Masculinity in Crisis

ROGER HORROCKS was formerly a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Hertfordshire. He also carried out research into aphasia, metaphoric language and schizophrenic language. He then became a psychotherapist, working in London, where his work with men and women has focused on the 'false self' demanded by family and social pressures, as opposed to the authenticity that individuals crave and need.

• Acknowledgements Introductions Exploring Gender Power and Powerlessness Gender and Patriarchy The First Woman The Fragile Male Male Autism Rippers, Muggers, Soldiers Male Images and Stereotypes Growing Up Conclusions Appendix: Films Cited Notes Index

'Gender, together with race and class, has become one of the most important cultural categories of modern consciousness - and unconsciousness. In this compelling account of the dilemmas, dangers and delights of modern masculinity, Horrocks, an academic turned psychotherapist, combines in a unique way a penetrating sociological and literary analysis with sensitive and knowledgeable psychoannalytic insights (not to mention Film, Anthropology, Pop and Zen). Echoing The Female Eunuch he sees the fragility at the heart of maleness, the meekness of the macho, the fear of female power in partriarchal attitudes. At a time of bruising unemployment and epidemic suicide among young males, this book - humane but unsentimental, eclectic but harmonious, personal but not mawkish, scholarly but never obsucre - is likely to establish itself immediately as a contemporary classic.' - Jeremy Holmes, MB, BCh, FRCPsych