The Disposable Male: Sex, Love, and Money — Your World Through Darwin's Eyes

671 Pages·2007·2.223 MB·English

by  Michael Gilbert

© 2006, 2008 by Michael Gilbert
Second printing

All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction in whole or in
part in any form except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

Cover illustration by Gary Overacre
Cover design by Robin Kemkes
Interior design by Sherry Roberts

Manufactured in the United States of
America

10 9 8 7 6 2 3 4 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data
Gilbert, Michael
The disposable male : sex, love and
money : your world through Darwin’s eyes
/ Michael Gilbert.
p. cm.
Includes index.
LCCN 2006920246
ISBN 0-9776552-3-7
1. Evolutionary psychology. 2. Evolution
(Biology) 3. Sex role. 4. Man-woman
relationships. I. Title.
BF698.95.G55 2006 155.7
QBI06-600036
For information about bulk purchases,
please contact: www.thehunterpress.com
In Memory of
MYER AND MARCIA GILBERT
with appreciation for the chance,
in gratitude for the circumstances
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: The Big Picture
IN THE BEGINNING
1. Imperial Nature
Eternal Forces Shape All Living
Things

2. Positioning Sex
Male and Female Cut a Deal on the
Savanna

THE RISE OF HUMANITY
3. The Trickster Called Love
Women and Men Are Seduced into
Extended Partnership

4. Universal Distinctions
A World of Cultures Celebrates
Marriage and Family

5. The Shadows of Technology
The Rush to Modernity Rocks the
Intimate Bargain

THE WORLD TODAY
6. The Cult of the Individual
An Army of Ones
7. Designing Gender
All That She Can Be

8. The Disposable Male
A Few Good Men

A LOOK AHEAD
9. Breeding Animosity
It’s a Jungle Out There

10. Darwin’s Conundrum
Reclaiming the Levers of Extinction

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FURTHER READING
NOTES
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
THE BIG PICTURE

T
longer
HE EVERYDAY MALE IS IN TROUBLE. IT SEEMS THAT MANHOOD NO
requires preparation. Boys stumble without a
map onto the pathways to masculinity, forced to
learn by their own devices the essential traits
and qualities of authentic manliness. Without a
clear sense of purpose, young men are hardly
motivated or encouraged to support their partner
and family, much less serve their community.
Men’s ancient and defining roles as resource
provider and defender have been down-sized
and outsourced. Declared obsolete and cast
adrift, the modern hunter is searching for a new
job description.
Meanwhile, women have been propelled into
unfamiliar territory, encouraged or forced to
support themselves and build careers in today’s
long stretch between puberty, marriage, and
beyond. The contemporary woman has become a
hunter as well as a gatherer. Barely one in three
American women held a paying job in 1950;
almost three-quarters do now. And there’s not
much relief when a husband and children are
added to the equation: two-thirds of women with
children under six now hold down a job
compared to less than 20 percent half a century
ago. For many of these sleep-deprived women,
forced to assume the triple role of wife, mother,
and employee, “you can have it all” has turned
into a cruel joke. “You have to do it all” is the
not-so-funny punch line.
Despite all the changes over the last two
generations—or perhaps because of them—
young women often report that they are struggling
to cope in a man’s world while many young men
believe women get all the breaks. As a result,
America is turning into a culture of severely
diminished men without distinctive roles and
responsibilities, and overburdened women trying
to balance too many agendas. In the process,
masculinity has become a disease, femininity has
become a burden.
According to recent surveys, young adults of
both sexes now experience unprecedented
confusion around gender roles and mating
behavior. As today’s “twixters” move into their
prime reproductive years, often graduating from
broken homes, they enter a lengthy, unsettled
breakup culture of “no rings, no strings,”
according to a Rutgers University study on the
state of marriage. Modern romance, if that’s the
word, seems reduced to a kind of use-and-
discard universe of coarse sexual barter. The