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My mate Phil wears the trousers. He’s not shy about showing them off, especially since he borrowed his wife’s Singer sewing kit to patch them up. He also made his own waistcoat and blue-striped PJs, and gets his beard contoured at the weekend. Phil is not the family’s main breadwinner: his wife is a doctor and she makes more money than him. Still, he gets a round in and cheers when Man City score the winning penalty in the League Cup Final. No one calls Phil a ‘pussy’.

What it means to be a man is changing. Sure, ‘meninists’ grumble they’re objectified, too, and they’ll never get into a nightclub for free. But that aside, you don’t hear too many fellas complaining. The kitchen is the new man cave and my chicken tagine is hands down the best in South West London. My male friends take yoga classes on a Tuesday and play seven-a-side football on a Wednesday. On Thursdays, my friend Guy takes ballet lessons. Sure, we talk about tits, but a female colleague has a Facebook group dedicated to scoring her male friends out of ten. In a post-Tinder world, everyone’s fair game for a swipe right/swipe left appraisal, boy or girl.

Yet while it’s never been easier to be your own bespoke bloke, many of us are struggling with the shifting parameters that define masculinity. At university entry level, the gender gap between successful applicants is so marked — with women outnumbering men in two-thirds of subjects — that UCAS chief Mary Curnock Cook has condemned the ‘deafening policy silence’ on the subject.

More worryingly, the Office for National Statistics reports that three to four times as many men take their own lives in the UK than women. Men are half as likely to visit their GP than women, which speaks volumes for our ‘man-up’ culture. Like most men, I struggle to discuss personal problems, and when my best pal died in 2011 it took me a long time to stop acting blasé and start accepting that I might need to actually talk about something that devas-tating. Jane Powell, CEO at the charity Campaign Against Living Miserably, says our outdated ideas of masculinity aren’t working in men’s favour. ‘There’s an option for women there, which is — dump it,’ she argues. ‘We can dump our problems on the person sitting next to us on the bus, on our friend, or on our GP, safe in the absolute know-ledge that nobody’s going to call us out on our femininity if we do that. But for guys, there still seems to be this idea that when you ask for help, you’re less of a man.’

"If we redefined masculinity, there would be so many more jobs available"

Are we struggling with masculinity 2.0? We shouldn’t be. There are more choices for men than ever before. ‘Previously, there was a huge pressure on men to edit out their more feminine traits, for fear that they might be seen as gay,’ says Andrew G Marshall, marital therapist and author of My Wife Doesn’t Love Me Anymore. ‘Yes, there’s been a huge opening up, which is rather wonderful. But it’s also rather puzzling, as more men struggle to understand what they’re meant to be.’ The average man down the boozer is only just figuring it out. Last year, The Secret Life of the Pub, a Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary set in an East End pub, showed we’re all still stumbling with expressing our emotional range. ‘There’s a really strange, stilted, quiet way that men talk about their emotions,’ says Joel Wilson, the show’s executive producer. ‘There’s a lot of backslapping, ribbing and bawdy humour, which actually masks a subtext of something more profound.’ He points to one punter who slurred the words, ‘I love you, mate.’ ‘His friend said, “You love me!” and punched him on the arm. But then he followed it with an affectionate, “Thanks, man.” ’

How do we start getting that subtext out there? Social media networks have already changed everything, including the modern bloke. Millennial (those aged 16-34) and centennial men (those under 16) are expressing themselves with greater frequency via Snapchat, WhatsApp and Twitter. The LAD Bible, an online platform that reaches 100 million people each week, around 70 per cent of whom are male, insists the modern male has moved beyond the ‘lad’ stereotype. Its own story about male suicide rates, ‘Time To Talk Day’ Is Encouraging Lads To Open Up About Mental Health, published in February, was read by 1.5m on Facebook. There was a huge community outpouring of comments and support by men. ‘I’m always surprised that this support and desire for fairness are not recognised as fundamental components of masculinity,’ says Mimi Turner, marketing director of The LAD Bible. ‘Young blokes aren’t some weird offshoot of society whose lives begin with beer and end with birds.’

GQ Best Dressed Men - top 20 20 show all GQ Best Dressed Men - top 20 1/20 Eddie Redmayne Jason Merritt/Getty 2/20 Nick Grimshaw Anthony Harvey/Getty 3/20 Sam Smith David Becker/Getty 4/20 David Beckham Tim P. Whitby/Getty 5/20 Patrick Grant Anthony Harvey/Getty 6/20 Harry Styles Stephen Lovekin/Getty 7/20 Skepta Samir Hussein/Getty 8/20 Romeo Beckham Kirstin Sinclair/Getty 9/20 Benedict Cumberbatch John Phillips/Getty 10/20 David Gandy Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty 11/20 James Bay Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty 12/20 Prince Philip Chris Jackson/Getty 13/20 Taron Egerton Cindy Ord/Getty 14/20 Luke Day (with Dougie Poynter) JABPromotions/Rex 15/20 Jamie Dornan Ian Walton/Getty 16/20 Idris Elba Neilson Barnard/Getty 17/20 David Furnish Stuart C. Wilson/Getty 18/20 Oliver Cheshire Tristan Fewings/Getty 19/20 Richard Madden Stuart C. Wilson/Getty 20/20 Chris Dercon (with Tamara Weber) Max Lakner/BFAnyc.com/REX 1/20 Eddie Redmayne Jason Merritt/Getty 2/20 Nick Grimshaw Anthony Harvey/Getty 3/20 Sam Smith David Becker/Getty 4/20 David Beckham Tim P. Whitby/Getty 5/20 Patrick Grant Anthony Harvey/Getty 6/20 Harry Styles Stephen Lovekin/Getty 7/20 Skepta Samir Hussein/Getty 8/20 Romeo Beckham Kirstin Sinclair/Getty 9/20 Benedict Cumberbatch John Phillips/Getty 10/20 David Gandy Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty 11/20 James Bay Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty 12/20 Prince Philip Chris Jackson/Getty 13/20 Taron Egerton Cindy Ord/Getty 14/20 Luke Day (with Dougie Poynter) JABPromotions/Rex 15/20 Jamie Dornan Ian Walton/Getty 16/20 Idris Elba Neilson Barnard/Getty 17/20 David Furnish Stuart C. Wilson/Getty 18/20 Oliver Cheshire Tristan Fewings/Getty 19/20 Richard Madden Stuart C. Wilson/Getty 20/20 Chris Dercon (with Tamara Weber) Max Lakner/BFAnyc.com/REX

