Well, what about men? Caitlin Moran’s love letter to masculinity

Gender writing that’s gracious and full of hope. Krish Kandiah reviews Caitlin Moran’s What about Men? Part of the Problem with Men series.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Four men stand silhoutted against a sunset, One stands apart on their phone.

Meilisa Dwi Nurdiyanti on Unsplash.

The first time I met the award-winning Times columnist Caitlin Moran, it was in her home, and she cooked me soup. She couldn’t have been more hospitable, which was particularly appreciated as we had met to talk about advocacy and hospitality for refugees. I found her personable, funny, helpful, and extremely well-connected.

Despite my deep respect and appreciation for Moran and her writing, I have to admit to being sceptical about her latest book What about Men? published by Ebury Press. It’s a brave thing for a woman to write a book about men. As a married Asian man I wouldn’t dare to even consider writing a book about what it means to be a woman, or white, or single. Yet somehow Moran has done the impossible: she has written a book that is both feminist and masculinist, both refreshing and disturbing, both gracious and frank.

For a start Moran makes no apology for being a woman, or for writing a book aimed squarely for white straight men, or for dropping the “F bomb” on almost every page, or for speaking explicitly and frequently about sex, genitalia and orgasms. She delves into thorny and controversial issues such as toxic masculinity, rape culture, false allegations, and pornography, as well as giving her opinions on men’s health, communication, loneliness, friendships and fear of death. Moran writes with unshockable candour and yet somehow does so with a lightness of touch, humility and generosity.

Moran shows us that we don’t live a zero-sum game: in order for women to win men don’t have to lose and vice-a-versa.

Here are the five main things that I appreciated about this book:

1. It is laugh out-loud funny

There’s no denying it, Caitlin Moran is a brilliant writer. Some of the chapters read like observational comedy resonating rather too accurately with my own experience. Moran has made great use of her large Twitter following and wide male friendship group to provide testimonial and anecdotal evidence for the issue in question, inserting their stories with the perfect comic touch.

2. It is uncannily resonant

Despite being born in Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson has become a national treasure in the UK, writing not just one, but numerous books about the English. His outsider perspective helps us Brits to see ourselves through the eyes of those around. Similarly, Moran’s book about masculinity is so brilliant exactly because she is not a man. She cuts through what others would overlook, asking more interesting questions, and pointing to wholly different ways forward.

3. It makes peace in the gender war

Moran’s honesty and humility offers us a model of how to transcend the culture wars without avoiding the difficult conversations. Her book suggests that men and women can bring the best out of each other by celebrating our differences. Moran shows us that we don’t live a zero-sum game: in order for women to win men don’t have to lose and vice-a-versa. She offers a vision of a different way for men and women to relate to each other. As a firm believer in the power, possibility and pursuit of peace whether in the Russia-Ukraine war or the politically-driven culture war or the subtleties of gender war, I sincerely appreciated her efforts.

4. It celebrates good masculinity

Moran believes our society will be happier and healthier if men and women find ways to celebrate and appreciate one another. It was this line in her book that struck me as a vital perspective:

“There should be no shame in being a man. Being made to feel shame for how you are born is something every other progressive movement is trying to remove and trying to impose it on the one group that didn't until recently feel shame; straight white men, benefits no one.”

5. It is hopeful

It’s been a long time since I have read something about gender which was as full of hope as this book is. Sadly, many books in this field are written in a bid to fight one’s corner, including those coming from the church. Moran’s posture offers us a much-needed challenge. If an outspoken feminist, who claims to have only stepped inside a church once in her life, (apparently for Rev Richard Coles’ last service in his parish) has no fear of showing support to men and their rights, or of promoting a Christian sexual ethic of commitment before sex, or of seeking to find a peaceful resolution to the gender wars, how much more should Christians be willing to do the same?

My one and only issue with the book was when it tended to lapse into stereotypes. Being the sort of man who doesn’t like to fix things (I wish I did and I could), and who doesn’t find it hard to express emotions (have I overshared already?) and who does care about my appearance (check out my latest charity shop find!) I sometimes felt a little misunderstood. Or even worse, unintentionally pigeonholed as not really being Caitlin’s idea of what a man is. This is one of the biggest challenges of anyone writing about gender, how to do so without either reinforcing stereotypes or ignoring genuine difference.

