Gender Healing
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What are people saying about Loving Men, Respecting Women:
Michael Major
"Loving Men, Respecting Women is the intelligent, long-overdue balm for our troubled society. Incredibly well-researched, it debunks most of the emotionally-induced, fact-deficient myths currently plaguing our society, myths further perpetrated by our sound-bite media. Far from being a dry read, however, Tim Goldich mixes fantastic imagery with his research and adds his own experiences to reach the individual reader at a very personal level and keep the pages turning. The Conclusion alone is worth the price of the book; having spent the greater portion of the book correcting the blatant falsehoods and manipulative fact omissions too-often used to mislead, divide and conquer, Goldich calmly and sanely outlines a platform to help us as a whole find a better future for all. Loving Men, Respecting Women (or at the very least, its Conclusion) should be the first book bought and studied in all sociological and gender-based studies for those who truly seek understanding and the honest desire to bring about a real Utopian equality of the sexes."
Joni Mason
"Mr. Goldich's book is more than thought provoking. It clearly points out not the perspective of just men or women--and the current problems of gender relations between them--but gives a point of view that eradicates personal victimization for either gender. This opens up the space for each person who reads this book to understand the bigger picture regarding gender relationships. It clearly solidifies the fact that it all balances out.
Personally, this book helped defragment what were once just floating fragments in my mind regarding the rules for gender relationships.
This book helped me establish that both sexes are equally responsible for the current situations that exist in the world today.
It is incorrect to think that men alone created all the problems that exist in the world--it is just not true. It is a shared responsibility."
Atis Eduards Feldmanis
"Today, April 10th, I witnessed the unveiling of Tim Goldich's new book: Loving Men, Respecting Women, the Future of Gender Politics. This book, twenty years in research and writing, is a highly readable text on the strife of male-female relationships. Goldich posits that in the past, society in general, viewed the conflict between men and woman with the metaphor of a "see-saw." Someone was up and someone was down. Goldich suggest a metaphor shift to that of a "balance beam" in which men and woman are on it together. To the point, anywhere in the world, Goldich states, where woman are hurting, one does not have to look too far to see men suffering in pain as well.
For sake of disclosure, I am acquainted with and have met Tim Goldich on different occassions over the last half decade. I consider him to be a good writer and, in the old-fashioned sense, a talented "declaimer" of prose and poetry. I took the opportunity on a recent occasion to informally interview Tim with the question in the back of my mind, to wit, "How does Goldich's metaphor of the "balance beam" influence couples therapy?" As it turns out Goldich's idea could be hugely helpful. The underlying principle in this idea and the book is that men and women need to be encouraged to stop combat and find ways to communicate in more healthy ways for themselves and their children.
This book arrives on the market at a time when men's voices have grown louder about perceived mistreatment at the hands of the media at large. Many men are complaining about how media in general and many commercials specifically belittle men in story lines and advertising. It is suggested that the anti-male slant has continued for a half century because media executives, both men and women, believe women make the majority of purchasing decisions. Therefore, for reasons of money the media tends to attack men.
Goldich's book is well written and his thesis are exhaustively documented. This book could well be added to a must-read list in college level gender studies. While logically supported, the sensitive reader may note, Goldich's reflection on, what now might be called, men's bottled-up resentment. This book has the potential of enlightenment, but also, no doubt will spark fire-works with the harder-core "true-believer" feminists.
Tim channels many male voices not heard in the wider media before now. No doubt some will be angry with this tomb but in Goldich's opinion the price for not speaking out now will be continued worsened strive. Perhaps with this work and the enlightened conversations that will hopefully follow we will come to a better place in men-women relations. How else can we end gender war without understanding both sides? Perhaps we will move from a world in which the older-fashioned manly-man refuses to complain and his silence is misconstrued into the idea that Man has nothing to say."
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Loving Men, Respecting Women (The book in a nutshell) The overarching principle that pervades and unifies every element of this book can be expressed in a single word: Balance. The book’s “radical” premise is this: in the benefits enjoyed and in the liabilities suffered, in the power and in the victimization, in the freedoms and in the constraints, it all balances out between Man and Woman—and it always has. By helping to promote a general understanding and perception of this balance throughout the culture at large, this book’s ambition is to affect a fundamental gender paradigm shift. As it stands now, common wisdom perceives imbalance—an imbalance of power enjoyed by men and an imbalance of victimization suffered by women. Society has long recognized a world of male power/female victimization, yet that has never been more than half of the full story. The missing half can be found. It’s contained within a shelf full of excellent but as yet rather obscure books. What might be thought of as the female power/male victimization half of the story remains obscure because neither sex wants to hear it. Nevertheless, for every female complaint, there is an equal and opposite male complaint. For every one CEO there have been many POWs. Hard/hazardous labor, battlefields, prisons, mines, the streets, the sewers—men have always occupied both extremes, the most and the least enviable positions on earth—the latter in far greater numbers than the former. Imagine, if you will, a gigantic scale where there is love on one end of the balance beam and respect on the other: This love/respect dynamic upon which gender balance pivots can be described in two brief statements: Throughout history, both sexes have respected men more than they’ve respected women. Throughout history, both sexes have loved women more than they’ve loved men. Feminism has made women’s lesser status along the respect axis abundantly clear. Both sexes have listened and both sexes have worked together to change the cultural environment in ways that promote respect for women. That men are less loved, however, may ring true from the outset yet be met with cynicism just the same. Both sexes receive the female side with empathy and the male side without empathy exactly because both sexes love women more and men less. Hostility toward women is given the pejorative label of “misogyny” because hostility toward women is forbidden. Ours is more a misandrist (“male bashing”) culture. But few know this word misandry—a word that would, if it existed in common parlance, condemn hostility toward men the way the word misogyny condemns hostility toward women. Apparently, in our lack of love toward men, we don’t concern ourselves with the current cultural outpouring of derision toward men even to the extent of giving it a truly pejorative label. Balance is revealed in the following four key statements: One: At birth, members of both sexes are assigned roles, conditioning, and socialization that facilitate and ensure a world in which men are more respected/less loved and women are more loved/less respected. Two: Historically, men have been no more empowered to escape their biology, role, socialization, conditioning, and concurrent fate than women have. Three: The two sexes, equally powerless and equally powerful, have plied an equal overall force of influence upon the world and upon each other, engaged in equal complicity and partnership in the sculpting of our world, and are thus equally responsible for outcomes both good and bad. Four: Throughout history the enormous consequences and vast repercussions suffered by women for being less respected have been matched in full by the enormous consequences and vast repercussions suffered by men for being less loved. These four statements are key, because taken together they lead inexorably to the one key truth: It All Balances Out!
