The Descent of Man - Softcover

Perry, Grayson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143131656 ISBN 13: 9780143131656

Verlag: PENGUIN GROUP, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

What does it mean to be male in the 21st Century? Award-winning artist Grayson Perry explores what masculinity is: from sex to power, from fashion to career prospects, and what it could become—with illustrations throughout.

In this witty and necessary new book, artist Grayson Perry trains his keen eye on the world of men to ask, what sort of man would make the world a better place? What would happen if we rethought the macho, outdated version of manhood, and embraced a different ideal? In the current atmosphere of bullying, intolerance and misogyny, demonstrated in the recent Trump versus Clinton presidential campaign, The Descent of Man is a timely and essential addition to current conversations around gender. 

Apart from gaining vast new wardrobe options, the real benefit might be that a newly fitted masculinity will allow men to have better relationships—and that’s happiness, right? Grayson Perry admits he’s not immune from the stereotypes himself—yet his thoughts on everything from power to physical appearance, from emotions to a brand new Manifesto for Men, are shot through with honesty, tenderness, and the belief that, for everyone to benefit, updating masculinity has to be something men decide to do themselves. They have nothing to lose but their hang-ups.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Grayson Perry’s first art prize was a large papier-mâché head he awarded to himself as part of a performance art project at college in 1980. Since then he has won many other awards, including the Turner Prize in 2003. He is now one of Britain’s most celebrated artists and has had major solo exhibitions all over the world. His 2013 BBC Reith Lectures were the most popular lectures since the series began. He won a BAFTA for his Channel 4 documentary on the creation of six new tapestries entitled “The Vanity of Small Differences, All in the Best Possible Taste”, for which he was also awarded Best Presenter at the Grierson British Documentary Awards.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2017 Grayson Perry

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

 

I AM  RIDING MY MOUNTAIN  BIKE THROUGH THE forest up a long, steep track. Halfway up I see a young boy, maybe nine or ten years old. He is struggling; this track is a tough challenge for anyone not used to mountain  biking, let alone a kid on a new bicycle. He can’t work the gears, and wobbles and grinds to a halt. Tears run down his face. “Dad, Dad!” he yells, sobbing. He is crying for help, but he is also in a boiling  rage. I offer to help  him,  but  he  is so angry, so ashamed, that he doesn’t acknowledge me. As I pedal past up the hill, I see the father in the distance. He is standing si- lently next to his mountain  bike, arms folded across his chest, staring at his son two hundred  meters down the hill. He also looks angry. I have seen that father’s face on a thousand soc- cer sidelines, outside a thousand school gates. It’s a face that says, “Toughen  up, don’t whine, be a man!” It’s the face of someone who hands down the rage and pain of what it is to be a man. I feel incensed on the boy’s behalf. I can’t help myself: I say to the father, “I hope your son can afford a good psycho- therapist when he grows up.” The father doesn’t respond.

I hope  that  in  picking  up  this book you have already acknowledged that masculinity needs to be questioned,  that

gender  inequality  is a huge  issue for all of us and that the

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          

world would be a better place without  it. What I hope  this small  book  might  do  is bring  awareness  of masculinity  to more  people-awareness being  a  step  toward  change,  be­ cause  many forms of masculinity can  be very destructive. If this is the first book you have bought about  gender, I am  joy­ ful.  We  need  to examine  masculinity, not  just to  prevent small boys from crying with rage at their impassive fathers on a mountain-bike ride, but to change  the whole world for the better.

Examining masculinity can seem like a luxury problem, a pastime for a wealthy, well-educated, peaceful society, but I would argue the opposite: the poorer, the more undeveloped, the more uneducated a society is, the more masculinity needs realigning with  the  modern world,  because  masculinity  is probably holding  back that society. All over the globe, crimes are committed, wars are started,  women  are being held back and economies are disastrously distorted  by men,  because  of their outdated version of masculinity.

We need to get a philosophical fingernail  under the edge of the  firmly  stuck-down  masculinity sticker  so we can  get hold of it and  rip it off. Beneath  the sticker, men  are  naked and vulnerable-human even.

It is a newsroom  cliche  that  masculinity is always some­ how "in crisis," under  threat  from pollutants such as shifting gender  roles, but to me  many  aspects  of masculinity seem such a blight on society that to say it is "in crisis" is like saying racism was "in crisis" in civil-rights-era America. Masculinity needs  to change. Some may question  this, but they are often white middle-class  men  with nice  jobs and nice families: the current state of masculinity works for them.  What  about all the  teenagers  who think  the only manly  way out of poverty

 

and dysfunction is to become  a criminal? What about all the lonely  men  who  can't  get  a  partner,  have  trouble  making friends  and  end  up killing  themselves?  What about  all  the angry men  who inflict their masculine baggage onto the rest of us? All of us males need to look at ourselves with a clear eye and  ask what  sort  of men  would  make  the  world a  better place, for everyone.

When we think  about  masculinity and  men,  the  issues

can quickly  become  scarily global and serious. A discussion about  hipster  fashions or who does the  washing-up  can  rap­ idly spiral into a debate  about  rape, war, terrorism,  religious oppression  and  predatory  capitalism. I sometimes watch the evening  news on television and think all the world's problems can be boiled down to one thing: the behavior of people with a Y chromosome. Men seem  to be the ones with the  power, the money, the guns and the criminal records. The  conse­ quences  of rogue masculinity are, I think, one of the  biggest issues, if not the  biggest issue, facing the  world today. Some forms of masculinity-particularly if starkly brutal or covertly domineering-are toxic to an equal,  free and tolerant society.

Understandably, women have led the discussion about gender.  They are the ones who have been  most oppressed  by its constraints, after all. On the subject of gender, the feelings of many men can  be summed up as "If it ain't  broke, don't fix it"; the  status quo  seems  to work for them.  But I  am  asking, "Does  it? Really?" What if half the victims of masculinity are men? Masculinity might be a straitjacket  that is keeping men from "being themselves," whatever that might mean.  In their drive for domination, men  may have neglected  to prioritize vital aspects of being wholly human, particularly issues around mental health. In their drive to be successfully masculine, men

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

may be preventing their greater self from  being successfully happy. I want to unpack what the American feminist Peggy Mcintosh calls the "invisible weightless knapsack" of male priv­ ilege, full of "special  provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks," to see if it is as much  a burden to some men as a boon.

I feel I need to say here that in no way am I setting myself against men in general,  not least because  I am one.  Nor am I against all masculinity: I can be as masculine as the next guy. This  book is about what I think  masculinity is, and question­ ing it. One of the problems when talking about masculinity is the confusion between sex (male) and gender (man). The physical, definite,  pretty  much  unchanging fact of the  male body can  make  us think  that all the  behaviors,  feelings  and culture associated  with  that  body (masculinity) are also im­ mutably  writ in flesh. For many males, being masculine, act­ ing in a manly  way, is as unquestionably a biological  part of them  as their penis  and testicles and deep voice. But mascu­ linity  is mainly  a set of habits,  traditions  and  beliefs histori­ cally associated with being a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PENGUIN GROUP
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0143131656
• ISBN 13: 9780143131656
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien