Manhood

Biddulph lays out a clear path for men to follow that will lead them to greater understanding of themselves and their journey through life. In 'Seven Steps to Manhood', he offers a blueprint for improvement: Fixing it with your father, Meeting your partner on equal terms, Engaging actively with your kids, and so on. He then goes in to more detail on each idea, one chapter at a time.

The chapters are flushed out with real life stories, quotes from mens groups, myths and legends, humour and tragedy. He quickly establishes that he is not anti-feminist, rather that feminism on its own is not enough. You cannot liberate half of human beings. Most women, he argues, welcome a mens movement because women like the saner, happier and more involved men that it produces.

His main argument rests on the fact that boys in modern industrial society hardly see their dads. Boys are brought up at home by their mothers, or at kindergarten and primary school by women. Even well-meaning fathers often play only minor roles in the young man's life. As a result, boys grow up with few good role models and little strong male guidance. They base their image of men on Hollywood heroes and pop icons, with disastrous results. Boys need proper fathering and male mentoring, and this needs to continue as they move into life, work and fathering of their own.

If you're a man between the ages of 18 and 80, this book may well give you some perspective on the challenges you face in life, and some of the places to find help when life becomes difficult. And women will probably find it intersting, too.


Interesting, with a pinch of salt   July 28, 2003
 1 out of 9 found this review helpful

An interesting perspective, and well worth the read. However, it is a little new-agey, and so you might want to take it with a little pinch of salt. Overall, I don't think that this detracts from the value of reading it.


Practical, understanding, liberating.   June 17, 2001
 19 out of 20 found this review helpful

I came to this book via another of Steve Biddulph's books, RAISING BOYS, which is wonderfully insightful and directly helpful. MANHOOD is similarly practical in its advice and understanding of problems that men don't talk about. Written in a direct style - no obscurantist academedician or mystic New Age talk here - this book has opened my eyes to things I should have liked to have understood half a century ago when it would have helped me see the good in my own father and the difficulties he coped with. It's a bit late now for that but I hope it'll help me, and them, in sharing life experiences with my own three sons - and the women in their lives. To use that well-worn expression, I cannot recommend MANHOOD too highly.