The world needs more fraternity, because it's turning into one massive sorority. You've never seen more unanimous support among women against men, blazed onto every screen in the land. Far from balancing the scales, feminism seeks restorative justice from what used to be, long ago, a mildly oppressive patriarchy. It should not surprise you that feminists are never satisfied because women do not understand adversity, and Briffault's Law describes how women focus always on future benefit, rather than appreciating what has already been done for them. The shitshow never stops rolling, gathering mass all the while.

Men are dying under its wheels as a natural consequence of the poisonous, hateful nature of the feminine imperative, but not nearly as often as we are killing ourselves to escape such a fate. Society now explictly vilifies everything masculine, while it continuously and implicitly demands ever more masculinity. Feminism is a shit-test, and the men of the world are failing. The consequences are dire.

We have given the most responsible teenagers in every house an assault rifle, diplomatic immunity to do as they wish and the assurance that we are the indefatigable enemy, and they have taken aim at all that is masculine.

Is it any wonder? When your very nature is demonised, when your every interaction with another man is policed, censored and supervised by the nearest vagina, you become bankrupt of energy to give to your fellow man because you need it all for yourself. This denies your need for male bonding, further sapping your energy. When your girl can put you in prison on a whim, and is actively encouraged to do so, you become bankrupt of your own sense of personal security, of your ability to feel true affection for a woman. This denies her need for your care, further driving her exasperation. When your female coworkers are compelled to minimising their own exertion, maximising their own gain and making sure you've got your mind right, by doing all their work for them, never criticising them and accepting that you are a second-class citizen, you become bankrupt of pride in your work.

Men need these currencies. Men need to be able to have decidely politically incorrect conversations about, well, everything. It's how we communicate - stridently, with purpose and without fear of controversy. Men need to be able to call their women out on bullshit behaviour without fear of childish, unjust reprisal. It's how we save them from themselves - by being toughened to the struggles of life, a burden they cannot carry. Men need to be able to keep the many wheels of society's infrastructure turning without stupid interruptions, and without slowing down so that unskilled, entitled children who earn the same buck for nothing aren't intimidated, else we're all fucked.

Coherent societies of masculine men have built empires. Not just once, or twice, but incessantly since the dawn of tools and primitive language. We have, as a gender, conquered the planet, almost all life upon it, numerous secrets of the Universe, every psychopath who would destroy civilisation (and there have been many), the ruthlessness of the wilds, every predator we've ever known, even our own flawed nature to some extent, over and over. From the darkest, coldest mineshaft to the loftiest academic chair, Men have achieved such glory as can only be marveled at askance, for its radiance is blinding for any one man to look at. We have achieved the totally impossible again and again and again, and rather than sit around and love ourselves for it, each time we have stared adversity in the eye and demanded a bigger challenge.

And now we can't even make eye contact with one another in public. When we do, it's to white-knight and protect the infallible, perfect (read: cum-glazed, obese, entitled) princesses by tearing out each other's throats. We're fighting each other for something none of us should ever settle to sample, never mind commit to. When we're not doing that, we're shepherded to the grindstone, then to the grave, and almost none of us have the energy even to protest.

It's 2015, and Men, after eons of triumph after triumph, have finally been conquered by the only thing powerful enough to do so; our own weakness. We have come to defy the only creed which unites us all; that of manhood.

/rant

But this ain't feminism, gents. I'm not going to pass around the Kleenex so that we can drown in self-pity and wail about oppression. It is our collective fault for allowing such insanity to take hold. Yes, we've been besieged on all sides. We've been dealt shitty fathers, who infect us with their own androgeny even before we can fend it off. We've been dealt shitty advice, tricked into thwarting our own romantic designs even before they are fully formed. We've been dealt shackles, goaded into attacking our brothers and learning to hate them even before we know them. This has only compounded the difficulty of building and maintaining ourselves as men (already a task many are destined to fail at), but the world doesn't care for excuses, only for the brave who defy them.

At this juncture, some of you may be ambivalent. You may intend to navigate this wasteland as a lone wolf, capitalising on the lack of competition in social, professional, financial and dating spheres. I am amenable to this mentality myself. But I encourage you to ask yourself one question; do you truly yearn for the freedom to walk alone, or are you really fleeing the challenge? It may be that you fear failure. It may be that you are uncomfortable showing consideration for other men because you fear their rejection. Or you might be like me; dedicated to masculinity but fiercely independent by nature, a lone wolf through and through and unapologetic about it. Personally, however, I would be pleased to see my own path get harder as Fraternity recovers. There's no pride to be taken in victory, knowing that your competition was handicapped.

Some of you may believe that it's a lost cause. Fair enough. But I would ask that you leave every man to make his own commitments, without clogging up the comments with pessimism. It won't do anything except for acting as yet another discouragement for the men who revile this paradigm, which they certainly don't need. If you think they'll fail, get out of the way and let them do so.

The rest of you, if I have done my job as your author correctly, will be wondering how to restore Man to his former glory. The answer is not a huge, macroscopic societal upheaval. It is a widespread, microscopic purging of crimes against masculinity. It is done by treating every man you encounter with respect, until he gives you a good reason not to. By preserving and defending fraternal spaces subtly, carefully, thus allowing the seeds of masculinity to grow unmolested. By calling men out on their mistakes fairly, attacking the mistake, not the man, and by lauding their triumphs as appropriate. By usurping the Feminine Imperative wherever you can, and leading good men you encounter out of the Matrix by example, not direction.

We are well into the decline of Western civilisation. If we don't start considering how a decent paradigm might be built out of the ashes, nobody will, and the chance may be lost forever. It is up to each and every one of you how you feel about that, and what you are going to do about it.

"Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor." ~ Norman Mailer