The great women vs men tug of war helps nobody

Today’s centenary of some women being given the right to vote seems to have bewildered a number of people. My colleague Ross Clark, in particular, was perturbed by the Today programme turning into Woman’s Hour to mark the centenary, which he felt was inappropriate for a news programme, and also didn’t cover the fact that suffrage was also extended to 5.6 million working men. Instead, he writes, the programme turned the occasion ‘into a women’s fest’. Worse: almost every story involving men was about sexual assault.

There seems to be a curious reflex among some people to protest immediately when women are mentioned that no-one is talking about men. It’s almost as though, like Tinkerbell, men might disappear if issues that disproportionately affect women get any airtime longer than five minutes. I write a fair bit about domestic abuse, which affects far more women than it does men (though, of course, abuse also ruins the lives of children, as well as those of their mothers), and whenever I do, a smart Alec pops up to ask why no-one has written about the men who are affected.