Kate Manne - Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

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

A MANDA M ARCOTTE , author of Troll Nation

Mannes 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!

S ORAYA C HEMALY , author of Rage Becomes Her

In Entitled, 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 momentand to imagine something better.

J ILL F ILIPOVIC , author of The H-Spot

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 mens 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.

M OIRA D ONEGAN , columnist, The Guardian

I wish this book didnt have to exist. I wish there was no need for a clear-eyed, razor-sharp deconstruction of male entitlement, and how that entitlement is killing us. But it is necessary, and Kate Manne is exactly the intellectual powerhouse I want to have written it.

C ARMEN M ARIA M ACHADO , author of Her Body and Other Parties

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 Mannes 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.

S ADY D OYLE , author of Dead Blondes and 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 healthcare systems and elections.

J ASON S TANLEY , author of How Fascism Works

In lucid prose, Manne illustrates how male entitlementto sex, power, and knowledge; to womens care, doctors attention, and the benefit of the doubtundergirds 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 mens needs and desires, to the detriment of half the population.

K ATE H ARDING , author of Asking for It

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 dont even notice. This is the world we live in, and although the clarity can be painful, Manne also provides reason for hope.

S ALLY H ASLANGER , professor of philosophy and womens and gender studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

With eloquent prose and irrefutable evidence, Kate Manne gives voice to a twenty-first century rage. Entitled builds on Mannes 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, Mannes work is as necessary as sunlight. Your anger may not be quelled by the final page, but at least youll feel less alone.

R ACHEL L OUISE S NYDER , author of No Visible Bruises

He was a picture of entitlement. Brett Kavanaugh, fifty-three, was red-faced, petulant, and shouted most of his answers. Clearly, he thought the proceedings were beneath him, a travesty. It was September 2018, and Kavanaugh was being questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding allegations that he had sexually assaulted Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, fifty-one, when they were both in high school. At stake was not only Kavanaughs appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court; this was, more importantly, a tribunal on sexual assault, male privilege, and the workings of misogyny.

America did not pass the test. Despite highly credible evidence that Kavanaugh had indeed sexually assaulted a fifteen-year-old Ford some thirty-six years prior, Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court was confirmed by a slim majority.

Ford testified that she had been attacked by Kavanaugh, who, together with his friend Mark Judge, had corralled her into a bedroom at a party in Maryland. Ford alleged that Kavanaugh had pinned her to the bed, groped her, and ground his crotch against her. She said he tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Ford said she was afraid that Kavanaugh would accidentally smother and kill her. She said that she managed to escape when Judge jumped on the bed, knocking the two of them over.

Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, said Forda professor of psychologyin describing the incident and its traumatic aftermath. But even for many of those who professed to believe her, Fords experience just did not matter enough to be worth depriving a man like Kavanaugh of his perceived due, given his background and reputation.

By the time the Kavanaugh hearings were front-page news, I had been thinking for quite some time about male privilege and the toll it takes on girls and women. The case seemed to encapsulate many of the social dynamics Id been studying. It perfectly captured the concept of entitlement: