Baby-boomer parents who lived through these changes made it a point to raise assertive, athletic, and ambitious daughters. It’s led to what’s been called the “alpha girl.” Her counterarchetype — and these categories are inevitably broad and impressionistic — is what Hymowitz calls the “child-man.” Think of one of the immature schleps played by Adam Sandler or Seth Rogen…

The subtext of the culture’s permissiveness toward the “child-man” is that he isn’t that important. “With women moving ahead in an advanced economy,” Hymowitz writes, “provider husbands and fathers are now optional, and the character qualities men had needed to play their role — fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity — are obsolete and even a little embarrassing.”