How Men Feel

Library Journal

Journalist Astrachan presents a wide-ranging report on men's reaction to the women's movement as well as an assessment of the effectiveness and direction of the budding men's movement. He claims that the opportunity to create a dynamic of equality is now available and that ``the revolution is indeed possible, and worth the cost.'' The book offers a discursive review of the men's movement (especially the Organization for Changing Men) and documents the ideological split between its pro-feminist wing andthe no-guilt, divorce-reform wing. Though sometimes quite diffuse and repetitive, this useful work successfully moves from critical discussion of individual behavior to socio-political issues. For general collections. While Astrachan's book is the result of investigative journalism, The Psychology of Men is primarily a psychoanalytic reappraisal of male sexuality and secondarily a consideration of developmental male tasks. It is somewhat disappointing in its unevenness and its condensed essay format. Impressive articles by Otto Kernberg (``A conceptual model of male perversion''), Roy Schafer (``Men who struggle against sentimentality''), and Peter Neubauer (``Reciprocal effects of fathering on parent and child'') mingle with sketchy essays concerning psychonalytic concepts of male preoedipality, narcissism, and homosexuality. Several of these disparate articles are intriguing enough to lead one to hope that this is the beginning of a series on the subject. A discretionary purchase for collections supporting programs in men's studies. William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore.