This article originally appeared in 'Agenda', Sydney Morning Herald on 6th May 1994

Steve Biddulph is to men in the '90s what Germaine Greer was to women in the '70s. His call for less shame about male sexuality is merely one aspect of his latest ground-breaking book.

It was women, not men, who demanded that the psychologist and author Steve Biddulph write a book about ways for men to change their lives for the better; women who recognised that their husbands/lovers/sons were turning to women for all their emotional needs.

"Men have tried to resolve these things with their partners, which has overloaded their partners," Biddulph says. "Women say to me: 'I can't help him with this'."

The book, Manhood: a book about setting men free, sets out some of the major arguments and philosophies of the men's movement with steps for change.

Biddulph is the author of one of Australia's most popular parental books, The Secret of Happy Children, and a relationship guide, The Making of Love, which have sold more than 300,000 copies.

But to adopt ways to change requires accepting a need to change in the first place. From what do men need to be freed? After all, as one woman puts it, men still rule the world.

"Men need to be set free from their own limitations" Biddulph says, listing the three 'enemies' of men as loneliness, compulsive competition and emotional timidity.

"Men are caught in this prison of 'life's a struggle and I have to prove myself all the time'."

The problem is that boys, distant from their fathers because the fathers themselves had grown up distant, are not taught how to be men.

Biddulph quotes the American poet and men's movement pioneer Robert Bly, who observed: "A boy cannot change into a man without the active intervention of the older men."

Instead, boys take on roles as men. But having no emotional and therefore real, centre to them, these roles - be they the strong silent John Wayne type, the workaholic provider or the sensitive New Age guy - satisfy neither men nor women.

What we get are uncertain men, too often defensive about proving that they are manly.

"Women are going very well, they're progressing in their lives even if they haven't arrived yet." Biddulph says. "But men aren't moving at all and unless a comparable change takes place in the hearts of men, women's progress won't go further either."

He presents seven steps to a new manhood: 'fixing it' with your father; finding sacredness in your sexuality; meeting your wife on equal terms; engaging actively with your kids; learning to have real male friends; finding your heart in your work; and freeing your wild spirit.

Some of these sound self-explanatory while others, such as finding sacredness in your sexuality, may seem too New Agey for some men and women. But Biddulph argues that men just as much as women have suffered from the exploitation and diminution of men's sexuality.

He writes that "most men are basically still ashamed of their sexual feelings" and he blames this on a culture and religion that tells men their sexuality is "quick, cheap and shallow."

By cheapening this part of men it has persuaded most that not only is that all they want, but that that is all they are capable of. It is this type of culture that breeds everything from uncommunicative lovers to sexual assaults and child abuse.

"We need to give young men the understanding that [their sexuality] is special and joyful," he says. "That view can only benefit women."

Biddulph makes no secret of the fact he has written this book in such a way as to appeal to men who would not normally bother.

As with other writers in the men's movement, he cites the inclusiveness of the early women's movement as an example for any progress for men.

"Any time a man is affectionate to his son, any time a man talks to another man with honesty, then they're part of the men's movement,' he says.