Summer reissue: Madison Hamill writes with rare precision and bravery. Also she’s hilarious. This piece is extracted from her debut, Specimen, a collection of essays in which she dissects sexuality, childhood, voluntourism, and her own brain. First published 8 March 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism … Read more
Rugby commentator Keith Quinn’s call for rugby players to ‘harden up’ shows how much New Zealand’s macho culture has changed since the days he ruled the airwaves, writes Trevor McKewen, author of the book Real Men Wear Black. I have a confession to make. I am helplessly addicted to the tearjerking TV documentary series Lost … Read more
Breton Dukes’ latest short story collection is a thrilling, surgical examination into the everyday tragedies of domestic New Zealand. The New Zealand man is a topic that is well examined by pretty much every art form we’ve ever had. Hell, our most famous stereotype is “the man alone”. The loner (usually a straight, white loner) … Read more
Madison Hamill writes with rare precision and bravery. Also she’s hilarious. This piece is extracted from her debut, Specimen, a collection of essays in which she dissects sexuality, childhood, voluntourism, and her own brain. None of us had heard of Ranfurly Draught before we met our flatmate Darren. “Are you sure other people buy this … Read more
Sam Brooks heads along to Meatstock 2020, and finds himself questioning the symbiotic relationship between meat-eating and machismo. As I entered Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds for the first day of Meatstock 2020, a girl was exiting. Trucker cap on, eyes hidden behind aviators, manicured fingers wrapped around a can, itself wrapped in a chilled cozy. One … Read more
Last week Trevor McKewen wrote of his epiphany about Real Men Wear Black, the bestseller he wrote in 1992. It didn’t sound like the book I read a long time ago as an impressionable young rugby fan, writes Jamie Wall. I mean, I get what Trevor was saying, that we need to address toxic masculinity … Read more
Sam Brooks goes to a ‘lads’ lunch’ expecting the worst – and somehow gets the advertised ‘good vibes’. When I heard of Lads Who Lunch, my first response was, “Oh, like the Sondheim song?” This was my first hint that maybe I was not the intended audience for Lads Who Lunch. The events, started by … Read more
Four decades after holding a mirror up to Kiwi masculinity with the sensational play Foreskin’s Lament, Greg McGee is back with Necessary Secrets, a new novel that asks the same question: whaddarya? At a time when we might feel we’ve reached peak old privileged white bloke, it’s a brave writer who devotes the first 61 … Read more
Julia dropped a metrosexual bombshell on Married at First Sight this week. Dejan Jotanovic goes deep on the implications of this, and what’s behind our society’s relationship to masculinity. Married at First Sight pegs itself as the ultimate experiment. Six couples are forced to not only cope with clashing values and combusting pasts, but the scrutiny … Read more
Reported comments by Waikato District Health Board interim chief executive Derek Wright and perpetual disappointment and retired ball man Mark Richardson have seen parents being told they need to tell their depressed children to harden up. Spinoff Parents editor Emily Writes wonders why old men are so committed to pushing children to their limits. Update: The … Read more
Since becoming an at-home father, Adam Mamo has been on a desperate search for his masculinity – after all, he keeps being told it’s gone missing. You needn’t look far back in time to when being a stay-at-home dad wasn’t really a thing. Early practitioners of this dark art were seen merely as fathers without … Read more