"Men die more often and younger as a result of crime, poverty and war. But you do not hear men acting like pampered spoiled children with massive egos and inflated expectations."

I hear one man crying about it.

Great review, by the way from Andrew O'Hehir. I liked the white working class thing. I'm not sure I agree, but it was provacative and pointed to something real.

I suggest she wait until menopause. That's when real invisibility kicks in. No one sees you, cares to see you and god forbid, you should have an opinion because it doesn't matter either.

Welcome to your 50s, 60s and beyond. Men, on the other hand, always seem to "matter" regardless of age or looks.

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Is it just me, or are others noting a decidable decline in Salon's quality of writing? Low on insight, lots of whining, nagging and complaining. O'Hehir, for example, instead of taking the author on his/her own terms, complains about the fact that Vincent didn't write the book he wanted (bare-all memoir of sexy dyke pretending to be a guy with all the dirty bits left in), nags the readers with his pathetic attempts at cheap psychoanalysis ("did you see how s/he avoids confronting her obvious gender confusion and represses her penis envy?") and whines about his lot in life as a man ("gee, despite the rewards, life as male 2.0 sure is challenging!").

And then the comments! If the level of antipathy between men and women is this high in the real world, then we don't have to worry about any population explosion. If anything, the "discussion" here just confirms Vincent's view that men and women are two different sects.

Reading this review (and the far better one in tomorrow's NY Times Book Review) did convey the impression that Vincent is a highly intelligent, provocative and original woman, the kind I would love to meet. Can't wait to read the book.

With all due respect to the author, the reviewer, and other posters here, this book seems to be just more of the seemingly endless dialog between women about men. And like most of that dialog, it's largely wrong.

Most men, besides reviewers and perhaps the author's father, will never read this book. If they did, they wouldn't bother responding. The unfortunate result is that the field of discussion is left to those who don't get it.

Very few women understand men. Even fewer lesbians do. And with all due respect, very few gay men understand straight men. Almost all of what women and gay men write about straight men is wrong. But most straight men either aren't aware, don't care, or don't respond to what's written and said about them. So the cottage industry of nonsense continues.

When I read something like:

I think Vincent is being overly dramatic when she suggests that for one man to look another in the face is to invite either conflict or a homosexual encounter, but she's right that those things are under the surface somewhere, and for any male reader it's startling to see one of the most ingrained codes of male public behavior so briskly dissected.

..all I can do is shake my head. It's just so wrong.

The problem, again, is that men have left the field of "understanding men" to women and professional BS artists. As O'Hehir gleans, the closest Vincent gets to understanding the men she's been bowling with is when it gently occurs to her that they mostly care about her bowling skills, and were nice to her because she was on the team.

If realizing that most men don't sit around thinking and writing about what men are like counts as a revelation, then that's as close as Vincent got to one.

Yes, I know this stuff. It's not hard to find, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau are good sources of information.

The answer to your question is that, yes, the Census Bureau data do include women who don't work and who work fewer hours. Basically, their methodology is to go to households and ask the residents who they are, whether they work, how much they make, etc. Those statistics show that, overall, women make about 76 cents for every dollar men make.

What the BLS data show is that women who say they work full-time work about 7 hours/day while men who say they work full-time work about 8 hours/day. So, of the 24% difference found by the Census Bureau, that accounts for 12.5%.

But the BLS data deals with working men and women. About 78 million women and girls are employed in the US compared with about 86 million men and boys, so that accounts for another 9.4%.

So those two figures alone make up 21.9% of the 24% difference found by the Census Bureau (and widely cited by feminists as "proving" discrimination). The other 2.1% is probably the result of differences in seniority, but I haven't looked into that information yet.

Bottom line: the difference in earnings between men and women is not the result of discrimination, but of choices exercised by individuals. Just think about it for a minute: If it were really true that it came from discrimination by employers, how many lawsuits for sex discrimination in pay would there be? Many, many millions. And that just is not happening. (Asbestos litigation that is overwhelming courts nationwide is about 600,000 cases, total. So if half the working women had a wage and hour claim, that would be over 50 times the number of asbestos cases.)

And as Kate O'Beirne points out, if employers could really get equally qualified female workers for 76% of what men commanded, who would ever hire a man?

It's interesting to see the anger, the insistence that men are more exploited or women, depending on the writer: "Oh my life is so miserable because I'm a...." How silly it all sounds! Personally, I have to give Norah Vincent credit for trying to understand men on their own ground. I've often wished I could do the same thing, but there's not a sports bra in the world that can conceal my gender.

I find the hostility foolish and unnecessary, but I also know that certain aspects of my life are defined by it. I've made a decision that my home will be a place in which my unpaid labor (housework, cooking, child-rearing, etc.) will not be devalued, mocked, overlooked, taken for granted or considered laziness, nor will I live in a home run by the Golden Rule (he who has the gold makes the rules.) What this means, however, is that my likelihood of finding a partner is very slim. Even my most happily married friends have to cope with both of these conditions, and it's a source of chronic, low-grade frustration for them. The sick part is that many of these women are homeschoolers, a hard-working bunch if there ever was one. But this was a major factor in my divorce, and I've been disenheartened since to find that it wasn't just us. As a result, I am no longer ashamed of the fact that I will never love anyone enough to put up with that. I was raised to take pride in industry, frugality and responsibility. I now have the self-respect to know that I don't have to live with someone who spits on that pride.

Thankfully, I find long stretches of alone time to be a blessing, and no I don't own a single cat! But my mother always told me that if you marry for money, you will earn every penny and she was right, even when money isn't the goal of the marriage. Even worse, it doesn't have to be a whole lot of money for the dynamic to kick in. All that has to happen is for a woman to be outearned. My ex wasn't exactly rich, but instead of seeing my domestic labor as an asset to the family, one that saved money while increasing the overall quality of life, he saw it as something he was entitled to have done to his standards regardless of how much damage his standards did. And yes, they did damage. He had no experience with children and spent very little time at home, and thus had no idea what was best, but instead of trusting me, he resorted to nagging and spite. So it still takes me an hour to make dinner because I cook entirely from scratch, but now nobody whines when it's not on the table precisely at the (random) time when he walks in the door, or about how I can't make whole foods taste like his mother's cooking. I also do not have to justify the toys on the living room floor, the science project on the kitchen table, or the fact that it takes more time to dig for the pearls in the thrift shops than to pay through the nose at department stores. My kid is happy and well-adjusted, and we no longer live in fear of someone else's ignorance-inspired temper, nor is Daddy's contempt rubbing off on my kid's attitude toward me. Life is good.

The truly horrible part is that I've read enough history to know that it has never been much different, not even in the much-admired '50s. Feminism did not happen because women are irrational and selfish. I'm profoundly grateful for the social and personal forces (not child support; he doesn't pay!) that have made it possible for me to live alone. As far as any "feminine" longings toward marriage are concerned, the biological clock is satisfied and I have no desire to sell myself off as a domestic slave in exchange for a grudging illusion of security. Am I afraid of dying alone? Of course not! Unless I married a much younger man, I would anyway.