Why Men And Women Can't Be Friends (Educated Rants and Wild Guesses, #1)

by Oliver Markus Malloy

[Jane]

The title of this book alone made my eyes roll—which is the reason I decided to read it. Because it can't be as sexist, and misogynistic, right? Right??
---
Cats = women, and dogs = men. I'm a cat (woman). I don't know what it's like to be a dog (man). Except...I do. I have dissociative identity disorder. An alter is male. I understand a bit more about men than the average non-Multiple woman should, probably.

Mallow goes from generalizing all men to explaining how even women—who cannot understand men because women = cats and dogs = men, and cats don't know what it's like to be a dog because they're cats.

He essentially saying it's the fault of women who have "big tits" for attracting men—and that women's sole goal in life, when they work to look nice, is for men. Because how dare a woman think she's looking good for herself? "When you show off your curves, what you're really doing is advertising to the whole world: 'Look at me! I'm a healthy female! I'd be a perfect mate! Come mount me!'"

Then, after several pages of criticizing Christians and manipulating scripture to justify his arguments for men not seeing women equally, he explains that the Bible condones (and that God "supposedly" said) rape is okay—all by means of copy-pasting into the book opinion pieces from websites like BuzzFeed and Time. No authors are named, so I know not who wrote any of the articles.

Then comes this childish "(POOF!)" after these copy-pasta passages from opinion columns. I've used opinion columns for journalistic approaches to topics—but I make a point to include links and/or properly cite my sources, and to include experts. Because that's what journalists are supposed to do. All journalists are biased—there's no lacking it, despite how we lie to ourselves—but including experts and properly explaining their expertise is what best proves the point. There is none of that in this.

He names two powerful men as examples of what men would do to women if they could still do whatever they wanted, and includes the #metoo hashtag as a know-what-I-mean after.

The approach to, and text within, this book—regardless of what other men have reviewed about it—is misogynistic. Sexual objectification is a way of seeing another as a mere object of sexual desire instead of human, and misogyny includes "ingrained prejudice against women". Prejudice includes bias, among other sub-definitions, but explaining them all would take more energy and time than I have the energy and time for—and I shouldn't have to.

Women shouldn't have to justify their humanity and insist to men their being more than sexual objects to fulfill the needs of men.

The major difference I have noticed between elder generations, and the generations of Millennials and beyond is that Millennials are working to raise their children better—especially their boys—because they realize it's not just men to blame, but the societal standard for how men are expected to act.

However, for any person to know they have these issues—objectifying women, objectifying anyone—and to not work to overcome them so they can see all humans as people? It's ridiculous. The blatant ignorance and deliberate prejudice is the problem—not the preordained male's biological-thus-internalized need to mate with whatever woman—sorry: sexual object—they see. Because there are good guys. The men who think these non-misogynistic men are nonexistent need to pop their bubbles and work to meet those good guys—or work on themselves and—oh, I don't know—be the change women (and society) needs.

Rated 2/5, because it's edited well and Malloy obviously tried. The book was free on Amazon, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it.