Grayson Perry on masculinity

growing up with rather bad male role models I've always questioned masculinity and you look at your look at one of your programs one of the news programs what is it Men Behaving Badly most of the troubles of the world are men's business and so you know masculinity is mainly conditioning it's not innate hmm and so I think I'm just trying to bring awareness to what it is masculinity and then maybe say we could change it and it might be paying off for you cuz half the victims of masculinity I mean was your overall view of men one of the reasons why you you went for a presentation of yourself in women's clothing I don't know I mean you got remember that when our sexuality evolves it happens in your childhood you know we don't have sophisticated rational arguments while we become transvestites or whatever they're there there are unconscious working away forming our innermost sort of emotional wiring and so it's not a choice it's not like oh yes I think this will this will be a good political choice for later in my life if I wear a dress it's not like that but you're a heterosexual man hmm in touch with your feminine side well I'm always thought dubious of that expression the feminine side yeah that book doesn't suggest any kind of a feminine side no and I think that you know men had the same range of emotions as women it's just that a lot of men are kind of not in touch with them you know they're not it's fully aware and they don't have a good relationship with them they're scared of them you know men can be incredibly physically brave but emotionally a lot of the Macau Italy won't even ask for directions number-one rule that males pick up by from their parents from their peers it's no stuff that's the number-one rule it's like masculinity has a electric fence around it and that electric fence is Dale shalt not be if you and I as we both bicycle if I were cycling with you would there be something about your behavior that would depict you as that is one arena because I used to race as an amateur so I'm a very clean cyclist and I am quite aggressive yes on my bicycle but the traffic is kind of like the last Serengeti for the Western man that is where they play out some of their most primal masculinities I'm not perfect ever I say so in the book you know I exhibit most of the traits I talk about you know one of the most interesting things about the book beyond reading it is its presentation because this very definitely man Grayson Perry sits on the cover and that's not actually an image of you that we've seen that often I think one of the things about masculinity and particularly the kind of man in a suit is that it's kind of invisible it's a default so therefore to present it in a context ie on me where it's not expected it kind of brings hope that it's a choice it's not you know sometimes I think men feel that masculinity and it's accoutrements almost grow on their back like a pelt but you see I I wear a suit because I think it kind of normalizes me and bring me there you go it's not normal as it may not ring on the other hand I wear socks like this because I feel they they are a statement and a tie like this statement oh no it's as big a statement as I dare what I mean but if that's the whole point is that men feel that they are the zero longitude of identities that they are there they're there they are the normal of other which by which everything else is judged is abnormal but in fact the white middle-class suit wearing man as Carl Jung Carl Jung said you know normality is is the perfect aspiration for that I'm successful

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 37,192

Keywords: masculinity, feminism, women, men, husbands, wives

Id: YzMHaLQK2FU

Length: 3min 58sec (238 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2016