Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and Toxic Masculinity

'A damning look at toxic masculinity. It's the most important thing you'll read this year.', Elle

‘Ford's book, which draws on current events in Australia, the UK and the US as well as her own life as a wife and mother of a son, launches yet another furious and necessary salvo at the gender status quo while offering a blueprint for a more enlightened world. A witty polemic with significant contemporary value.’, Kirkus

‘Ferocious, incisive, an effective treatise.’, Australian Book Review

‘Ford follows up her powerful book Fight Like a Girl with a much-needed, unapologetic study of toxic masculinity that relentlessly excavates how complicit we all are in the creation, reinforcement, and perpetuation of a "boys will be boys" mind-set.’, Library Journal, starred review

‘A timely cultural critic... Ford is intelligent, thoughtful, well-researched, and witty, but most importantly, she is hopeful for a future of justice and equality.’, Booklist, starred review

‘Boys Will Be Boys is a timely contribution to feminist literature. Her central point is clear and confronting, and it represents something of a challenge.’, Australian Book Review

'A truly vital piece of social commentary from Australia’s fiercest feminist, Boys Will Be Boys should be shoved into the hands of every person you know. Clementine Ford has done her research – despite what her angry detractors would have you believe – and spits truths about toxic masculinity and the dangers of the patriarchy with passion and a wonderfully wry sense of humour. Read it, learn from it, and share it – this book is absolute GOLD!', The AU Review, 16 Best Books of 2018

‘Clementine Ford’s Boys Will Be Boys is a blazing exploration of the frightening damage the patriarchy does to us all.’, The AU Review

‘Boys Will Be Boys is an impassioned call for societal change from a writer who has become a stand-out voice of her generation (and has the trolls to prove it) and an act of devotion from a mother to her son.’, Readings

‘Clementine Ford reveals the fragility behind ‘toxic masculinity’ in Boys Will Be Boys.’, The Conversation

“What I liked about Ford’s writing is that she is ready to question herself as well as others. She clearly acknowledges her white-passing and straight-passing privilege, and that she is striving to learn more and better understand how to elevate those even more marginalised than herself. Too many white feminists have excluded women of colour and transwomen in their conversations and compound the issue by refusing to be questioned about their exclusionary role in the movement.... Fight Like A Girl is not a diatribe but a declaration. Ford isn’t simply outlining the wrongs in the world and the men that compound it; she is declaring that these wrongs can and will be righted. The marginalised have been told to keep quiet, to let things slide, to let the people in power fix the problems. Ford is having none of it. She believes that to change the world the marginalised need to speak louder, push harder, be selfish, do what they tell you not to do because that is how you win like a girl.”
―Women Who Write Comics

“An intimate, though universal, call to arms... Ford’s book is a galvanizing tour de force, begging women to never give up on the most radical act of all: loving themselves wholly and completely in a world that doesn’t love them back.”
―Booklist

CLEMENTINE FORD is a writer, columnist, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne, Australia