Aaron Payne writes for The Oxford Student on the importance of challenging traditional perceptions of masculinity and fictitious notion of the male breadwinner:
“Does it rock the family boat if the woman earns more? No, it drives the boat into an iceberg, because the man will feel as if his penis is dropping off.” These were the words used by novelist Tony Parsons in a recent article in Grazia. Asked on to Radio 4’s Women’s Hour a week later, Parsons expanded on his point: “Somewhere deep inside my manly soul, I’m a breadwinner. That’s what I was born to be, and that’s what I am.”
Parsons’ appeal to a very old-school type of masculinity reminded me of an article written by Jonathan Rutherford for the New Statesman in March of this year. In it he argued that the Labour Party desperately needed to reconnect with men, for “in little more than one generation, the pillars that supported traditional masculine identities have collapsed… increasingly men can no longer follow their fathers and grandfathers in the role of family breadwinner.”
Full article here.
The myth of the male breadwinner
“Does it rock the family boat if the woman earns more? No, it drives the boat into an iceberg, because the man will feel as if his penis is dropping off.” These were the words used by novelist Tony Parsons in a recent article in Grazia. Asked on to Radio 4’s Women’s Hour a week later, Parsons expanded on his point: “Somewhere deep inside my manly soul, I’m a breadwinner. That’s what I was born to be, and that’s what I am.”
Parsons’ appeal to a very old-school type of masculinity reminded me of an article written by Jonathan Rutherford for the New Statesman in March of this year. In it he argued that the Labour Party desperately needed to reconnect with men, for “in little more than one generation, the pillars that supported traditional masculine identities have collapsed… increasingly men can no longer follow their fathers and grandfathers in the role of family breadwinner.”
Full article here.
Share this:
About the author
Deputy Editor. Beckie is a final-year Japanese student at the University of Leeds. She is Editor-in-Chief of Lippy: No Gloss and Features Editor of Leeds Student.