Nasty, horrible boys.

Frogs and snails,
And puppy-dogs' tails;

That's what little boys are made of.

(But I've got to wonder, do women's "satisfaction" centers light up like Christmas trees when they see emotional suffering? Will we ever find out? Would it be misogynistic to try?)

Anxious dads 'raise birth pain'

Just once in a while I'd like to hear what fathers are good for. But perhaps I'm expecting too much. Thank you, once again, Auntie Beeb.

She literally drove him up a tree.

Well, I guess this might be a strange reaction, but there are worse responses to domestic strife. I wonder what would have happened if she had been hounded out like this.

The JockStrapBall

I think we should make a JockStrapBall, what do you think? Perhaps we could have a JockStrapBall Roll-On, whatever that is ('sounds kinda kinky). We could collect donations for prostate cancer and perhaps get a grant from the Puffin Foundation for our artistic prowess. Maybe we'd have men "of all ages, sizes, economic backgrounds, and ethnicities sitting and tying [jockstraps] together, chatting over a chocolate buffet and push our [JockStrapBall] around." Fnar, fnar. Definitely, we it wouldn't have a "Herstory" though. Nope, definitely not. Somehow, I don't think it would attract the girls either.

Snigger.

The Anger Project

Can we imagine a project, website and book devoted to the idea of "exploring the concept and realization of healthy anger for men and boys of all cultural background", which might "reveal the surprising benefits of anger in transforming men's lives"? How about suggesting that "Whereas diverting anger can result in a host of mental, physical and emotional problems [for men], expressing anger directly yields immediate payoffs and often sparks positive, life-altering change." Well, I guess we can imagine such a thing, but I have no doubt we can also imagine the outcry.

In short, can we imagine encouraging men to express their anger? I don't know about you, but my experience is that anger in men is pretty much universally viewed with aversion if not revulsion. An angry man is a dangerous, anti-social, unwanted man. Anger in a man is something that needs to be "managed", "controlled" or, failing that, locked away.

And yet, these people seem to think that anger needs to be encouraged in women. In my experience, many women need no encouragement to express their anger and most men are afraid to. Just take a look at this and tot up the male/female ratio for yourself.

Prostate cancer action plan urged in UK

While I am grateful that the BBC has deigned to report on a specifically male health issue and astonished that they put it on the front page this entire article manages to discuss prostate cancer without anywhere describing the sufferers as "men" except once, and that's in a quote. They're "patients", it seems.

A quick search for "breast cancer" in the archive popped up plenty of hits and the half-dozen or so that I checked had no trouble identifying the sufferers as "women", although I have to admit, that the first such hit discussed a male breast cancer victim being denied access to the "miracle drug" Herceptin, like a number of female sufferers recently reported. Then again, the article also says:

'However, Dr Emma Pennery from Breast Cancer Care said there were concerns about Herceptin's general availability, and even more so for men.

"I think it's likely to be problematic because there isn't equal access for women already across the UK and the difficulty is we don't fully understand its usage in men.

"All the clinical trials to date have been on women," said Dr Pennery. '