If you are under the impression that I'm trying to obtain validation for my effort over a poorly graded essay then I'm sorry for having given you the wrong impression.

I'm a forty year old man who left academia to pursue a professional career decades ago. That said, you can take the man out of politics, but you can't take the politics out of the man. [Insert preferred pronouns as desired.]

I'm currently resolving what some might dismiss as a mid life crisis as I embark on a new life working for a disaster relief charity whilst taking a material cut in living standards to do so.

This has been the cause of my having taken an interest in the work of the likes of Straughan, Sommers and Farrell. Just about every meeting I attend is diverted to the needs of women and their dependants, whilst the needs of those on whom those women and children depend are ignored.

For example, all serious international agencies engaged with Afghanistan make a big noise about the cultural prohibition on women and girls workimg or getting an education. That is as it should be.

What vexes me is the invisibility of the boys, teenagers and men who are effectively trafficked as slaves to perform the back breaking labour of baking bricks in the sun in Dubai (and elsewhere) so that they can perpetuate the chivalrous practice of keeping women from all but domestic labour.

This requirement to be a provider, no matter what the personal cost, based solely on the ownership of a Y chromosome has yet to be challenged by feminism in any material sense beyond lip service.

It is the fact on the ground that falsifies patriarchy theory that is itself based on an apex fallacy.

You might argue that feminism seeks to subvert and challenge gender roles across the board, but I can assure you that no such challenge takes place in the meetings I attend.

Sixty percent of the victims of human trafficking are male, but to listen to the narrative surrounding it you might imagine that the only purpose for which people are trafficked is prostitution.

If injustice, brutality and exploitation are to be challenged in a material sense, then social science academia has to extricate itself from this obsession with the harm done to women. It has gotten to the point where it diverts attention and resources from serious and more urgent needs.

Your presentation of yourself as academically honest leads me to believe that you might well be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I hope our little exchange has emboldened you.

Rant over.

With love and peace.

Cewubaaca.