How Male Privilege Hurts Women

Entitled

'Kate Manne is the Simone de Beauvoir of the 21st century' - Amanda Marcotte 
 
'I want to press this book on every schoolgirl who thinks that feminism is uncool, any woman who thinks the most important gender battles are won, pretty much every man I know, and say, have you thought about this?' Sophie McBain, New Statesman 
 
Male entitlement takes many forms. To sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, bodily autonomy, knowledge, power, even care. In this urgent intervention, philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. 
 
In clear-sighted, powerful prose, she ranges widely across the culture to show how the idea that a privileged man is tacitly deemed to be owed something is a pervasive problem. Male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena, from mansplaining and the undertreatment of women's pain to mass shootings by incels and the seemingly intractable notion that women are 'unelectable'. The consequences for girls and women are often devastating. 
 
As Manne shows, toxic masculinity is not just the product of a few bad actors; we are all implicated, conditioned as we are by the currents of our time. With wit and intellectual fierceness, she sheds new light on gender and power and offers a vision of a world in which women are just as entitled as men to be cared for, believed and valued.

I want to press it on every schoolgirl who thinks that feminism is uncool, any woman who thinks the most important gender battles are won, pretty much every man I know, and say, have you thought about this?

With perspicacity and clear, jargon-free language, Manne keeps elevating the discussion to show how male privilege is an entire moral framework...  The rage and sadness of the book is lifted by the final chapter in which she addresses her unborn daughter, wishing for her all the things she should feel entitled to... For Manne's daughter and many others, this book will make that fight a little bit easier

Entitled presents a paradigm that maps neatly onto life in lockdown. . . Once again, Manne's work is speaking to a moment that she could not have foreseen. . . Her concept of entitlement is versatile and useful; like the theory of gravity, it has equal power in explaining phenomena both big and small

Kate Manne is the Simone de Beauvoir of the 21st century

Entitled is not just timely, but timeless -- sure to be part of the feminist canon

Incisive, perceptive and profound. . . an absolute must-read

Entitled is not just timely, but timeless-sure to be part of the feminist canon.

Jessica Valenti, author of SEX OBJECT: A MEMOIR

Kate Manne continues to be a thrilling and provocative feminist thinker, who helps readers make sense of how power and privilege is distributed along gendered lines. Her work is indispensable.

Entitled is a clarion call to undo the intimate ravages of patriarchy. With probing clarity, Manne analyzes both the explicit and implicit ways that advantage and preference are granted to elite men, to the detriment of our families, communities and democracy, and makes it strikingly clear that we all have a direct role in pursuing a feminist future.

Imani Perry, author of LOOKING FOR LORRAINE and BREATHE

Kate Manne is among the greatest political philosophers of her generation. Her work is clear, compelling and intellectually devastating, and it matters to everyone who cares about thinking a way through to a better future.

Laurie Penny, author of UNSPEAKABLE THINGS

Kate Manne has a special talent for articulating and expanding on the implicit norms of patriarchal society-and the damage those norms wreak on its citizenry. Entitled is electric.

With eloquent prose and irrefutable evidence, Kate Manne gives voice to a twenty-first century rage. Entitled builds on Manne's earlier work on the forces of systemic patriarchy and the eternal frustration felt by generations of women forced year after year to fight for egalitarianism at the most fundamental levels. One of our most prophetic and gifted feminist voices today, Manne's work is as necessary as sunlight. Your anger may not be quelled by the final page, but at least you'll feel less alone ... A staggering, timely read.

Rachel Louise Snyder, author of NO VISIBLE BRUISES

In Entitled, Kate Manne gets right to the heart of gender, power, and inequality: What men presume they deserve, and what women learn we owe. The result is an unflinching indictment of male entitlement in nearly every aspect of modern life. Entitled is exactly what we need to understand our current moment-and to imagine something better.

Kate Manne is the Simone de Beauvoir of the 21st century. In Entitled, she compellingly lays out the stubborn social assumptions behind our still-sexist cultural norms. Manne's writing is as breezy as it is sharp and unflinching, and will give any patriarchy-fighter the ammo she needs to keep fighting.

Kate Manne's brilliant breakdown of male entitlement is essential to understanding the world we live in. Her thinking about this critical and complex topic is characteristically incisive, perceptive, and profound. Now, more than ever, Entitled is an absolute must-read!

Soraya Chemaly, author of RAGE BECOMES HER

Kate Manne tackles the kaleidoscopic manifestations of male entitlement with insights as invigorating as her subject matter is frustrating. Her thinking is so elegant and her theory of male entitlement as a symptom of a moral economy in which women are perpetually in men's debt is so groundbreaking that the book is sure to spark and inspire other feminist writers. Entitled is the work of a once-in-a-generation mind, and as always, Manne succeeds in leaving feminism richer and more robust than when she found it.

Entitled is a painful book that sets things right. Manne guides us through some of the most violent traumas our culture has to offer women, starting with #MeToo creeps and murderous incels and descending from there through just about every level of female Hell. Yet Manne's marvelous clarity and cool in the face of the unthinkable, her habit of crystallizing unspeakable problems into simple sentences that stay with you for years, makes her the most trustworthy possible guide through this house of horrors. One of the most essential voices of our times.

