Hello and welcome to the Woe Men newsletter. I’m a man, I’ve been one for quite a long time now, and I have a problematic relationship with my sex. I blame my father, naturally, but I never discussed anything with him, literally nothing, and he died last year so that problematic relationship will have to stay that way. But I’m trying to figure out why I’m like I am, why we (men) are like we are, and why and how it could be a bit different.
My newsletter is called Woe Men partly because I’ve spent most of my working life as a sub-editor or editor for newspapers and magazines and so have had to come up with catchy, preferably witty little headings for articles. So the ‘woe’ bit is men and our problems (woe is men) and I’m going to talk a fair bit about woemen and the fundamental differences between the sexes. It’s the most fascinating bit of life, I’ve come to think: how we rub along together, or often how we don’t; how we can learn from each other; and how men suffer in comparison. And it also sounds a bit like ‘Whoa, men!’, which is what I think we need to do. Stop and think who we are and what we’re about; what’s our role, what use are we, what do we bring, and what do women and children in particular think of us.
And by men I mean me and all of us. ‘Not all men’ is a lame excuse for us not taking responsibility. It might not be that all men are shit, but all men are men, and it’s so often men who are the cause of the shit.
About me
I’d like to start by trying to explain what has brought me to this point, writing these words here and now. I’ve been a journalist all my working life, but as I said, mainly a sub-editor and editor – so dealing with other people’s words. I have written things (features and interviews and even had a book published) and indeed when I started out I wanted to be a writer, a reporter, a columnist, an author. But life (and ability?) got in the way and a career opened up inside newspaper offices rather than out in the big wide world, on the road. But the thought and the feeling that I have something to say and that I’d like to say it has never really gone away.
It used to be sport. That was the thing I loved when I was young and sports journalism became my career from my very first proper job. But I don’t think about sport so much these days (I’m 58, so old enough to know better; it is a glorious distraction but ultimately a distraction). I think more about what I used to think was the dull end of the newspaper: the politics, the news, the real world.
But in particular I’ve come to be fascinated by men and by women: how they function separately and distinctly; how we co-exist. Boy meets girl; man shacks up with woman. When it works it’s heart-jumpingly, life-changingly good. And a properly connected relationship is magic and reality all rolled into one. The thing is: it’s unbelievably complicated and sometimes messy and totally engrossing. I just want to try to unpick it a bit from my male point of view.
I suppose ever since I began living with my wife nearly 30 years ago, it struck me how different we were on a fundamental level: like how a dishwasher should be loaded; what tidiness looks like; or personal hygiene; or how men (I mean me) are basically self-centred and don’t instinctively think about others; or how men (I mean the old me) are still supposed to go out to work and find some meaning to life outside the home rather than inside it.
Mixed doubles
I began to think that co-habiting with a woman was a bit like playing mixed doubles tennis. On court, if the ball comes straight at you it’s easy: you hit it back; you don’t need to think. The difficulty comes when the ball is down the middle, bisecting the two of you. Who goes for it? If both of you do, rackets smash, you lose the point, it might even hurt. Or if you both leave it to the other one, no one gets to it and you also lose the point. And look a bit stupid. The best doubles players have a remarkable and seemingly instinctive understanding, particularly when dealing with that ball down the middle. And the best mixed doubles players do all this while accepting the physical and psychological differences between them and their partner.
And so it is I think with living with an opposite-sex partner. Who goes for what ball? You need to shop, cook, clean, do the laundry, decorate, fix things, put the bins out. Whose side of the court do those things land in? You can do it very traditionally along stereotypical sex-based lines. Or you can try to do it differently: play to your strengths, so whoever is better at it or fancies the particular task or has more time; or divide it as fairly as possible, both of you sharing the seemingly nasty jobs. Either way, an instinctive understanding of each other is invaluable in the home as well as on the tennis court.
What at first was a very personal interest in my own relationship and status and life became a more general fascination in how we all do this (or so many of us) and how differently too. An old work mate of mine used to say that of all the couples he and his partner knew, the outwardly happiest or at least most stable ones seemed to be those who had a clear separation of powers: typically this was him, a high-earning, most often City suit, who worked long hours out of the house; and her, a stay-home, do-everything-else type. My mate and his partner were both freelance journalists, both working unpredictable shifts, often sorting childcare (or not) at the last minute, desperately juggling everything and very often arguing (according to him back then). Sometimes one of them would need to stay home more or get home early; other times it would be the other half who would cover, depending on work commitments.
When my wife and I began living together, we both worked full-time and we didn’t think too much about how we divided responsibilities and tasks (OK, I didn’t think too much about it). We divided them generally along pretty sexist lines, which I didn’t really like as I was and remain pretty crap at those supposedly blokey things: putting up shelves, car maintenance, decorating, fixing anything.
