Hail men! Here’s one who put his life at risk to save his neighbour from a burning house. When such heroic rescues are made, it’s nearly always men who did them and from time to time the man gives his own life in the process.

And here’s another young man who harnessed student volunteers to help in cleaning up after the Christchurch earthquake. Although the photo in the Herald showed a number of young women as well as men working, here’s a bet that several times as many males have volunteered than have females.

And while we’re at it, another hero today in this story: “Police looking for good samaritan“. The headline however significantly minimizes the heroic act in which a man intervened to stop another man from continuing a violent attack on a woman. Compare that with this recent story about a female who would be correctly described as a good samaritan. Her act of inviting into her car a frightened, fleeing woman to drive her to the police station was in itself hardly heroic, even though she then handled well an unexpected and dangerous pursuit from the violent madman wanting to attack her passenger. Nevertheless, the news article didn’t hold back in describing her as a hero, carefully avoiding use of the term “heroine”.