Sady Doyle, author of TRAINWRECK and DEAD BLONDES & BAD MOTHERS

Challenging, controversial, wide-ranging, and powerful, the eminent young philosopher Kate Manne brings to bear her well-known theory of patriarchy and misogyny on a range of contemporary issues, providing powerful evidence of its ubiquity and pervasiveness on everything from our ordinary interchanges with one another to our health care systems and elections.

Jason Stanley, author of HOW FASCISM WORKS

In lucid prose, Kate Manne illustrates how male entitlement-to sex, power, and knowledge; to women's care, doctors' attention, and the benefit of the doubt-undergirds misogyny. Examining the special effects of misogynoir and transmisogyny alongside hostile behaviors that keep all women and non-binary people 'in their place,' Manne provides a thorough (if by no means exhaustive) look at the ways we prioritize cis men's needs and desires, to the detriment of half the population.

Kate Harding, author of ASKING FOR IT and co-editor of NASTY WOMEN

Manne's like a pathologist wielding a scalpel, methodically dissecting various specimens of muddled argument to reveal the diseased tissue inside . . . it's thrilling to read

Entitled is a brilliant analysis of the systematic advantages and prerogatives awarded to men for nothing more than being men. Its deep engagement with real-world examples, eloquent prose, and compelling arguments provide a corrective lens through which to view the world without the blur and distortion that we don't even notice. This is the world we live in, and although the clarity can be painful, Manne also provides reason for hope.

Sally Haslanger, Professor of Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies, MIT

A lively yet forensic analysis of systemic misogyny. . . Entitled is the perfect guide to fight an imperfect world

The visionary author of Down Girl returns with a bracing and brilliant study of male entitlement, bound to become a cornerstone of contemporary feminist canon. . . Manne interrogates how entitlement gives rise to misogynist violence, making for a perceptive, precise, and gut-wrenching account of a social framework with devastating consequences

A trenchant and accessible follow-up to her powerful Down Girl

Kate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University. The author of the acclaimed books Entitled and Down Girl, she was named one of the 'World's Top 10 Thinkers' by Prospect magazine.

Male entitlement takes many forms. To sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, bodily autonomy, knowledge, power, even care. In this urgent intervention, philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. 
 
In clear-sighted, powerful prose, she ranges widely across the culture -- from the Kavanaugh hearings and 'Cat Person' to Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Warren -- to show how the idea that a privileged man is tacitly deemed to be owed something is a pervasive problem. Male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena, from mansplaining and the undertreatment of women's pain to mass shootings by incels and the seemingly intractable notion that women are 'unelectable'. The consequences for girls and women are often devastating. 
 
As Manne shows, toxic masculinity is not just the product of a few bad actors; we are all implicated, conditioned as we are by the currents of our time. With wit and intellectual fierceness, she sheds new light on gender and power and offers a vision of a world in which women are just as entitled as men to be cared for, believed and valued.

The Logic of Misogyny

Down Girl

'Everyone should read Down Girl. It should be distributed in schools and every board room, athletic department and legislative space' - Soraya Chemaly 
 
A transformative book on how misogyny works from a hugely influential thinker 
 
Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? 
 
In Down Girl moral philosopher Kate Manne argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it is primarily about controlling, policing, punishing and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it is compatible with rewarding "the good ones" and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. 
 
An incredibly forensic analysis of the logic of misogyny from a brilliant thinker, Down Girl is essential reading for the #MeToo era.

An important and compelling analysis of a phenomenon that's everywhere. Out of Manne's thoughtful analysis, of not just much-debated high-profile events but also everyday experiences, emerge insight after insight into the what, why, when, and how of misogyny

Manne's book is a forensic and clever analysis which provides the cogs and wheels of how the system of patriarchal policing works, in our minds, as well as in our world. . . Down Girl offers a sharply cut prism through which to view our everyday experience

Everyone should read Down Girl. It should be distributed in schools and every board room, athletic department and legislative space

Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her

The moment is ripe for a reckoning, and Manne offers the language and theory I've found myself grasping for. . . She combines the hyper-articulateness of a philosopher and the energy and humor of a down-to-earth millennial, which is electrifying

A must-read. . . should be in every feminist's library. . . Down Girl is destined to become a feminist literary classic alongside the likes of The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf or Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique

Really excellent. . . timely and intellectually rigorous

Kate Manne does a jaw-droppingly brilliant job of explaining gender and power dynamics which have always been purposefully muddied, but which shape how and to whom sympathy and presumptions of full humanity accrue. . . Perceptive, bold, stylishly written and bracingly clear eyed, Down Girl is one of the best books I have ever read on gender and power; I will never stop learning from it

An exciting next-generation feminist philosopher

Down Girl is excruciatingly well-timed, providing a theoretical framework for a phenomenon baring itself before us, perverse and pervasive. . . It reminds us that while revealing individual misogynists is hard, uprooting misogyny is much harder

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? 
 
