Reviews

The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making by Jared Yates Sexton

debi_g's review

DNF at page 118
The title and subject piqued my interest, but the book is more concerned with the micro than the macro.

sophiachenggg's review

5.0

“Shocked at the depth of frustration and despair my dad had suffered, I listened and realized, for the first time, that the masculinity I’d sought, the masculinity I’d been denied, had always been an impossibility. Deep down, I realized that masculinity, as I knew it, as it was presented to me, was a lie.”

mandler_'s review

3.0

3.5 stars/5
Great read. Sexton is a great writer and voices his thoughts and experiences well. Loved the explanation of where the traditional view on masculinity comes from and the breakdown of what cultural moments impacted each generation and how that changed the paradigms of each. Great read

oseyerle's review

5.0

An illuminating read!

carlislerose17's review

4.0

So glad I read this as a boy mom.

alexandrawithanx's review

4.0

Very important book for reading, people of any gender and sexuality should read it.

joey_schafer's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

jocelynw's review

5.0

This is a vital, important, potentially world-changing book I want everyone I know to read. How to write a book that will be read by the people who desperately need it because an identity is doing them harm but might be resistant to its message because to admit such harm would be a threat to that identity? Be from inside that world and write it as a sneaky half-memoir. Yates, brought up in a blue-collar family in Indiana, writes about the problems with (primarily) straight white American masculinity in a way that I think has the potential to reach men who would immediately dismiss a book more explicitly scholarly or more directly titled. The strength of Yates' work here is that it has no easy answers; he is not on some other side; he admits he is still struggling with the messages and meanings with which he was enculturated in his youth, but makes it clear that the struggle is worthwhile, has led him to a richer life, and has the potential to do the same for others. Everyone who has white men in their life should read this...and then leave it strategically lying around.

antivancrowe's review against another edition

5.0

Writing 4| Research 5| Understandability 5|Enjoyability 4

Overall Rating: 4.5

The Man They Wanted Me to Be was an exploration of the male point of view at Toxic Masculinity which to be honest I haven't seen too much.

I studied Gender in College so a lot of the stuff wasn't anything really new to me.

Sexton tells us about Toxic Masculinity in a lot of ancedotes, except for the last two chapters.

There was this one chapter about his Dad and his Mom that reminded me of something similair. His Dad tried to kidnap him from his Mom and his mom pounded on the vehicle. The Cops were called and they did nothing, they told Dad to stop the kidnapping attempts and told mom to not damage vehicles. ....What? No one was arrested(the dad should have gotten arrested.) Mine isn't as dramatic but in the good ole US of A I was about 14 or 15 home alone and I heard a banging on our porch. I cracked open the door terrified and this man ranted that my dog(who never left my yard? I lived in a trailer park so it was lines of trailers in front and behind) was shitting in his yard. I was terrified I called my mother who called the cops. They just said he was drunk so it was okay. What? I was terrified? He was an old white man, so it reminded me of how police are on the side of toxic masculinity.

Sexton talks about how men were just awful to his mother time and time again. The only half way decent man went to jail for drugs.

Sexton does a wonderful job of making sure we know and understand why Toxic Masculinity is bad for men as well as Women. There was talk of Alex Jones and Incels the ideas they held which kind of just made me worry about the world that their are men that think like that.

But I kind of knew that there are views like that.

danicapage's review

3.0

Warning: several instances of such language, violence, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, alcoholism