Sam Leith Sam Leith

Books podcast: The Masculinity Problem

We hear a lot about a “crisis of masculinity” these days, but nobody seems to be in agreement about what it consists of. On the one hand, we hear of “rape culture”, absent fathers and everyday sexism; on the other, complaints of the feminisation of society, political correctness and the disappearance of traditional male role-models. Are men a gender that has – to adapt Dean Acheson — lost its empire and still not found a role?

In this, the second of our weekly Books podcasts, I asked two writers of recent books on the subject to talk about it. One is Rebecca Asher, author of Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules; the other is Tim Samuels, whose Who Stole My Spear?  comes at the issue from a rather different angle.

You can listen to their conversation here:

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