Why Western Masculinity Needs Our Attention

“Not one of us has a clue what he’s doing. I think it’s one reason many men are finding this moment so hard: we are perceived to have the power, yet most of us feel powerless in relation to our own lives, emotions, relations.” — Richard Godwin, journalist for The Guardian

Let me be clear: I’m an unequivocal believer in equal rights and opportunity. Like too many women, I know from various personal experiences of invasive powerlessness how necessary the #MeToo movement is. The easiest way to trigger me is to infer women are less capable than men or joke about us belonging in the kitchen (not just because I’m an average-at-best cook), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s evisceration of the ‘structure of power that supports violent language against women’ is one of my favourite moments from the shitshow that is 2020.

*Smiles politely* — nice to meet you.

But recently I’ve been exposed to a voice in the gender issues conversation that, for a number of complicated, sensitive and understandably inflammatory reasons doesn’t get as much airtime.

It’s the voice of men. The good ones, the young upcoming ones and the lost ones who want to be better but don’t have the tools or the confidence to say so. But it’s the voice with the same pitch as Ted Yoho, Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, the vast majority of…