Clementine Ford, Boys Will Be Boys

- Ford’s prose sparkles as usual. She’s a superb writer. And her frequent anger is electrifying. She’s often very funny as well. 

- She’s remarkably honest about her own circumstances in relation to the birth and parenting of her baby boy, including the stresses and strains on her relationship with her partner. 

- Things most of us take for granted - as ‘normal’ - are forensically critiqued, eg pink for girls, blue for boys.

- Fabulous names for men: ‘overgrown oafs’; ‘unweaned sulks’; ‘smarmy gits’;  ‘paranoid man-babies’; ‘an army of bloated, charmless cockjangles’; ‘poxy, arrogant, entitled fuckbags’; 

- Very rich in data to support key arguments. 

- Love the frequent ‘oh, I dunno...’ and ‘fucking’ (as in ‘creators are just really fucking antsy’; ‘well, fuck me sideways’) that enliven the passionate arguments.

- There’s a whole chapter on Milo Yiannopoulos. Why? The man is a waste of space and supremely unimportant, and has now faded into history anyway (unless you're one of the handful of ball scratchers who watch the Bolt Report). There’s also a whole chapter on Men’s Rights Activists (MRA) and other anti-feminist hate groups and their violence and rants. Devoting so many pages to these fringe lunatics is disappointing (even if Ford’s critiques are solid and forensic) when her much more enlightening interrogations of ‘normal’ and commonly accepted male behaviour patterns are where Ford is at her best. (Pity this book wasn’t written after the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing. Ford would have eviscerated him, and it would have been electric! She’s done it however in a recent Fairfax column).

- Excellent on custody and child support issues; misogyny in our politics and the media; so-called comedy about rape; men’s oversensitivity to criticism; 

- Excellent on rape culture, particularly by the rugby players in Ireland and the outrageous and cruel punishment of the victim. Many other stories are revealing and depressing. Ford quotes a commentator: ‘I see a pattern emerging in rape culture that suggests women have a past, while men have potential’.

- One thing that sets Ford apart: she explores issues in depth and never lets up. It’s why she’s so persuasive. 

- Beautiful Epilogue - a letter to her son. A lovely way to end a powerful book. 


(PS: I would love to see Australian publishers adopt two rules and stick to them:

1. Always show a pic of the author.
2. Always include an index in a non-fiction book.

It’s a complete disservice to the reader not to do these things as a matter of course).