The construct of the “manly Englishman” of Colonial times was an idea painstakingly created in the vicinity of Oxbridge and exported worldwide in the rhetoric of imperialism and as justification for colonialism. As I type, I look around the New Bodleian Reading Room at Oxford, where I am. Several men around me are working away [...]

A good friend of mine recently complained that her straight male friend was making her uncomfortable, by doing stuff like carrying her handbag in public and admitting to liking Gossip Girl, of all things. I wondered if a male friend of mine would ever get uncomfortable if I admitted to loving WWE Raw or death metal music. Of course not. He’d probably be delighted that we have those things in common. So why are women alone so incredibly sensitive about the men in their lives adhering to certain rules that they themselves fought long and hard to break? It’s hypocritical.