Overview

Karl Bednarik states that the majority of men suffer from central disturbance in their masculine life in modern industrial society. He shows that prevailing conditions are introducing radical changes in masculine behavior and that the emasculation of contemporary man is due to the increasing overorganization of modern society.

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This is one of those strident discourses on the sex roles that disqualifies itself immediately from serious consideration by hopelessly confusing the effects of biology, social and cultural sex role conditioning, and sex discrimination. German social critic Bednarik does make some motions of keeping an open mind on the question of whether sex role differences are biological or behavioral, but he ends up using the evidence of women's limited participation in various spheres of life to suggest congenital incapacity and appropriating the areas of decision-making, responsibility, authority, assertiveness, activism, and achievement as eternally male terrains. The male is in crisis today, argues Bednarik, because increasing technological development, bureaucratization, and conglomeration is moving the twentieth century world toward a superpatriarchy in which a few Big Brothers make the vital decisions for everyone (that women have always had Big Brothers is, of course, well beneath the scope of concern). The effect of this increasing centralization of authority is to infantilize or feminize the male population in general (feminize being a dirty word for the glorious adult male). Bednarik discusses the resultant disturbances and frustrations in the erotic sphere, the sphere of male activism and aggressiveness, and the sphere of male authority. On the subjects of our changing conceptions of sex, of militarism, and of heroism, he has much to say that is interesting, but again he is unable to steer a clear course between changes in the traditional notion of masculinity and affronts to the natural superiority of males. Bednarik's less-than-convincing solution for restoring male psychological capacity for action and authority on a maximum scale is to combat Big Brotherism through the development of group activity. Only the group can compensate for the individual's loss of public authority to the bureaucratic superstructures. A consistently lively polemic, this blends acute observations on the changing positions of men and women with obtuse allegations that biology is destiny. (Kirkus Reviews)

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dnarik /f Karl

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