An excellent examination of societies view on sex and the way in which we deal with it in America today. Charen gives an unflattering view of how the sexual revolution has not helped women, instead it has held them back and pushed them from one dominant paradigm into another. Today's paradigm has lead to an increase in women being sexually assaulted, coerced, and peer pressured in ways that those pushing the sexual revolution did not see happening.

Well-written. It was interesting to read about how feminism failed us. We tend to focus on the positives. Without identifying issues, we cannot aim to be better.

This book was fine but I expected more from it. As a person who is very interested in the psychology and research behind the human drive for physical intimacy and touch, I was disappointed that this book didn't give me more solid insight and information. It was average at best.

It will be incredibly difficult to digest this book into the short space I have to write a brief review. As I look back at notes I made while reading the book I find it harder than I had imagined. Mona Charen’s books are always like that though. Well researched and with plenty of notations to her sources the book provides the proof necessary to back up the concept that she presents here. That concept is that feminism has failed those they claimed to want to help and in the process affected us all while ignoring their failures and doubling down on them instead.

Her arguments are flawless with a hard basis in fact that if entered into a debate would most likely be ridiculed with no fact based evidence to prove her wrong. That’s one of the things she discusses in the book, a torrent of emotions and claims that have been used to promote concepts that have done harm rather than good while ignoring the outcomes of those concepts.

The book begins by taking a look at the modern feminist movement and its leaders. Charen notes that a number of the most widely read of these leaders eventually turned their claims around and realized not everything they felt at first was true. They refuted some of their claims but those refutations gather dust while their books continued to be used by feminist’s studies classes ignoring those refutations. She also makes note of the fact that several of them came to their theories not based on the situations of all women but based on individual occurrences in their personal lives that scarred them and made them go in the direction they chose; they chose to force their personal issues onto the entire fate of womanhood.

Charen notes the biological nature of men and women, ingrained not by social structure but by the way nature has groomed both to behave differently to one another. While feminists argue that this is formed by a patriarchal society Charen can cite various studies that prove this concept wrong. The response is always the same; if you disagree then you ignore the facts and studies and continue to claim victimhood.


As I refer through my notes here I notice the overwhelming abundance of examples and references to facts that back up the various arguments Charen puts forth. There is no way I could present them all without basically re-writing the book in its entirety here. Rather than do so let me just say that this is a book that everyone, male and female, should make a point of reading. And rather than blindly following one belief or another look at the evidence she provides. Feel free to challenge it and look deeper for something to refute it if you can. But the time has come to stop being mindless sheep on both sides of the fence and realize that there is more to life than protests, slogans and memes. Charen’s book is a good place to start.

Quite simply, this is a book you must read. If you're a feminist, read it to understand how the movement came to be and its limitations. If you're questioning feminism, read it to see other possibilities. If you are not a feminist, read it to understand better a more correct, in many aspects, way of being a woman. If you are a man read it better to understand your wives, daughters, and women co-workers.

Charen's writing is great. She has researched the subject deeply and presents so much information, but always in an engaging and readable way.

It's a great book.