Prejudice and all forms of it, we know, find a way to transfigure, to renew, to contort itself, and to remain in all societies. That is one way to see it. But the conflict I have with its forms is this: that though gender inequality has worn itself out in a patriarchal society, it has found a way for sustenance. Partly that only one cause of the problem has been for decades now the focal point for activists: which is ‘feminine empathy.’ The latter is not a sarcasm, but an admonition that alongside feminine empathy, masculinity should indeed be made also primary. The essays in this collection are an attempt to make primary the affairs of the boy-child in his formative years.
The judges have been most careful. This is because they understand that there is always in talking about the boy-child the temptation of falling into the usual habit...