By Caitlin Moran.
The author admits right off that when people used to ask her for advice on men, she utterly blew it off. Men are fine compared to women, let them handle their own shit and talk to each other, who cares?! "Let the men sort themselves out," she thought. Well, they did... with men's rights activist types, which is making them unhappy AND they seem to think that women are the ultimate cause of their unhappiness. Teenage girls asked her to tell boys what they should be reading about how to become a man instead and...she had nothing. Women get advice all over the place, men don't.
She notes that the biggest complaint of men's rights is that it's easier to be a woman than a man, now. If they really feel this (and keep saying it over, and over, "more despairingly each time,"), then you need to believe them. And she agrees that men aren't celebrated, we'd find being proud to be a man suspicious, and...its time for Caitlin to ask men about their lives, here.
The author asks men what it was like to be a boy compared to being a woman--having to be obsessed with sports, being legitimately afraid they'd get beaten up, making people laugh, and having violent thoughts. She notes that men are always thinking about what to do in a fight or who would win one--for good reason, it's not just for fun. (She notes women do the same about rape.) Nobody tells you how to be a man, and what did they read? Superhero stuff. Nobody read anything about what it was like to be an average boy, and one interviewee said there are no normal boys in fiction because it would be boring. "Real stories about young men involved quests, and intergalactic battles, and superpowers, and adventures, and mysteries. Real stories were big. Normal boys' lives were...little. No matter what actually happened in them."
She discusses bodily issues--from hard-ons to balls to sex and porn (I did crack up at the polite explanations as to why anal sex is um, difficult) and having to do extreme workouts as a movie star--and how men can't really dress themselves up socially like women do. She notes that suits are "one of the greatest technologies men have ever invented for themselves" because it's the one option, and they are pretty much the same and neutral and worn constantly without any thought. I also found it interesting when she found out that algorithms are sending out sex stuff to men all the time in a way women aren't getting on their feeds. "Men and women are being presented with radically different worlds, and we don't even know it. Until we talk."
I do think it's fair to throw in some comparisons to female troubles, such as having to be straight up afraid of men, in general, due to rape (and how fucking Louis CK pointed this out and guess what he did.) A man can kill a woman whenever he wants, but not vice versa. We just don't know who's going to be good or bad.
Men have to outsource emotional things to women, and they just don't seem to cover it well on their own. And then there's pickup artists--I like how the author pointed out that while "The Game" has sold 2.5 million copies, its sequel, "The Truth," has not, because the author, Neil Strauss, wrote another book saying that playing "The Game" did not make him happy and you want more than just banging. She highly recommends it. She covers the prominent men's rights authors and how men may relate and/or grow out of those interests, as well as fatherhood, a brief bit on midlife crisis (I think that should have been covered a bit more), aging, and dragging men to the doctor. She has a very good example of that last one as to how her husband nearly died because he didn't go. Hooooo boy.
At the end, she notes that feminism has helped women and it doesn't seem exciting or fun to be male by comparison. "We just aren't excited about men, and boys, in the way we are about women, right now." Try looking for a "most beloved men" list online, and when you see a man on the news, he's probably killed someone. We don't celebrate positive masculinity, She even writes an epilogue--clearly needed--about the bad men out there.
Overall, I really liked this and highly recommend it. I wouldn't have minded a bit more information, but it's pretty comprehensive. Four stars.