MixedIrish Times (IRE)On the surface, a wide-ranging text. It covers the childhood, clothing, sexual behaviour, genitalia, pornography, friendships, illness, parenthood and ageing of men. In the process she shows a lot of empathy for the gender which has caused her own a lot of hardship. The problem is the narrow scope of her research. Her main sources are people she knows ... The problem with this is, I also know men. I’m sure you do too. And I’d bet that the men I know are different from the men Caitlin Moran knows and that they’re different again from the men you know. So not everything Moran confidently proclaims about the male gender rings true to me ... Moran is a reliably funny writer ... Moran always writes well. She’s funny and empathetic and her heart is in the right place. She is right that men should be encouraged to talk more about their problems and that they have much to learn from women, but the narrowness of her focus risks essentialising the stereotypes she describes.
