I forgot to add something, Corona, about your insightful comment on identity. Men are indeed in the midst of a profound identity crisis. And it does indeed emerge from inability--both personally and collectively--to make at least one contribution to society that is (a) distinctive, (b) necessary and (c) publicly valued. If women can do everything that men can do (either alone or with help from the state), and if men cannot do one important thing that women can do (giving birth), then there can be no reciprocity between the sexes and no adequate foundation for a social contract.

Without a healthy identity, as I have just outlined that, more and more men will resort to an unhealthy one (which might be better than no identity at all) by abandoning not only their families but also a society with no room for them as men. This is already happening. Boys and young men are dropping out of school, dropping out of society (through video games, drugs, crime or whatever) and dropping out of life itself. This is where we are now. Consequently, the future of society looks very bleak.

There is one possibility: fatherhood as a source of masculine identity. Women cannot be fathers--not unless the two are interchangeable, which is what many women and even some men now believe. Assistant motherhood is inadequate as the source of a healthy masculine identity.