I got a strange email last week. OK, that's true most weeks but this was among the weirdest.

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Why do you write about nothing but women, women, women?

I wonder if that same person writes to our sports reporters and asks them why they write about nothing but sport. Or our education reporters? Why do you only write about education? Why, why, why?

Women are at least as important in life as either education or sport, right? And for years, they were never covered at all except as a rib, Adam's rib.

You can see how that plays out now, for example, in medicine, where we discover that men and women do not experience the same symptoms for particular diseases. Women, thank heavens, are very different to men.

And I'd venture, better.

Which is why I can't understand Matt Canavan's claims that boys are off the rails because, um, women.

What on earth happens to blokes who represent country electorates? It's like they turn into caricatures. Everything turns into a gesture, a slogan. The man in the hat. The bloke with the check shirt.

This week, it was Canavan, Nationals senator. He has four sons (also a daughter!) and apparently that makes him an expert on masculinity in the modern day. I get how overwhelming that must be. I only had three kids in five years and that was wild. He had five kids in 11 years and I'm surprised he's still standing.

But whose fault is it that men end up in the manosphere? Could it be the fault of men themselves? Could it be the fault of their fathers?

I mean, surely Canavan's own sons aren't bathing in the manosphere, considering the excellence of their own in-house male role model!

Oh, no, no. It's women. It's always women. Women ruin everything.

Now let me remind you that Canavan's expositions on social issues are not always correct. Anyone remember when he told us, in 2021, that The Wiggles were too woke because the second-hottest children's entertainers (no one can beat Bluey) had recruited four members who were ethnically diverse. He said: "The Wiggles are free to do what they like. It was nice while it lasted. But you go woke, you go broke."

Um. No.........

© Canberra Times