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In focusing on men and larger societal needs, Gilder ignores the rising cry of women for self-fulfillment outside the home. He pads the book with trivial anecdotes, like his chapter on the unfeeling treatment of two lonely Harvard professors at a Los Angeles massage parlor. In his insistence that bachelorhood causes trouble and lower earnings, he considers but rejects an equally persuasive explanation of his statistics: that poor and troubled men may be fated to remain single. He tends to see every social ill as a sexual ill in disguise, suggesting, for example, that "one way to explain black poverty is to point out that 39% of black men are single compared with 29% of white men." Though he carries it too far, his view is a provocative one—and a reminder of some hidden costs of redefining sexual roles.