A summary of Grayson Perry's The desent of man.

Perry’s main aim through this book was to state his opinion on masculinity and weather masculinity is working for us. But as he keep stating in the book he is not writing men off. He comes from a very unique perspective as he is male and takes part in what society states are male activities but he is also a transvestite, so also takes part in more stereotypical female activities like make –up and wearing dresses. So he comes into this debate on gender from an almost balanced insight. A chapter in the book entitied  Asking fish about water , Perry consisders a male figure in society called the ‘Defalt Man’. ‘The White Blob was a strong contender, but in the end I opted to call him Default Man….’ (Perry,TheDesentOfMan,p14,2016 ).  In it he describes this figure of the default man being middle class boys who could take possible positions of power for example politicians. The default man is meant to embody neutrality, in there smart plain suites and lack of emotion. But because of this approach we have a sense of mistrust with these men, as there is no personality being shown ‘ If George Osborne had dressed up as a cross between Flashman and the Grim reaper instead of a business suite when he delivered his budgets, perhaps we would have had a more appropriate vision of who was controlling the nation’s finances.’ (Perry,TheDesentOfMan,p14,2016.)  We don’t really know anything about the people who run key parts of our economy and other major parts of government  ,’ …. I like the word ‘default’, for not only dose it mean a result of not making an active choice’, but two of it’s synonyms are ‘failure to pay’ and ‘evasion’, which seems incleadebly appropriate…’ (Perry,TheDesentOfMan,p14,2016.)  Male politicians like Donald Trump are committing and being tried for tax evasion and rape. Why do we in western society put these men in charge, when we have talented people of different gender, class and ethnicity ready and waiting?  However Perry dose acknowledge that there is a change happening with in parliaments with employing women but it is a very slow transition ‘At present rate of change , it will take over a hundred years before the UK parliament is 50 per cent female…’  (Perry,TheDesentOfMan,p14,2016.)   But there are still a lack of seats for people from different classes and ethnicity. This needs to change. By employing people from these different sectors of society we have the potential to push out the 'Default man' and employ new insights into politics and make it a more inclusive society.