So, if we’re not that guy, who are we becoming? Better dads, for a start. David Beckham is a national treasure: super-star footballer, style icon and happy, successful family man. Then there’s Louis Tomlinson, whose photo with his baby son went the good kind of viral. Jack Urwin, author of Man Up: Surviving Modern Masculinity, points to the number of newspaper columns in which men now espouse the joys of fatherhood. ‘The flipside to more women in the workplace is that men have more time where they can step into [traditionally feminine] roles at home and take them on.’

It’s only now, he says, that British men are starting to get over the chronic stiff upper lip that he traces back to the First and Second World War. ‘An awful lot of men from Britain and around the world experienced horrendous stuff in a very short period of time, and the ones who survived did whatever they could not to remember it when they came back.’ It had a knock-on effect. ‘The baby boomers grew up with these male role models who weren’t able to talk about or show any kind of healthy emotion, and once that happened they very much passed it on to their children. I don’t think I ever saw my own dad cry. He wasn’t emotionally a very forward man.’ Without that trauma hanging over them, he argues that modern men are getting better at dis-playing emotion and affection. ‘It’s not a sign of weakness. They’re much better at being part of the family again.’

Men have also suffered disproportionately compared with women as a result of the deindustrialisation that has taken place over the past two decades. Ryan Avent, an economics columnist at The Economist and author of The Gated City, believes that blue-collar men are ‘the canary in the coal mine’, and that more job losses will follow as outsourcing and automisation increase across the labour market. But he also contests that there are cultural barriers preventing men taking on jobs in teaching, healthcare and other sectors that are viewed as traditionally feminine: ‘We need to see more willingness to retrain, and to cultivate those skills.’ While men are used to holding down a single job, women are flexible enough to adapt to an increasingly piecemeal economy. But that’s not an excuse. As men, we need to catch up.

A male friend argues it’s like the immigration/jobs debate, where people complain about immigrants taking jobs they refuse to do. ‘In the same way, if we detoxified masculinity and redefined it with an emphasis on equality, there would be so many more jobs available to men, as secretaries or nurses, or cleaners or carers and au pairs.’ It would, in fact, help to stem the nation’s public sector staffing crisis.

Meanwhile, in the bedroom we’re also slow to evolve. There’s a reason the internet site OMGYes, which simulates stimulating a virtual vagina, has been so enthusiastically received by equality campaigners like Emma Watson. Porn is everywhere, with data released by adult supersite PornHub last year showing 24 per cent of their users are female. It seems to be empowering women and confusing men. ‘The availability of porn had a real negative impact on the bedroom,’ admits relationship therapist Mandy Kloppers. ‘It encourages men to expect that a woman will automatically enjoy it if he ejaculates on her face, when actually that’s usually not preferential.’

And what about chivalry? Most of my friends confess that someone using the feminist card has thrown them off at least once. Who should pay the bill? The Vagenda’s Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett advises: ‘When it comes to holding the door open or pulling your chair back: manners have to feel natural rather than manufactured. I put these things simply in the realm of politeness, something that applies to and is appreciated by both genders. I’ll admit I quite like being helped on with my coat, especially when I’m too drunk to put my arm in the hole properly.’ I put it to a male friend that this is a minefield. ‘I’m in a long-term relationship,’ he says. ‘A good performance in the bedroom constitutes not farting too much and sharing the duvet.’

"What about chivalry? Who should pay the bill?"

Body image has also become a minefield for the modern man. The rise and rise of ‘boyeurism’ — aka the increasing number of women openly ogling Poldark’s Aidan Turner with an appropriate number of tweeted fire emojis (#hot!) — has cranked up the pressure on men to up their game. We diet like crazy, yo-yoing between the Paleo, Atkins and 5:2. Since Christmas, two of my friends have gone on a ‘health kick’ (that old euphemism), upping their veg and cutting out fat and sugar. Cristiano Ronaldo’s ab-baring Armani ads and Justin Bieber’s crotch-bulging Calvin Klein posters are, for better or worse, encouraging one in ten men to admit concern for how they look based on what they see in the media. ‘The use of steroids and protein-based supplements is definitely growing,’ says Dr Luke Sullivan, a chartered clinical psychologist and director of Men’s Minds Matter. ‘It’s not a problem, until we start to become obsessed.’

Like beer bellies on treadmills, our idea of masculinity is wobbling. Good. But the least we can do is talk about it. ‘One of the things that I try to do is say, “Sit down and talk to your immediate friendship group,” ’ concludes the author Jack Urwin. ‘There’s some comfort in finding out they’re just as confused as you.’ We’re people, and we’ve got problems, so let’s talk about them. I propose a call to arms — The Builder’s Arms in Kensington at 8pm tonight. I’ll be there. The End of Men? Not likely. But come on, let’s take a few shaky steps to opening up to our problems. It’s one giant leap for mankind.

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