All change
But it was having children that changed everything and made me think about everything differently. Then there are just so many responsibilities and tasks; way too many for even two people. And for me, after a week or so off work when our first child was born, I had to go back to full-time hours and still try to keep up with the responsibilities and tasks at home.
So obviously I didn’t. My wife did so much and I did what I could (or thought I could). And this carried on for a few years and a few more children. But the thought grew that these two things (work and life; career and family; my outer and inner selves) were totally incompatible. It just didn’t add up. For me, work became more difficult. I struggled to believe in it and see the point. Even working for renowned newspapers and at times doing interesting and senior-ish jobs could not make up for the fact that I was not at home; that I didn’t know my children in the way my wife knew them; that they were growing up fast (well, at a normal growing-up speed, but you know…); that maybe if I didn’t do something about it I’d end up with as dysfunctional a family as I’d known growing up and that I’d grown more distant from the older I became.
It really did feel as though something had to give. And for a lot of men that something is their marriage. And their kids. Things get too hard, too difficult, too strained and the answer for many is to split up, and somehow try to live new, separate lives while still ‘being there’ for your children.
The only possible solution I could think of was to work from home. I’d got the train home from work one night and watched in envy and awe how a guy just in front of me was working on a page of a magazine (he seemed to be designing it rather than editing it) on his laptop. I did the editing bit all day (and sometimes a good part of the evening) in offices but knew I could do the job from home. But no one did. I watched in a kind of trance as this guy worked on the page while chugging through south London and thought that he could finish it off at home if necessary. Wow, what a prospect. It genuinely moved me. It seemed like my holy grail, right there on the 8.23 from London Bridge.
It still took years and a few false starts but eventually I quit another tedious staff job but this time having managed to find enough sustainable freelance work to get by. At the age of 49, with four children, the eldest of whom was 16, the youngest eight, and after 20-odd years of working in offices all over London, I became a stay-at-home dad, a pre-pandemic remote worker. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it.
Nearly nine years later I still love it. I don’t have an office; I work at the end of our lounge/dining room, and when the children are around, during school/college holidays, it can be a bit loud and distracting and I might take a laptop off to a bedroom or a café, but it’s great. I get to just do the work, which was the only bit of my various jobs I liked, the actual editing (or very occasionally writing), and don’t have to do the meetings, the organising, the wrangling, the canteen, the watercooler chats, the commute. Someone sends me the work and I do the work, to the absolute best of my ability, and nothing else.
And when I’m done, or often while I’m doing it, I get to talk to my wife and my children, I get to nip out to the shops to get something for dinner, I get to cook that dinner, eat that dinner with my family, pick up my children from wherever they need a lift from. I might have an early-morning walk with a fellow home-staying dad, or go for a run, or help a neighbour with something… because I can.
So what is it all about?
Working as a freelance, with a more flexible timetable, has also allowed me to take a couple of courses in counselling. The personal reflections involved in this have been profound and life-altering, encouraging even more pondering and wondering what it’s all about, what we’re all doing, how we might do it a bit better.
In particular I can’t stop thinking about what men have to do to be better. I’ve known a few rubbish men, ones who rely on women to do so many things for them while seemingly having a problematic attitude towards women. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them was something I’m sure my grandad used to say. He also loved the joke he came out with seemingly on every wedding anniversary: “Forty years: I’d have got less for murder.” I used to laugh, because everyone else did. But I wouldn’t laugh at that now. It’s so sad.
My dad, who died last year, would have been helpless and hopeless without my mum (he still was with her but was far less exposed). She did every bit of thinking and an awful lot of the doing required to keep them going over the years. And as a result of witnessing them, and others too, I became obsessed with the idea that men have to be able to be independent, to live and survive and even prosper should they suddenly have to fend for themselves. And then I realised that they need to be like this while they are fending for others. It helps everyone – partners, children, relatives, friends, society – if men are functioning emotionally and empathically, thinking not just about themselves or about providing for their families largely in a remote, distant, unconnected way. They have to be connected. I had to be connected. I wasn’t. And I don’t always feel I am now, but it feels a lot more like a joined-up life.
So now I want to write this newsletter. I’m aiming to post every fortnight (we’ll see how that goes) and I’ll almost certainly be writing about something that’s been in the news or in opinion columns that strays into my area. So the Women’s World Cup football final, for instance. I have a post ready to go on the appalling Luis Rubiales and the extraordinary and ongoing fallout from his brazen behaviour at the post-match medal ceremony (and his just as awful crotch-grabbing dancing while watching from the royal box). Men just can’t seem to help themselves. But hopefully we can somehow help each other a bit more.
Thanks for getting this far. See you soon.