I Am No Longer Myself Without You by Jonathan Rutherford

Author:Jonathan Rutherford [Rutherford, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007485345
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

In 1986 Arena magazine took advantage of this trend and established itself as the first successful men’s lifestyle magazine. Its young fashion models drew on gay culture, while its articles retained a traditional masculine focus on money, style and success. Cosmopolitan, followed by Options and Elle, produced supplements for their male readership. Marcus Van Ackerman, editor of Elle pour Homme, explained the changes: ‘Younger men aren’t afraid to look at themselves any more. They’re less likely to follow the crowd.’ In metropolitan areas modish, more sensuous images of British masculinity were appearing. However, the New Man remained an elusive figure. When I asked Steve Taylor, a member of Arena’s original editorial group, about the new interest in male emotions, he commented, ‘Sexual politics doesn’t appeal to any of us. I think it would be really yuck to have a Cosmo Man style. Talking to men about their feelings would be a commercial death wish.’ And Penny Vincenzi, then in charge of the more up-market supplement Options for Men, shared his view. ‘Our philosophy is about power and success, getting on and making money. It’s not about emotions and being a better husband.’ Practical Parenting produced a special section for fathers in its November 1989 edition, only to announce in its editorial that the new, involved father was a myth. Its editor, Davina Lloyd, wrote that ‘Men are as little involved in day to day care of their children as they were twenty years ago.’ When Janice Winship asked Linda Kelsey, in an interview in September 1987, if she could characterize the new ‘Cosmo man’, she replied, ‘I haven’t really met him.’

‘Well, that’s an interesting confession!’

‘Well I do know a few but they’re very few and far between.’

In the same year I was asked to write about a telephone survey conducted by Cosmopolitan’s new supplement Cosmo Man. Five hundred men aged between twenty and thirty-five were interviewed about their attitudes towards women, sex and relationships. The survey lacked scientific rigour, but the article concluded that ‘in general younger men especially have a greater respect for women’s equality. They’re more aware of women’s sexuality than expected, and feel less threatened by it. They display a positive attitude toward working women. They are romantic, want to fall in love, and most say they want to marry and have children.’ The findings are anodyne, but they illustrate the degree of change in masculinity during the late 1980s. Men’s sensibilities were more self-conscious and female friendly, but all the evidence continued to confirm that there had been only a marginal increase in their participation in housework and childcare. The group with the lowest involvement were married men with young children. The December issue of Options for Men carried an interview with the playwright Alan Bleasdale which typified the contradictory nature of the New Man. ‘I don’t wash up and that. I suppose it’s another sign of working-class thuggery. In that sense I am not a New Man. But in my relationships I am. I talk, I discuss my emotions.

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