Before They Were Men: Essays on Manhood, Compassion, and What Went Wrong

The conversation about masculinity, patriarchy, and misogyny has never been so prominent or heated. Alarmed by a new generation of angry, broken young men, genderqueer writer Jacob Tobia set out to explore what was going on and came to a shocking conclusion: emotionally and spiritually-speaking, men and boys may be the ones suffering the most under the gender binary right now.

Jacob should know. For their gender-defying adolescent heart, the nonconsensual process of being "made a man" was crushing. After spending a lifetime fleeing manhood and masculinity, Jacob dares to ask the question: what happens if we stop understanding men as categorical beneficiaries of patriarchal institutions and start understanding them for what they are - co-survivors of patriarchy itself?

In a series of personal and devastating essays, Before They Were Men argues that we must rewire our entire framework of feminism. A much-needed nonbinary intervention into a two-sided discourse gone stale, Jacob boldly posits compassion and empathy as the paradigm-shifting forces that will lead men -- and us all -- to a brighter future. Urgent, surprising, and at times, hilarious, they cover topics like:

• The unspoken body image issues and dysmorphia confronting men and boys.
• The difficulty of challenging a world that glorifies war, aggression, and the violence of men.
• The case for rethinking, and ultimately retiring, counterproductive terms like "Toxic Masculinity" and "Male Privilege."