Devvy Kidd charges that America has lost its manhood, by which she means men prepared to defend women and children against the advancing global tyranny [Devvy Kidd: Where Have All The Men Gone? June 5, 2002, www.newswithviews.com].

“Today the men in this country,” she writes, “sit around watching mindless trash like Survivor or Friends on the boob tube, instead of shouting down the roof against state and federal systems that are utterly and completely rotten beyond redemption. Systems and agencies that are putting their women and children into a state of involuntary servitude for all their lives. Instead they sit back with nary a whisper while state and federal judges to uphold this carnage against the people. Why is this?”

One might have thought the answer was obvious - the predictable result of the attacks on men and masculinity that have come from the feminist movement over the past two decades, with the backing of the state, and with the acquiescence of the vast majority of Australian, and American, women. And while Ms Kidd might wonder where the men prepared to defend women have gone, one could suggest they have gone where the women prepared to defend men have gone – into the pages of history.

While millions of men have died protecting their families (or so they believed), they have never regarded themselves as sacrificial animals. Their protection of women and children always came at a price, a price wiser women in the past understood. Men would protect women and children, provided women and children gave them something worth protecting. That needn’t be much: a little respect, love, and a home to defend. Men would stand by their women and children, so long as their women and children stood by them. Take away that mostly unstated bargain, and one is left with a social problem.

So when feminists started calling men ‘male chauvinist pigs’, there might have been some women’s voices raised in defence of men. If there were, they were few and far between. When newsagents put on sale diaries with women on the cover screaming, “All men are bastards”, women might have protested at the blatant sexism. They might have demanded the diaries be withdrawn from sale. Instead they bought them to show how ‘liberated’ they were, thereby endorsing the claim.

When men were accused of being involved in a ‘vast male conspiracy to chain women to kitchen sinks’ and to turn this into a ‘male dominated society’, there might have been protests from women at this obvious absurdity, but there weren’t. What about from the mothers who were training the future crop of alleged conspirators and women-enslavers - their own sons? Nothing.

When it was revealed there was a war against boys in the school system, aimed at turning them into placid little neuters, did their mothers storm Parents and Citizens meetings demanding a fair go for their sons? Hardly. Instead they believed the ‘teachers’ who told them male aggression was a form of social psychosis requiring treatment. Toy trucks and guns should be taken away, and boys given dolls to play with.

A masculine man came to be regarded as an insensitive dolt – ‘macho’ was the term of abuse. The ideal man was a SNAG – a Sensitive New Age Guy, in touch with his ‘feminine side’. Men should be encouraged to cry often, and share their ‘deep inner feelings’ as women supposedly do. If only men were more like women, the world would be a much better place, was the feminist mantra, and women generally stood around nodding in agreement.

When the feminists pronounced that “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”, did real women object? No, they were doubled up with mirth. SO funny! When the feminsts proclaimed their aim was no longer to ‘liberate women’, but to ‘sink the boot into the groin of the patriarchy’, did any real women protest to say that wasn’t what they wanted? No. And when Hollywood started actually showing women kicking men in the groin on screen as ‘entertainment’, did women object? Did they walk out of the theatres en masse? Not at all. They made those peculiar ‘whoop, whoop’ noises women make at male strip shows.

Why was it that women generally didn’t defend men through all this? For one thing, they were too busy counting the spoils gained on their behalf by the feminists. Such as affirmative action, because they wouldn’t have to compete so hard to get a job, and could blame lack of advancement on men and ‘glass ceilings’. And Family Law, because women were almost guaranteed three-quarters of the property and sole custody of the children most of the time, simply by pleading womanhood.

Did any women protest at the obvious injustice? Hardly any. In Australia they started embellishing their custody applications with false accusations of child abuse, so their ex-husbands would be denied the right even to visit their children, ever. Feminist studies appeared, showing fathers were not only unnecessary, but actually detrimental to childrens’ upbringing. Did women rise up in defence of men over these scandalous claims? Virtually none. Nor did they object when the feminists accused men of deliberately causing wars so they could have the pleasure of being blown to pieces fighting them. Come to think of it, there is hardly an evil on earth that has not been blamed on men by women over the past 20 years, with no shortage of coverage by the major media.

Now women – at least some of them such as Devvy Kidd - are starting to wake up that behind the feminist and other popular movements are some very ugly scheming people who want to destroy the institutions of civilisation so they can rule over the wreckage. Accordingly, Ms Kidd wants men to resume practising their traditional role as protectors of women and children, and bemoans the fact that there don’t seem to be any men like that around any more.

Well what did she expect? What did she think would be the outcome of the twenty-year war on men and masculinity? Did she think that at the end of the day there would still be men at women’s beck-and-call no matter what? Does she offer any apology for the way men have been attacked for the past two decades? Does she even ask men nicely for their protection? None of these. She launches yet another attack on men, this time for failing to do the ‘manly thing’, and protect women and children against the coming tyranny.

“America,” she proclaims in disgust, “has lost its manhood.” Really. Well if women want men’s protection, they’d better start revising their attitude to men - or go learn karate.