XY: On Masculine Identity
Examining changing role models for masculine identity--from cowboy in the 1950s to Terminator in the 1990s, from flesh-and-blood man to machine--this book suggests that men need new role models and that sufficient room needs to be left for the expression of male vulnerability, a psychic space that would accept attitudes and behaviors traditionally labeled as "feminine." This new model, Badinter argues, may reduce the profound effects of homophobia and misogyny.
Elisabeth Badinter
Elisabeth Badinter is a French philosopher born in 1944. She is the daughter of Marcel Bleustein Blanchet and founder of the group Publicis.
After studying philosophy, today she is a master of conference at the Ecole Polytechnique and is considered as a left oriented thiker. Across her writings she defends a certain idea of social democracy. Her cogitation, nourished by the philosophy of the Enlightment and by the ideas of Simone de Beauvoir, revalues the place of the woman in the society. In her essay, "Wrong Road", Elizabeth Badinter criticizes the drift of the feminist movements which reinforced the victimisation of the woman. She advocates what her detractors call an "anti feminism" or the return to a complementarity of sexes.
