Half Man: ‘We’re Beginning to Get a Better, Much More Nuanced Understanding… Vulnerability is a Part of Masculinity Now’

Hardeep Matharu speaks to Duncan Craig, founder of We Are Survivors – a charity supporting survivors of male sexual abuse – about why the ‘toxic masculinity’ narrative has been problematic, and the eye-opening exploration of complex male relationships in Richard Gadd’s new six-part series Half Man

EDITORIAL NOTE: This interview contains discussion of male sexual abuse and trauma

HM: Where do you think society is now at with the conversation on men and masculinity – both in terms of misogyny and violence against women and girls; and understanding vulnerability and abuse as it relates to men and boys?

DC: It feels like we are at the beginning of the end of an intense, acute, response to some horrific news reports, experiences, and events of male violence against women and girls – the acute response was ‘toxic masculinity’, and it was the wrong conversation. Now, finally, even some politicians who were using ‘toxic masculinity’ are saying ‘actually, we need to stop that’ – because it has been a baton that has been used to beat young men with. We’re now thinking more about toxic gender norms – I’ve been saying for donkey’s years that that’s where we should be at – because we have to think about the whole gender spectrum.

We’re beginning to get a better, much more nuanced, understanding. We’re beginning to understand that behaviour is toxic and that we need to put responsibility and accountability on individuals, and that ‘yes, it’s not all men’ – but it definitely has been [in the vast majority of cases] all women as victims. Even the term ‘victim’ has had an evolved understanding: that the woman who is raped has an experience, but so does the woman walking down the street who is wolf-whistled at. We have to recognise all experiences – and that has finally led us on to thinking about men as victims.