My overall impression is that this book reads like a love letter to masculinity. Take this powerful paragraph from Moran’s last chapter:

“I wish for any man, or boy, everything I have wished for my daughters: that they can be proud of who they were born as; that this will never be a burden to them; that they can appear as they like; that they understand both their own pain, and that of others; that they can love out loud with their whole hearts, because they understand that love is a verb – a doing word; and that they never belittle or destroy what they envy, but recognise it for what it is: almost certainly, a future you wish for yourself.”

That quote reminded me of St Paul’s defining of love in a letter to Corinthians. It sets a high bar, but I believe it is both aspirational and achievable. I would love to see sentiments like this coming out of the church too, with similar books that can transcend the cultural flashpoints and offer great hope to all who need it.

Article

Culture

Digital

3 October 2025

3 min read

Am I a project or a person?

What we lose when we AI tempts us to refuse our limits

A multiple exposure image shows a womans head and shoulders looking ahead, to the sides and above.

Alex Bracken on Unsplash

Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “godfather of AI,” was recently asked by a Financial Times journalist to consider a future in which human beings live among robots and gradually morph into cyborgs, their lives prolonged by artificial parts and chemical enhancements. His reply was strikingly casual: “What’s wrong with that?” Thankfully, his answer reflects a minority view today, but one that will grow significantly in both plausibility and appeal as the culture of Silicon Valley – animated by transhumanist ambitions and backed by enormous capital and influence – seeps into the ‘social imaginary’ of the West.

In an individualist culture of ‘quantified selves,’ where self-optimization and wellbeing dominate the horizon of desire, it will take little to sell such enhancements, which will be promoted as not merely the means of surviving ‘rogue AIs’ but the way to flourishing.

But this represents a profound distortion of what flourishing has meant across centuries of philosophical and theological reflection: the actualization of our true nature through the practice of virtue (Aristotle) and living in alignment with our proper end (telos), which is communion with God (Aquinas). Once tethered to a moral and spiritual vision of the human person, flourishing is fast becoming a runaway concept, thinned out on the anvil of individualism and moral autonomy, and conflated with the promise of expanding ad infinitum one’s capacities, choices, and life itself. It is precisely this hyperindividualist vision that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has in mind when he speaks of his mission of enabling ‘maximal human flourishing’.

But the ethical and anthropological crisis we are entering cannot be resolved by neuroscience, secular anthropologies, let alone economics alone, but only through engaging with Christian anthropology. At the heart of the Christian faith stands the claim that Jesus Christ is the archetypal human, the “second Adam,” in St Paul’s phrase. Not simply in the sense that he is a morally and spiritually exemplary figure whose ethical teaching we might want to consider. But, more boldly, in the sense that all human beings - past, present, and future - are mysteriously caught up, redeemed and fulfilled in the person Christ. In his life, work, death, resurrection and ascension, humans are given the ultimate revelation not only of God, but also of what it means to be truly human and flourish. This means, among other things, that our limitations as creatures are not problems to be overcome but gifts to be honoured, the thresholds where God embraces us in grace. Our dependence and vulnerabilities are not defects to be corrected but the very conditions for fulfilling our humanity, in community, through the practices of faith (trust), hope, and love.

Of course, there are distortions and privations that disfigure human life – disease, cruelty, injustice – which rightly summon humanity to acts of repair and resistance. As a product of God-given creativity, modern medicine and its many cures to previously fatal diseases is a huge blessing. But as biotechnology and AI continue to advance, the line between therapy and enhancement, healing and augmentation will likely become increasingly blurred.

Against visions of human nature as infinitely plastic and of human beings as projects of self-invention, the Christian faith offers the liberating message that humanity is created, incorporated and will be fulfilled in Christ. To be human, then, is not to upgrade oneself without end to avoid vulnerability and death, but to be drawn into Christ, who died but was raised to life and glory. It is to find in him, and to practically outwork the measure of true, mutual flourishing, for the sake of the world. Only from this centre can we wisely discern how to receive and harness the gifts of technology without buying into its counterfeit promise of salvation.

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