How Not To Be a Boy

by Robert Webb

He bums a couple of fags in the pub (good luck with that, American readers)

‘That’s unlucky, that. It’s really unfair that she has to negotiate the cliché

Feminism versus the Patriarchy Where Feminism is at a Disadvantage Because the Referee is My Erection.

All the most harmful and self-harming aspects of masculinity are busily performed: the need to dominate others, the weaselly interest in hierarchy, the confusion between cruelty and strength, an impatience with nuance and the moronic idea that inflexibility is a virtue. We’re not talking about women trying to be men. We’re talking about women and men trying to be arseholes. Because that’s what they think you’re supposed to be like at work. There’s a lot of it about.

That it’s OK to cry. It’s OK to talk about what’s wrong. It’s OK to play with girls if you like them, to dress like girls if you want to, to like the colour pink if you like it, to want to hang out with your mum if you love her company, to not be all that bothered about football if you’re not all that bothered about football.