The Male Ego - Softcover

Gaylin, Willard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140144390 ISBN 13: 9780140144390

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1993

Synopsis

A renowned psychiatrist argues that men's identities are dangerously connected to reputation and shows how this embattled sense of manhood affects language, politics, relationships between the sexes, and men's self esteem. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. Tour.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Psychoanalyst Gaylin believes that the centuries-old male roles of protector, provider/hunter and procreator no longer instill pride. In his diagnosis, modern man, trapped in an obsolete, maladaptive emotional system, seeks an ego-boost elsewhere--in sports, in sex-as-performance, or in the narcissistic reassurances of "male jewelry" such as trophy wives, corner offices and membership in exclusive clubs. In a revealing, unsettling probe, utilizing clinical case material, Gaylin ( Rediscovering Love ) puts forward unfashionable views. Men, he contends, have an omnipresent fear of showing cowardice, a phenomenon that he says is rare in women. Yet he rejects the "primal man" extolled by the men's movement as a dangerous anachronism. Gaylin finds men everywhere sinking into depression, self-directed rage and feelings of helplessness or failure. Citing our culture's lack of male rites of passage, he sweepingly calls for a redefinition of manhood in achievable terms, a task he leaves to others.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Gaylin is the psychiatrist author of the popular self-help books Feelings ( LJ 12/1/78), The Rage Within ( LJ 11/15/84), and Rediscovering Love (Penguin, 1986). In The Male Ego , he provides an up-to-date definition of manhood presented in terms of man as the protector, provider, and procreator. He feels that manhood is based on genetic and cultural influences and is given its successive shapings in adulthood by emotion and imagination. He also states that "in all cultures, courage is the one incontrovertible virtue associated with masculinity." The author provides examples from traditional and primitive cultures but hardly discusses American black and Hispanic manhood roles. Still, this is one of the best of the current crop of books on the male experience. Recommended for most libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/92.
- Del Cain, V.A. Medical Ctr. Lib., Bedford, Mass.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0140144390
• ISBN 13: 9780140144390
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276