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Explaining men

  • Series
Photograph of a man dressed in black trousers and t-shirt, sitting on the pavement against a concrete wall containing large glass windows.
Andrew McMillan. © Urszula Sotlys.

What is a man? How should he look? How should he talk and behave? Many of the mental-health problems which men face come from a struggle to embody some kind of archetypal masculine ideal, often presented through various media. Poet Andrew McMillan presents a series of essays which examine the gap between the masculine ideal and the real person. Surprising, troubling, and uplifting, these wide-ranging stories explore issues from body image and trans identity, to fatherhood and race.

  • Article

Father of the house

Stuart Evers thought he’d shaken off his family’s rigid definition of masculinity. But when he became a dad, those buried patriarchal ideas made an unexpected return.

  • Article

Butch drag in the builders’ caff

Two men in a café dressed in practical workwear might seem indistinguishable, but closer inspection reveals layers of complex, nuanced identity.

  • Photo story

Transitioning and the family album

“It’s really hard to describe to people how you know you’re a man when those ways of describing masculinity to me aren’t true. You need to find your own.”

  • Article

Confronting male stereotypes in the classroom

Sometimes men just don’t like football. Writer and teacher Okechukwu Nzelu decides to be himself in front of his students.

  • Article

The gym of cartoon men

In men, body dysmorphia can be expressed as ‘bigorexia’ – the belief that your body is too weak and thin – or anorexia. Andrew McMillan explores two sides of the same coin.