of gender relations gone wrong in books, film and TV; random interview blips ("Carrie, a publicist in her late twenties from Long Island, told me...."); little musings from girlhood that are rarely revealing enough; endless career rehashes of everyone from Anita Hill to Helen Gurley Brown. A chapter on dating is a mishmash of everything from The Rules to He''s Just Not That into You; one on reproductive science (that asks the title question for real) ends up referring a lot to orgasm. It''s intermittently entertaining, but neither sharp enough nor sustained enough to work as a book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
A must-read from an important NEW YORK TIMES writer who not only has razor-sharp insights, but who precisely and deftly illustrates what the battle of the sexes really is all about--complete with telling anecdotes from both her personal life and professional experiences. Such good writing deserves not only a first-class narration, but also an attractive audio package worthy of the subject, rather than this garish one. Recommendation to listeners: Ignore both the cover and the delivery and concentrate on Dowd''s spot-on accounts of men and women living and working together in this brave new world supposedly with equal opportunities for both sexes. L.C. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From Booklist
Sex is a topic generally considered unsuitable for polite conversation. Ah, but the intrepid New York Times columnist, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1999, steps up to the plate to hit some fly balls well out of the field as she discusses sexual realities and absurdities, doing so with the same verve and nerve with which she handled the other hot-button topic--politics--in her 2004 best-seller, Bushworld. Dowd is hilarious, cutting, and provocative--in other words, perfectly willing to express her vision of the truth without an ounce of reservation. And isn''t that why readers gravitate to her? Her new book arises from her New Times columns, and her observations on how men and women relate lead to pithy commentary on the contradictory path feminism has taken ("the new urban legend is about a young man who loses a girl by asking her to split the check"), the superior suitability of women as political leaders ("women are affected by lunar tides only once a month; men have raging hormones every day"), and other topics more timid conversationalists would stay away from. Thank goodness she doesn''t. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The Harvard Crimson, 10/27/05
How can a modern woman cope?... Dowd lays out the conundrum with panache, pace, and page-turning wit.
