SOURCE: “The Male Eunuch,” in New Republic, November 15, 1999, pp. 36-41.

In the following extended review, Wolcott offers a negative evaluation of Stiffed. “Faludi's tome,” writes Wolcott, “is an almost self-parodying product of crisis-mongering newsmagazine journalese.”

As if men hadn’t suffered enough indignities of late (loss of breadwinner status, declining sperm counts, TV ads targeting erectile dysfunction and hair loss), along comes Susan Faludi, offering soothing words and a lump of sugar. Like a horse whisperer, she feels men’s pain and wants to coax them out of the barn, one hoof ahead of the other. She isn’t being deliberately patronizing, which makes her tender concern all the more shaming. Men are now officially pathetic.

After stirring up the henhouse with her best-selling and award-winning tract Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, a warning cry about the secret plot to reverse feminist gains by brainwashing women...