Lionel Shriver

Well...

For the first long part of the book, Nico seems to be very contented with this demasculinized version of himself and many of his peers.

But there is a crucial point at which he realizes that he needs access to the masculine virtues.

even physically.

He needs strength.

He needs to be able to express aggression.

And he needs to, most of all, he needs to be able to protect his mother, who is in profound danger.

And he doesn't know how.

He feels he has no tools in a literal sense and also in a characterological sense

He can't rise to the occasion.

I, of course, don't want to give away the ending, but in his own small, struggling way, he does start to embrace being a man toward the end of the book.

Doesn't come naturally.

He doesn't really want to.

but you know it's it you can see that somewhere out there awaits his salvation and you know i'm i'm a big fan with masculine virtues and i and i mean that on an individual level but also on a cultural one and especially on a cultural one uh we have we have poo-pooed them for a long time and

And so I think in my own small way, I'm defending a more traditional manhood.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I'm afraid that in discussing the male-female dynamic in relation to woke world, I don't speak very warmly about my own sex.

This movement

has brought out the worst in women and you know women women are capable of the masculine virtues also and we have allowed them to run riot uh feeding their worst impulses some of the some of their those impulses are masculine they're just disguised because that

That crowd can be extremely aggressive and violent and vicious.