Darren McGarvey: Performative Male

Performative Male is a sharp, darkly funny examination of modern masculinity. Darren McGarvey dissects the scripts men inherit – toughness, certainty, status – and what happens when the promised rewards never arrive. From working class boyhood to public moral display, he explores how masculinity mutates under pressure, online scrutiny and economic decline. This is neither confessional nor sermon. It is a clear-eyed interrogation of performance itself: how men learn the role, cling to it when it falters and sometimes choose to change. Challenging, humane and unsentimental, Performative Male rejects easy villains, easy virtue and easy redemption.