The limits of masculinity

"In by far the best book I have seen on this subject since Marcuse, Andrew Tolson examines the way in which schools, social work and work hierarchies, and the requirements of the economic order lock men in modes of thought and behavior which don't work any longer in their personal lives. His working-class boyhood gives the analysis a particularly valuable breadth, so that we see the new defensive insecurity is not confined to those men able to articulate it. Women's groups have been able to build on a tradition which permitted females the 'weakness' of displaying to each other fears and tears; and male gays share their sadness in a variety of ways. But the accepted forms of male bonding, like drinking, sport, and work, are predicated on competition and boasting -- strutting and rutting, or pretending you do. They do not exactly facilitate mutual groping towards a new concept of self: Tolson is one of the few who have been able to get together in men's groups to explore their role." -- The Times Educational Supplement.