Review of "The Descent of Man" by Grayson Perry

I love Grayson Perry, so I was sorry when this book got off to a bad start - too much unfocused whining about "Middle Class" White Males. I think "Middle Class" is a dangerous and obfuscating term that hides much more than it reveals...we've been royally fucked over by bankers, and some kinds of professionals do have more privileges and a better quality of life than some people who work with their hands and their bodies. But surely teachers and social workers are "middle class", in the cultural sense, even though they sell their labour power to survive. Really, so do engineers and scientists...and for the most part they don't run the world or the country, and they aren't responsible for how fucked everything is.

But after the first whiny chapter the book looked up a lot, and he's really astute and clever about gender and masculinity. It's definitely worth reading, and I'm going to watch the associated TV series. I was particularly taken with the way he talks about how men perform their gender, and also about his references to Lori Gottleib's work on gender equality in housework and sex - the research appears to suggest that men who do more of the housework get less sex, and less enjoyable sex, from their female partners. This deserves further consideration, and for once by women as much as by men.

I would really like see what he's got to say about the trans wars. Uncomfortably I have friends...mainly women...on both sides of an argument that I don't entirely understand.