Are men okay? Christ. After the grimmest spate of appalling male behaviour in recent memory, from the accounts of Russell Brand’s alleged victims to Lawrence Fox and Dan Wootton’s abhorrent exchange on GB News, and from the murder of 15-year-old Elianne Andam and corresponding arrest of a 17-year-old boy to the teenager who allegedly chopped down that beloved tree, it is hard to hold on to any optimism about male kind.
In any given week, however, the outlook is hardly positive. No, is the consensus of psychologists, counsellors, educators, columnists, feminists, incels and people airing grievances about their exes on social media. Men are not okay. The serious bleeds into the trivial. The specific opens out into the general. Grievances become weapons. Anecdotes become theories. It’s because of the patriarchy. It’s because of testosterone. It’s because men are too busy thinking about the Roman Empire. It’s because computer games are simply too good. It’s because men never call their friends.
