A chara, - Fintan O'Toole's column of November 13th makes a connection between the actions of George McGloin in killing his child and my ideas as expressed in Magill. As a qualified Social Worker and someone who has had a decade long career in child protection this a outrageous.
Mr O'Toole states that people who advocate that men also have rights "have said things that needed saying." The interesting thing about this statement is that they have not been said by social commentators, who usually have opinions on every other social issue - commentators such as himself.
In fact the whole male suicide issue presents such an appalling vista to establishment figures that it seems better that young Irishmen continue to die by their own hands than that we look at the root causes of this epidemic.
Mr O'Toole's trump card in his article of November 13th is to rhyme off statistics about how many men as opposed to women are in positions of power in the State. I am sure that an adolescent Mr O'Toole, furtively dreaming of proletarian revolution, bought into the following Marxist premise: "The ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class". The Marxist dictum is, of course, irrefutable. How could the ruling ideas of any historical period be anything other than the ideas of the ruling class?
I was quite clear in my article in Magill and in my contribution to Today FM's The Last Word that I believed that the ruling social policy ideas in this State were feminist ideas. It was feminist ideas that created "Exploring Masculinities" - a programme that makes me shudder when I think of the negative effect it will have on young Irishmen. It will be inflicted on them at precisely the stage they are about to enter the age group were they are at highest risk of taking their own lives.
Finally, Mr O'Toole relies on the old chestnut of victim blaming. This is, of course, perfectly acceptable if the victims are male in this feminist-ruled age.
He asks why men in trouble are slow to seek help. Once they realise they have a safe, non-judgmental forum, they are anything but slow to come forward. They are very open about their vulnerabilities and have no problems in sharing.
Mr O'Toole holds to the dominant belief system that men are a social problem. The fact that he is himself male is of little importance. Irishmen once ruled this part of Ireland for England from Dublin Castle. It is not who has power, but on whose behalf they exercise it. This is a feminist State, underpinned by a misandrist culture.
That is why our young men are dying. - Is mise,
Phil MacGiolla Bhain, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.