Entitled

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Indelible On the Entitlement of Privileged Men

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 Kavanaugh s 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, Kavanaugh s 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 Ford a professor of psychology in describing the incident and its traumatic aftermath. But even for many of those who professed to believe her, Ford s experience just did not matter enough to be worth depriving a man like Kavanaugh of his perceived due, given his background and reputation. And, of course, there were also people who refused to believe her, saying she was either lying or mistaken.

By the time the Kavanaugh hearings were front-page news, I had been thinking for quite some time about male

Kate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, where she has taught since 2013. Before that, she did her graduate work at MIT and was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. The author of Down Girl, she has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, and Politico, among other publications. She was recently named one of the world s top ten thinkers by Prospect  (UK).

One of the qualities that makes Manne s writing bracing and even thrilling to read is her refusal to ingratiate herself by softening the edges of her resolve. . . . She s like a pathologist wielding a scalpel, methodically dissecting various specimens of muddled argument to reveal the diseased tissue inside. The New York Times­

Manne s concept of entitlement is versatile and useful; like the theory of gravity, it has equal power in explaining phenomena both big and small. The New Yorker

With perspicacity and clear, jargon-free language, Manne keeps elevating the discussion to show how male privilege isn t just about securing and hoarding spoils from women, but an entire moral framework. The Guardian
 
With wincing clarity, Manne explains how a society that organizes itself around the wants and whims of men will radiate that bias into every area of life. . . . Her observations offer that rare brand of insight: the kind so ingenious that it quickly begins to seem obvious. The Atlantic

[A] clear-eyed analysis of misogyny [with] an element of timeliness that translates to something of a gut punch . . . Reading the book is in fact a bit like taking a sweeping tour, a la It s a Wonderful Life, of one s history experiencing misogyny, except Manne is a sharper, more astute Clarence. . . . Cathartic. Mother Jones

Entitled is the perfect guide to fight an imperfect world. Times Higher Education

Entitled is not just timely, but timeless sure to be part of the feminist canon. Jessica Valenti, columnist and author of Sex Object: A Memoir 

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. Moira Donegan, columnist, The Guardian

Entitled is electric.