What do men want?

The question was famously applied to women by Freud... but seriously guys, with all the fallout from the Tate situation focusing on lack of male role models, what DO YOU WANT?

You may have thought that the problem with Andrew Tate – the misogynistic TikTok star with friends on the far-right and now an arrest for sex trafficking, allegations he denies – was toxic masculinity, rampant capitalist patriarchy, and a culture that tells men they are sexually entitled to women’s bodies.

But, according to some commentators on the airwaves and the news pages, you would have thought wrong.

Because, as ever when men do gross or harmful or violent things, it’s time to cherchez la femme. Tate, we are being told, is not a product of a patriarchal culture. He and his following are a product of what happens when feminism goes too far.

That’s right! Men seeing women as objects to use and abuse, men making money from presenting women as prizes to win, as images to masturbate over, as literal things men are entitled to own… this is what happens, we are told, when men don’t know where they stand in the culture anymore, and that uncertainty is because feminism.

Or something. I mean, the arguments are so flawed and so ingenuous, it’s hard to write them seriously.

Tate has filled a lacunae, they argue, where male role models used to be. Feminism has confused men, it’s left them searching for a place, for a position… Oh give me a fucking break guys. Seriously? Men abusing women is feminism’s fault? (nothing new there, I guess).

How can anyone sit there and genuinely argue that boys growing up have no role models. Men have it all. Look at who is on the front pages of the newspapers, who is holding up the sports trophy, who is on the Best Artist shortlist at the Brit awards, the Golden Globes winners and Oscar nominees… Who is in Downing Street and the White House and the Elysee Palace… Who is on the world’s richest men’s list? (it ain’t women!). To paraphrase Beyonce, who run the world? Men!

What do you want, men? How much power is enough? How many role models will be enough?

Feminism has won huge breakthroughs for women. We have more political and economic power today than in centuries.

But while feminism has achieved huge change for women, we are in a terrifying period of backlash. In the US, women were told their human rights are not absolute. All around the world, women die because we are denied access to reproductive healthcare. In Afghanistan, women are denied education, work, freedom of movement, and now healthcare. In the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days, and rape prosecution rates are at 1.6%.

When it comes to who holds the most power and who holds the world’s wealth, we remain in a patriarchal and capitalist society that overwhelmingly privileges men.

And then you try and tell us that because Jodie Whittaker played Dr Who or because the Goddess who is Kate McKinnon was in Ghostbusters, men have no role models and are being crushed by the matriarchy, leaving boys with no choice but to turn to misogynistic TikTok stars to learn to be a man.

Of course, young men ARE turning to these sub-cultures. They are embracing anti-feminism and toxic ideas of masculinity. They are being groomed by violent pornography to learn that women are objects, to be degraded and abused.

But this is not feminism’s fault.

Perhaps, guys, you need to ask yourselves why – with all the power men hold in this world, with all the wealth and influence men continue to have – boys are growing up and turning to misogynistic sub-cultures. What has gone wrong with patriarchy and the systems you uphold, that mean young men don’t look to you as role models.

Obligatory book plug

I got my PDF book proof through last night, so that’s more homework for me! You can pre-order Bodies Under Siege from Verso now.

What I’m Writing

It has been a busy week at Byline Times and I’ve covered everything from the far-right in Brazil, to the cost of living crisis, refugees in Rwanda, and murders in Kenya.

The US Far-Right Cheerleaders of the Attack on Brazil’s Democracy

Number of Single Parent Households in Severe Food Insecurity Doubles

Rwanda Will No Longer Take Congolese Refugees, as UK Vows to Deport Migrants to the Country

The Death of Edwin Chiloba Has Sent Shockwaves Across Kenya's LGBTQ+ Community

Chiloba’s death is truly horrifying, for everything it tells us about how state-sanctioned homophobia operates. The challenges to getting justice, the backlash, the rumours… and a community dealing with the trauma of violence and exclusion.

My love and solidarity goes out to all the inspiring and wonderful members of the LGBTQ+ community I met when in Kenya last year.

What I’m Reading

Night times reads are still Agatha Christie reads – this week I finished Body in the Library and now I am on to The Moving Finger.

But I have not been able to put down Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor – an intelligent, gripping and beautifully written thriller set in early-00s New Delhi, with excursions to Utter Pradesh and Goa, as well as London. My main takeaway is how visual the writing is – it has a truly cinematic quality that completely immerses you in the settings, whether that’s a New Delhi mansion, the crumbling market, the stink and violence of a prison, or even the bland interior of a shopping mall.

Age of Vice is a novel about cities, and power, and who gets to hold it – it’s about family, poverty, inequality and land. Kapoor explores how power operates in so many ways, from the power exerted through physical violence, as well as how wealth is a weapon of power – and power dynamics around sex and gender.

I am now at the point where my Kindle tells me I have 16 minutes left to read and I can hardly bare to finish it. The world Kapoor creates is bloody and violent, but I’m not ready to leave it yet.

Last weekend I finished The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg which was a birthday present from my excellent friend Rosalind Harvey (read her in conversation with Juan Pablo Villalobos here). It’s a desperately sad novella about marriage, loneliness, and a lack of choices.

I went to book shopping this week, too… look at this pile of beauties:

What I’m Watching

I went to see Giselle at the Bristol Hippodrome which was delightful. Some of you may know about my teenage ballet life, where I trained at a Russian ballet school in Bristol and performed in Giselle at the Swansea Grand. It’s not my favourite ballet but it was lovely to immerse myself in its magic and I had forgotten how divine the Act II pas de deux is between the two leads (the video link is a Royal Ballet performance, not the show I saw).

I watched the Banshees of Inisherin expecting an In Bruges style black comedy – how wrong I was! I thought it was an interesting look at male loneliness. It was a hard watch though. Beautiful, but hard.

But aren’t the best things in life, sometimes, beautiful and hard? Like a pas de deux in Giselle.

Other than that, I’ve been binging 30 Rock. Nertz!

That’s it for this week – I have a major exclusive coming out on Byline Times next week which has been months in the works, so watch this space.

Please subscribe to my Substack, share on Twitter, tell your friends… and I’ll be here next week with more thoughts on feminism, book and TV/film updates, and general musings.