Awards

• Winner of Creative Review Book Covers of the Year 2019 (UK)

Overview

What is masculinity? Dominating the world around us, with deadly gun violence, male suicide rates and incels on Reddit, masculinity is perceived to be 'toxic', 'fragile' and 'in crisis'. In Mask Off, JJ Bola exposes masculinity as a performance that men are socially conditioned into. Using examples of non-Western cultural traditions, music and sport, he shines light on historical narratives around manhood, debunking popular myths along the way. He explores how LGBTQ men, men of colour, and male refugees experience masculinity in diverse ways, revealing its fluidity, how it's strengthened and weakened by different political contexts, such as the patriarchy or the far-right, and perceived differently by those around them. At the heart of love and sex, the political stage, competitive sports, gang culture, and mental health issues, lies masculinity: Mask Off is an urgent call to unravel masculinity and redefine it.

Full Product Details

9780745338743

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Incisive, engaging, powerfully vulnerable, JJ Bola has given us an urgent and compelling examination of one of society's most pressing subjects' -- Musa Okwonga 'Male privilege, male violence, love, sex and mental health - there is nowhere JJ Bola refuses to go' -- Benjamin Zephaniah 'An uncompromising, heartfelt and completely vital interrogation of this thing we call masculinity' -- Jeffrey Boakye, author of 'Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored' 'Holds men accountable for the ways in which we have benefited from male privilege, but also liberates us from its violently toxic demands' -- David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham

'JJ Bola succeeds not only in holding men accountable for the ways in which we have benefited from male privilege, but also in liberating us from its violently toxic demands. Without instrumentalising feminism for male interests, 'Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined' bravely seeks to dismantle the intersectional axes of oppression that materialise from patriarchal structures' -- David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham

'Incisive, engaging, powerfully vulnerable, JJ Bola has given us an urgent and compelling examination of one of society's most pressing subjects' -- Musa Okwonga 'Male privilege, male violence, love, sex and mental health - there is nowhere JJ Bola refuses to go' -- Benjamin Zephaniah 'An uncompromising, heartfelt and completely vital interrogation of this thing we call masculinity' -- Jeffrey Boakye, author of 'Black, Listed: Black British Culture Explored' 'Holds men accountable for the ways in which we have benefited from male privilege, but also liberates us from its violently toxic demands' -- David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham 'An antidote to Jordan Peterson' -- The Guardian

Author Information

JJ Bola is a writer, poet and educator. He is the author of the novel No Place to Call Home (2017), as well as three poetry collections. He is one of the winners of the 2017 Spread the Word Flight 1000 Associates Prize.

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