In Down Girl moral philosopher Kate Manne argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it is primarily about controlling, policing, punishing and exiling the "bad" women who challenge male dominance. And it is compatible with rewarding "the good ones" and singling out other women to serve as warnings to those who are out of order. 
 
A powerful, lucid analysis of the logic of misogyny from a remarkable feminist thinker, Down Girl is essential reading for the #MeToo era.

Kate Manne

A potent and unsettling piece of social philosophy... As a polemic, Unshrinking works. Manne’s case for the harmfulness of fatphobia is compelling. But the book’s greatest strength is its author’s personal narrative and the sense of justified grievance that runs through the prose like a line of fire... Unshrinking demonstrates amply the importance of aspiring to care a little less about the unruly behaviour of our irrepressible flesh

Required reading for everyone who lives in an unruly human body. Manne has crafted an elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our communities, our culture

An essential book of impossible-to-overstate importance, Unshrinking is a lucid, vital addition to the fat canon

A clarion call for fat people to be liberated

A vital social justice issue ... Kate Manne's words will make you feel anger at how fatphobia has harmed the minds and bodies of so many

Trust Kate Manne to provide the clearest statement of the problems of the twenty-first century. She shows us, through science, reason, and human experience, the moral failure of fatphobia, in direct contradiction of the widespread and toxic narrative of fatness as a moral failing

A tour de force that only someone with Kate Manne's particular mix of rigor, clarity, and writerly skill could pull off—a must-read, no matter your body size, and an unignorable call to action

Kate Manne lays bare the sinister power of fatphobia—its pervasiveness, its roots in anti-Blackness, its shoddy logic—and argues beautifully and clearly for the moral necessity to resist it. Both trenchant and moving, Unshrinking is a long overdue reckoning and a manifesto for true intersectionality

As someone raised in the era of 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,' I am beyond grateful to Kate Manne for ushering in the era of Unshrinking. This book is a tasty, tasty takedown of diet culture and a firm-but-gentle guide to finally getting free from fatphobia - individually, collectively, and within society at large. Is it too much to say that Manne has written a big, fat masterpiece?

To be fat in a thin-obsessed world is to be treated as a moral failure all the time. Through impeccable research, compelling writing, and refreshing honesty, Unshrinking undoes so much of that undeserved shame. . . . A rich text for the ages, one we should all read, especially if we desire to create a world that treats fat people with more dignity and less disdain than this one

If you have ever struggled to feel safe in your body as it is; if you have ever wondered who your body is for, Manne has articulated the answers: Our bodies belong to us. We are all better for her work

An intimate and razor-sharp examination of fatphobia to expose the gaslighting, double standards and conditioning behind size discrimination. Manne’s new framework of “body reflexivity” offers valuable new ways and words to fight the existing power structures of fat oppression

How to Fight Fatphobia

For as long as she can remember, Kate Manne has wanted to be smaller. She can tell you what she weighed on any significant occasion: her wedding day, the day she became a professor, the day her daughter was born. She's been bullied and belittled for her size, leading to extreme dieting. As a feminist philosopher, she wanted to believe that she was exempt from the cultural gaslighting that compels so many of us to ignore our hunger. But she was not. 
 
Blending intimate stories with trenchant analysis, Manne shows why fatphobia matters, now more than ever. Over the last decades, bias has waned in every category except one: body size. Here she examines how anti-fatness operates – how it leads us to make devastating assumptions about a person's attractiveness, fortitude and intellect, and how it intersects with other systems of oppression. Fatphobia is responsible for wage gaps, medical neglect and poor educational outcomes. It is a straitjacket, restricting our freedom, our movement, our potential. Fatphobia is a social justice issue. 
 
In this urgent call to action, Manne proposes a new politics of ‘body reflexivity’ - a radical re-evaluation of who our bodies exist in the world for: ourselves and no one else. When it comes to fatphobia, the solution is not to simply love our bodies more. Instead, we must dismantle the forces that control and constrain us, and remake the world to accommodate people of every size.

Kate Manne

Praise for Unshrinking

A potent and unsettling piece of social philosophy... As a polemic, Unshrinking works. Manne’s case for the harmfulness of fatphobia is compelling. But the book’s greatest strength is its aut ...

Required reading for everyone who lives in an unruly human body. Manne has crafted an elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our communities, our culture

An essential book of impossible-to-overstate importance, Unshrinking is a lucid, vital addition to the fat canon

A potent and unsettling piece of social philosophy... As a polemic, Unshrinking works. Manne’s case for the harmfulness of fatphobia is compelling. But the book’s greatest strength is its aut ...

Required reading for everyone who lives in an unruly human body. Manne has crafted an elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our communities, our culture

An essential book of impossible-to-overstate importance, Unshrinking is a lucid, vital addition to the fat canon

A potent and unsettling piece of social philosophy... As a polemic, Unshrinking works. Manne’s case for the harmfulness of fatphobia is compelling. But the book’s greatest strength is its aut ...

Required reading for everyone who lives in an unruly human body. Manne has crafted an elegant, fierce, and profound argument for fighting fat oppression in ourselves, our communities, our culture

An essential book of impossible-to-overstate importance, Unshrinking is a lucid, vital addition to the fat canon

Books by Kate Manne

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