Three weeks ago the Labour Member of Parliament, Diane Abbott, made a major speech on what she described as the ‘crisis of masculinity’ which she claimed would lead to a generation of disaffected young men.

Somewhat hysterically, in our opinion, she claimed this ‘negative social pressure’ would ‘fuel homophobia, machismo and misogyny’.

Viewed from our base here in West Yorkshire, this alarmist propaganda, we think, is very much

based on the pressures of Big City living and is particularly London based. Having said that, there is much in the speech which we believe has a national validity, particularly where she speaks of unemployment, today’s economic downturn and the rapid economic changes which ‘warps male identity’.

Not surprising, all this has resulted in an outpouring of comments from various sources, most of which we find almost laughable in their naïve understanding of what it is to be a male – old or young. What is worse is that these observations have been written by males.

Two misunderstandings in particular stand out. The first is that that there is little grasp of the basic truth that males and females are programmed differently. Males push – for a shag, thereby asserting their drive as a masculine force; females pull – to be shagged, thereby asserting their desirability and, ultimately, their deeper purpose.

It’s amazing to us that the sensible observations originally highlighted by Germaine Greer in ‘The Female Eunuch’ and other early writers of the Women’s Lib movement have been distorted and extended by pseudo feminists with their own agenda to the extent that this gender-related programming has been (so innocently) absorbed by subsequent writers on social issues.

The other item which has been thrown up by Ms Abbott’s speech is that many of those who have responded to it have highlighted that, whereas there is always a response from women when issues that primarily concern them are raised, there is no equivalent response from men. The masculine mode remains silent,

a situation which, to these writers, is clearly a surprise.

But to any male who has a grasp of the aforementioned difference between the sexes, there is no surprise here at all. Whereas females draw strength from the camaraderie of talk and conversation, to males it is only Action that counts.

All this is spelled out very clearly in the What Men Do Guide (a copy of which we have sent to Ms Abbott) which was published last year for those young guys who have been finding the speed of change somewhat bewildering and who might value some clarity of ‘what it is to be a man’, at least as perceived by three Yorkshire lads.

It is because ‘Only Action Counts’ that males exist in a state of Aloneness whereby they have a primordial need to ‘take care of their own shit’.

Even their reluctance to consult the doctor bears witness to this male sense of self-sufficiency as being a major part of his Self Respect.

We’ve come to the

conclusion that whilst some of the thoughts expressed in Ms Abbott’s speech were alarmist and, by their very nature, deliberately dramatised for their negative aspects – particularly of violence – subsequent writers, whilst male themselves, have revealed a lamentable understanding of what it is to be a man.