Although the tone of their commentaries differs, Jessa Crispin’s What Is Wrong with Men and Simon James Copland’s The Male Complaint are, more or less, examining the same thing: the workings of the patriarchy in general and what specifically has gone wrong, especially in recent times, with what Crispin refers to as ‘the tug of war’ between men and women.

A podcaster for The Culture We Deserve and the founder of bookslut.com, Crispin is also the author of several books, including Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto (2017), to which her new book serves as something of a companion piece. Her approach here is sweeping, angry, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Copland is an Honorary Fellow at the Australian National University and The Male Complaint has been adapted from his PhD thesis. Its aspect is academic, and it is forceful and thought-provoking, written with a furrowed brow and raised eyebrow.

Tom Ryan

Tom Ryan is a former cinema studies lecturer and an Australian critic who has been a regular contributor to film magazines and the arts pages of newspapers for almost forty years. He is author of The Films of Douglas Sirk: Exquisite ironies and magnificent obsessions and editor of Alan J. Pakula: Interviews, Baz Luhrmann: Interviews, and Fred Schepisi: Interviews, all published by University Press of Mississippi, and has contributed to numerous anthologies about film and sport.