Paul Theroux's "The Male Myth"

Something that popped out at me while reading this passage was when Theroux said "...Be a man! strikes me as insulting and abusive. It means: be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient and soldiery, and stop thinking. I believe his interpretation of being manly is exaggerated. I believe growing up and still today he has a problem with being manly. You may look like a man on the outside but it doesn't mean you have to be manly. The exterior part of yourself doesn't always define you. When he talks about how he thinks people view men he sounds imprisoned by his thoughts. I don't think that everyone views men the way he describes it. An intelligent man who expresses their feelings doesn't mean they are not manly, in fact women would be attracted to them. Everyone has a different view of how a man wants to be its just up to the individual person to choose how they want to act no matter what others think because no one will ever be pleased. If America wants rough, stupid, no mercy thinking boys, women want caring fathers and intellectual men. If your mother wants you less "manly" your father wants you more "manly". Paul makes me think that he doesn't know what to do simply because he believes he can't be "manly" enough.