The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Men are not the enemy of womenkind
Feminist author Nina Power on calling a halt to the battle of the sexes
WHAT DO MEN WANT? MASCULINITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Nina Power
Allen Lane, £18.99
WHAT do men want? Well, I’m one and I’m can’t tell you. Evidently, I don’t speak for all men on Earth, nor does any man. How can anyone suppose to read the collective minds of half the planet and intuit their deepest needs as if four billion individual souls are indivisible? It’s an absurdity. Asking the same question of women – what do women want? – is equally ridiculous.
That’s the point of Nina Power’s new book What Do Men Want? Masculinity and Its Discontents; she seeks to highlight the inherent absurdity of bracketing all men, and all women, as two singular and endlessly divided warring monolithic groups.
Her critique of modern life is simple: there’s more that unites men and women than divides us and we need to come together and learn to love each other, despite the differences between the sexes, if we’re to succeed as a species. In fact, Power seeks to celebrate the differences between the sexes.
Her book is a riposte to both the extreme wing of the men’s movement and the extreme wing of feminism. Power looks on both as an historian looks on fascism and communism: they’re poles apart but the tactics and outcomes are nearly always the same.
‘Bashing men is easy,’ Power says early on, though she never takes her thumb off the jugular of masculinity, constantly reminding us – rightly and necessarily – of the violence men inflict, the brutality women suffer at the hands of men, the inequalities which still mar almost every conceivable realm of modern western life. Yet, Power is not happy with the way women are responding to these persistent evils. She clearly despises the notion of grouping ‘all men’ together for collective punishment.
“There are, of course, a small number of men [her italics not mine] who behave as if the world, and the women in it, owe them something. Of this there should be no doubt. Some men are extremely violent. Some men are in power.
“These, men, however, are not most men [again, these are Power’s italics not mine] … The vast majority of men are kind, thoughtful, self-aware, interested, compassionate, loving and protective, as friends or partners.”
It is a mark of our times, that by Power – a feminist writer and philosopher – simply saying this, she seems to transgress. Power’s book is a rather quietly considered assault on how modern feminism – as she sees it – is waging its Culture War. The notion of ‘male privilege’ is put up on the anatomy table.
“It is hard to see where ‘male privilege’ is supposed to lie, particularly when looking at the life chances of poor and working-class men,” she says.
The rage which rightly accompanied MeToo means “we have lost sight today of the possibility of linking masculinity to goodness – and this above all is what I want to defend … Many men are already good, which is to say they look after themselves and others, care for their families, sacrifice their time and energy to making the world a better place for all: it is unfair and untrue therefore to damn men and masculinity as such.”
Power later adds: “If masculinity is in trouble today, it is because our understanding of humanity as a whole is in trouble … Boys and men must be allowed to be good, to become better and be celebrated for doing so.”
The monster in Power’s book is not ‘men’ but today’s modern capitalist society. It divides us, it commodifies us – our bodies and souls – it turns us into competing cogs in a machine which doesn’t give a damn what’s between your legs or whether your genetic make-up is XX or XY. Big Brother and Big Sister are out to get us all, not the ordinary men and women we live with every day of our lives.
“If men have benefitted in the past, let us imagine a kinder way of redistributing their gains for all, rather than entering into an ‘endless exchange of cruelties’. Let women be the bigger man,” she says. “I want us to forgive one another, where possible, to be reunited.”
In this age of online rage and identity, her nuanced approach is radical. We’re all of us lost, Power
believes – that’s the human condition, evidently. As a man who’s tried hard to be what’s now called a ‘feminist ally’ all his life, I seemed an apt choice as reviewer: the book appears at first glance as if it intends to unravel the problems of ‘toxic masculinity’, something I’ve written about extensively throughout my career.
I come from that 1980s-90s generation which defined ourselves as ‘New Men’ and wanted to put away the bad baggage of masculinity: the notion that we shouldn’t show our feelings, be good dads, respect all women as equals; the idea that violence was somehow inherent in the male soul. But I really don’t think this book is written for men like me, or even men who aren’t like me – men who remain traditional in their views of the sexes. I think for men like me – who want to be ‘better men’ – Power doesn’t tell us much that we don’t already know about the flaws in our sex, nor will she trigger any damascene moments for old school misogynists.
I think this book is written solely for women, especially young women in
the feminist movement. Without ever using the term, it feels as if Power is trying to get at a new concept, ‘toxic femininity’, if you will, in some way.
Power is aware that her critique of feminism in its current form will rile many women. At one point, she compares the sexual revolution of the 1960s to the French Revolution and adds: “MeToo can easily be seen as the ‘Terror’ phase.” She points to the “bubble-bathification of women, the retreat into comfort and candles accompanied by the fantasy that this is some radical gesture”.
She concludes: “For men to opt out of all positive ideas of masculinity is for them to accept the incredibly debased terms of a world that encourages an absence of thought and feelings towards others.”
Power is calling for us to come together and to improve as a species. She seems to be saying ‘end the sex war and let’s build a lasting and better peace’.
MOON WITCH, SPIDER KING Marlon James
Hamish Hamilton, £20 (ebook £9.99)
The second novel in Marlon James’ Dark Star Trilogy chronicles the adventures of Sogolon, a woman with mystical and deadly gifts. Using mythology and history, James spins a vivid and compelling fantasy world, drawing the reader in from the first page. His unique and uncompromising language is key to the immersive effect, often expressing complicated concepts and emotions with breathtaking clarity and charm. The Booker Prizewinning author of A Brief History Of Seven Killings gives his characters enough humour and wit to counter the hum of evil running throughout the story. The most unsettling thread is the seemingly unstoppable power of an individual to make people forget their history, and even wipe lost loved ones out of existence. Can the enchantment ever be broken, or is this world doomed to repeat past horrors?
10/10
(Review by Emily Pennink)
ONE ITALIAN SUMMER Rebecca Serle Quercus, priced £16.99 (ebook £4.99).
Katy doesn’t know who she is anymore – her whole life she has been Carol’s daughter, but now she is gone and Katy feels lost in her overwhelming grief. Katy takes herself off on the holiday of a lifetime to Italy – a trip originally planned for the mother
and daughter duo – and she can feel her late mother everywhere. When she’s on the Amalfi Coast, she sees someone remarkably familiar – and this seemingly younger, healthier version of Carol takes Katy under her wing, and shows her a life she’d never thought of before. Rebecca Serle has crafted a beautiful love story that turns its own pages as you are sucked into the Italian sun. As a reader, you look on as the character’s grief slowly ebbs away, and is replaced by something new.
8/10