Article content continued

Do you believe that men need help today? If so, we should do lunch. No really.

That last fact is astounding. Even if men hit more often and harder, even if there should always be more shelters for women and children, is it fair or kind to have none for men? In Ottawa, a man can go to a homeless shelter in extremis. But he cannot take his children. So some men, in hellish situations, must choose between enduring abuse and abandoning his kids to the abuser.

In many other ways the law tends to sever fathers from children, including in fairly amicable separations. And it’s bad for kids. A male role model helps both boys and girls grow up to be healthy, balanced, fulfilled individuals who form solid families of their own. Men actually do matter.

I know there’s a lot to debate here. Though I’m proud to be on the board of the Ottawa branch of the Canadian Centre for Men and Families, I have differences with some of my colleagues on whether men’s problem today is that they’re still too masculine or that society values manliness too little. But that’s OK. We want free inquiry, not stifling orthodoxy. Right?

I bring this up because there are people who are profoundly, even viscerally, hostile to anything reminiscent of a Men’s Rights Movement or Male Rights Activism (MRA). CAFE says it’s not an MRA group. But some feminists fear that it’s part of the “patriarchy,” which they consider a force for great evil over many centuries, even while debating when or how it arose.

There are people who are profoundly, even viscerally, hostile to anything reminiscent of a Men’s Rights Movement or Male Rights Activism.

Such disputes are not, again, a bad thing. Intellectual inquiry involves skepticism, nit-picking, and robust debate over facts, logic and worldviews. Just ideally arguments, not quarrels, as G.K. Chesterton put it. But while it’s all fine and good to gather in cafes or CAFE or the local women’s studies group and debate this stuff — and getting the big picture right is crucial in the long run — there are people who can’t wait to receive help.