It’s a measure of men’s oppression that, 50 years on from the flower of the women’s movement, we still don’t have a proper men’s movement in this country.

And it’s an uphill battle, a much-harder one than women have, because privilege is both invisible-to and stoutly-defended-by the holders thereof.

It’s an uphill battle because women actually TALK to one another, and men have been deeply conditioned to be isolated lest they really feel the desolation of their position and remove their neckties, those symbols of bondage to the established order.

It’s an uphill battle because women already FEEL their disempowerment, but facing disempowerment is the last thing a conventionally-socialized male wants to do. He has neither tools nor support for it.

But it IS happening, in fits and starts, as the women’s movement itself matures. My generation is for the most part hopeless, but the emerging generation is doing it and doing it authentically. I am hopeful.