The Descent of Man

by Grayson Perry

If a man wants to be feminist, the journalist Helen Lewis wrote in the Guardian, it’s easy: just pick up a mop.

I have learned to act on irritation, nip anger in the bud, deal it out in more measured portions. Anger is exhausting, toxic; it sits in the blood, poisoning your day. Now I channel anger into my work and I avoid call centres. Anger is a response to a feeling of powerlessness.

With age and experience, I have learned that one does not die of embarrassment or shame, that it is OK to be wrong, to fail, to be rejected, to show weakness.