What About Men?: A Feminist Answers the Question

by Caitlin Moran

Overview

An Instant #1 Sunday Times bestseller

With her signature candor and wit, New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Moran attempts to answer society’s weirdly unasked question: What About Men?

Like anyone who discusses the problems of girls and women in public, Caitlin Moran has often been confronted with the question: “But what about men?” And at first, tbh, she dgaf. Boys, and men, are fine, right? Feminism doesn’t need to worry about them.

 However, around the time she heard an angry young man saying he was “boycotting” International Women’ Day because “It's easier to be a woman than a man these days,” she started to wonder: are unhappy boys, and men, also making unhappy women? The statistics on male misery are grim: boys are falling behind in school, are at greater risk of depression, greater risk of suicide, and, most pertinently, are increasingly at risk from online misogynist radicalization. Will the Sixth Wave of feminism need to fix the men, if it wants to fix the women?

 Moran began to investigate—talking to her husband, close male friends, and her daughters' friends: bringing up very difficult and candid topics, and receiving vulnerable and honest responses. So: what about men? Why do they only go to the doctor if their partner makes them? Why do they never discuss their penises with each other—but make endless jokes about their balls? What is porn doing for young men? Is sexual strangling a good hobby for young people to have? Are men ever allowed to be sad? Are they ever allowed to lose? Have Men's Rights Activists confused “power” with “empowerment”? Are Mid-Life Crises actually quite cool? And what’s the deal with Jordan Peterson’s lobster?

In this thoughtful, warm, provocative book, Moran opens a genuinely new debate about how to reboot masculinity for the twenty-first century, so that “straight white man” doesn’t automatically mean bad news—but also uses the opportunity to make a lot of jokes about testicles, and trousers. Because if men have neither learned to mine their deepest anxieties about masculinity for comedy, nor answered the question “What About Men?,” then it’s up to a busy woman to do it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062893741
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/26/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	147,192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Caitlin Moran’s debut book, How to Be a Woman, was an instant New York Times bestseller, with more than one million copies distributed worldwide. Her first novel, How to Build a Girl, received widespread acclaim, and she adapted it into a major motion picture starring Beanie Feldstein and Emma Thompson. As a twice-weekly columnist at The Times of London, Moran has won Columnist of the Year seven times. She lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

11/06/2023

Journalist and feminist Moran (How to Be a Woman) tackles in this provocative outing a question often lobbed at her during speaking events: what about the struggles of the modern male? Though at first flummoxed by why she should care, Moran eventually realized that perhaps there was something to the issue. Marshaling commentary from friends, her husband, and respondents to her social media queries, Moran explores the contours of masculinity in the 21st century, wading into such hot-button topics as alpha male stereotypes, “incel” culture, and the “men’s rights” activism of writers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson (to whom young boys have turned “in the absence of... relatable, sound advice coming from the good liberal progressive men of generation”). Elsewhere, she addresses men’s mental health issues, sexuality, and friendships in sharp and funny—if not always rigorous—takes (a discussion of men’s body image anxieties considers the current trend of men’s jeans “so tight that they look sprayed on” and speculates that “if you weren’t wearing trousers that were actively betraying you, a lot of those problems might disappear”). By her own admission, Moran is short on answers; she also has a tendency to lean on stereotypes. Still, she raises plenty of worthwhile questions about “what it is to be a boy and become a man in today’s world,” and does so with genuine curiosity, self-awareness, and humor. This promises to spark conversation. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Irreverent. . . . Eye-opening." — New York Times Book Review

"Insightful nuggets of truth and practical wisdom mix with the snorts and sputters of laughter, making this a worthwhile, enjoyable, and timely read." — Booklist

“This very funny writer addresses the dearth of discussion and support for men's problems, applying a sympathetic eye . . . Reassuring, enlightening, and inspiring.”  — Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Caitlin Moran: “The joy of Moran’s writing lies in how she combines thoughtfulness and intelligence with proper belly laughs.... It’s this clarity about how the world can be improved, how we can all be better at life, that lies at the heart of Moran’s writing. She may be funny, but she’s also right.” — Independent (London)

“Moran’s frank wit is appealing.” — The New Yorker

“No one tackles issues as big as income inequality and global warming or as small as bang trims and Benedict Cumberbatch’s ass quite like the wickedly funny Caitlin Moran.” — Cosmopolitan

“Superbly funny.” — The Guardian

“One of the funniest feminist writers working today.” — Bust Magazine

“It is bracing in this season of losing [Nora] Ephron to discover a younger feminist writer who scrimmages with the patriarchy and drop kicks zingers with comic flair….A must-read for anyone curious to find out just how very funny a self-proclaimed ‘strident feminist’ can be.” — Maureen Corrigan , NPR's Fresh Air

From the Publisher

2023-06-20
The "Woman Woman" turns her attention to the problems of men, particularly in their youth.

Moran is known for her nonfiction books about womanhood and feminism, including How To Be a Woman. Her latest is inspired by the notion, expressed by her teenage daughters' male friends, among other sources, that these days, it's easier to be a woman than a man. "If boys, and men, really feel this—if they observe that there is more discussion, support, cheerleading and belief in girls, and women—then I believe them. You have to believe people when they keep saying the same thing, over and over, more despairingly each time." In chapters with such titles as "The Conversations of Men," "The Cocks and Balls of Men," "The Friendships of Men," "The Oldness of Men," this very funny writer addresses the dearth of discussion and support for men's problems, applying a sympathetic eye, research techniques of the ask-around and Google varieties, and a conventional but still widely applicable model of gender. For example, men are apparently afraid to talk in detail about their penises, which is why "only 25 percent of men with erectile dysfunction seek medical treatment. Four in ten cases of prostate cancer are only detected when they reach stage three or four. Thirty percent of men are unhappy about the size of their penises." Maybe this wouldn't happen if they had learned to actually converse instead of banter and boast. Moran wants to put an end to the silence that surrounds boys' often traumatizing experiences with pornography, and she has sharp words for Neil Strauss, Jordan B. Peterson, and Andrew Tate. If you don't know who those people are, you are not the author’s target reader. In fact, it's not completely clear who that might be—boys? girls? parents? men?—and this is reflected in some fluctuations of tone, focus, and interestingness.

In the right hands, this book is reassuring, enlightening, and inspiring; in others, it’s OK to skim.

Kirkus Reviews