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But when these moments pass, all these fine masculine qualities are forgotten, and the male-bashing begins again with nobody to defend living men leading ordinary lives. The women writers (who do not themselves suffer the least disadvantage for being female) go back to complaining about how tough it is to be a woman, and how awful men are. The male writers who wrote so movingly about the heroes of Vimy Ridge go back to their other concerns: budgets, economics, climate change, corruption in high places.

The sad fact is that in general, men are not well served in opinion journalism by either male or female writers. Male writers may feel a masculine kinship with other men in real combat, but they don’t feel any sense of brotherhood with men who are under siege in the culture wars. Maybe they don’t want to feel the wrath of the sisterhood, which can happen when male writers defend men’s rights. Or maybe they simply accept the fact that it is men’s lot to suffer more violence, endure the brunt of parental disenfranchisement, take on the crappiest jobs (24 of the 25 worst jobs as rated by the Jobs Almanac that rated 250 were 95-100 per cent male: boiler-maker, lumberjack, sheet-metal worker, etc), cope with joblessness, kill themselves at three times the rate of women, suck up having their lives ruined by false allegations of rape or child abuse, and in general, be considered “disposable” by society, in Warren Farrell’s memorable description of men’s social role.

Who is left to praise living men in legacy media? Women who have resisted the excesses of feminist anger and the misandry that floods the culture. Some of us are older and were educated before the word “misandry” had to be invented. And there are some admirable young women journalists who beat against the current with heroic intellectual independence. But if present gender trends continue in opinion journalism, men can expect to see their legitimate grievances even more expeditiously swept under the commentariat rug.

National Post

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