The Second Sexism
-Don Hubin, Ohio State UniversityThis book is as courageous as it is brilliant and as honest as it is thought provoking. The issue is not whether women have been wronged, but whether the responses to the wrongs against women have often resulted in there being wrongs against men. In quite surprising ways, David Benatar’s book is a wonderful reminder of the tremendous importance of John Stuart Mill’s distinction between “living truth” and “dead dogma”; for it is not at all a conceptual truth that the dogma of sexual inequality has been replaced by and only by living truth with respect to equality for all. Benatar is absolutely masterful—nay, majestic—in illustrating that reality.
– Laurence Thomas, Syracuse University
David Benatar once again enters the ethico-political debates of our time with his controversial argument about the neglected side of sexism—wrongful discrimination against men. Justice is never a zero-sum game to Benatar, and his well argued and thoughtful book makes a compelling case for taking seriously men’s hidden injuries if we are to genuinely build a better world.
-Daphne Patai, University of Massachusetts
In this book, philosophy professor David Benatar provides details of these and other examples of what he calls the “second sexism.” He discusses what sexism is, responds to the objections of those who would deny that there is a second sexism, and shows how ignorance of or flippancy about discrimination against males undermines the fight against sex discrimination more generally.