Review: What Men Know That Women Don't

From Menletter September 2003

By Tim Baehr

Rich Zubaty in ten words: Men good. Women bad. Bad men just women with dicks.

Rich Zubaty is a black sheep. He is the wayward brother who speaks his mind - reliably, all the time, uncomfortably. He is the voice inside us that says Unacceptable Things. But because he loves his brothers unconditionally, and because he has a way with words, I found it hard to dismiss him, even when I disagreed with him.

I thought I would start out a review of Rich's book with the observation that, at times, I wanted to throw the book across the room in disgust - that some of his views were just too extreme and vicious for an old liberal leftie like me.

I couldn't do that. In fact, I've had a hard time putting the book down, let alone throw it across the room.

It's a massive (over 500 pages), rambling, ranting, illogical, inconsistent shambles of a book, a stream-of-consciousness outpouring of anti-feminist, anti-female, anti-corporate, anti-church, anti-establishment diatribe and invective. What makes Rich compelling, even when I disagree with him or at least think he's going over the top, is that his voice is genuine. His voice wells up from the trenches of despair and betrayal; from a messy, expensive, hurtful divorce that impoverished him and alienated his children from him, to an immensely self-indulgent, overweight mother who still has the power to shame him.

But as I made my way through the book - grumbling, laughing, getting depressed, getting mad - I began to see that Rich has turned many "truths" on their head, in surprising and revealing ways. Women are not the victims of male oppression. The so-called patriarchy came into being mostly to serve the interests of women.

Women, not men, according to Zubaty, are materialistic, hoarding, logical, hierarchical, scheming, lying, practical, left-brained creatures. Some women seem to act like men, but in twisted ways, often because they're acting out of the "animus" - the male, or weaker side, of their deep nature.

Men are, by their nature, nurturing, responsible, generous, spiritual, feeling, illogical, intuitive, creative, right-brained creatures. Many, however, have gone over to the feminist side, acquiring many of the female traits and becoming "manholes" - sellouts to the female-dominated establishment, acting out of the "anima" - the female, or weaker side, of their deep nature. Thus we have men in the corporate "patriarchy" who strive for status and material gain, put down both men and women, oppress both men and women.

Two strong themes are woven through all the tough language, emotional outbursts, leaps of logic (and illogic), and acerbic asides. The first is that men need to work on themselves, deeply, internally, if they want to improve things externally. The second is that the way to do this work is to destroy the ego. (In a way, this may make the book seem like a living oxymoron: it must have taken an immense amount of ego for Rich to put himself into a 500-page book and self-publish it.)

Destroying the ego is the opposite of the "self-esteem" movement that Rich ascribes to the feminists. Self-esteem means bringing love into the self, bringing God into the self. Destroying the ego means total surrender to something entirely outside the self - the Deer god, God, Allah, the teachings of the Buddha, a Higher Power, and other possible manifestations.

I was, ultimately, somewhat disappointed by the overall effect of the book. After mounting strong arguments about the nature of men and women, and the ironically upside-down state of our society, Rich doesn't lay out any sort of plan (maybe because planning is a female trait?). He's managed to escape to - or be self-exiled to - Mexico from the rat race that most of the rest of us are still running in. He may even have managed to destroy his ego. But I'd like to have seen something a bit more specific on how to go about this ego-destruction, or even how he went about it. I'm not looking for a new orthodoxy (we must behave this way or else), but just a couple of signposts.

Some of his suggestions seem impractical or even outlandish - like a massive strike of all men doing the dangerous work.

What I can glean from Rich's final pages is that we men, somehow, sometime, need to go deeply into our spiritual selves - to seek and surrender to and unite with a Greater Being - to know and celebrate the deep masculine. In this way we become more deeply human and humane. I've actually seen this practice work in improving relationships, but with one addition: men being with men. Men engaged in deep spiritual work have become more self-assured, kinder but firm in their convictions, and secure in their manhood. These men have done their work both alone and within the safe and nurturing container of a community of men.

It may take a Rich Zubaty or a Warren Farrell to goad us into beginning this work, in a state of anger and indignation. But ultimately, I think, the anger has to give way to compassion and reconciliation - for ourselves and for the world, including women. There are good women and good men who can enrich and complement each other's lives.

Men good. Women good. Let's go find each other. (I found one and married her. Things didn't work out, but the divorce was about as amicable as these things can be - we even used the same lawyer. Then I found another. We'll celebrate our 20th anniversary next year.)