The current election campaign may not be offering much in the way of policy for men, but it has brought a few more commenters to this site and some interesting posts from new authors – which is great – we need to be our own media sometimes, it is the only way some of these stories will be told.

The more participants we have, the more ideas that float around (even if we don’t all agree with each other) the more we think about the issues that face men in this country, at this time and in the future.

While some of us might be getting a bit long in the tooth to be much more than grumpy old men, it is good to see younger guys continuing the good fight. It’s been a long fight; decades of effort in fact.

Times are a-changing still.

Sometimes important information gets lost in the comments – like this comment from Phil Watts:

As well as Dominic’s and my page NZ Men Fed Up With Family Court(greedy/corrupt Lawyer/Judges) I am starting to set up a NZ wide Men’s Refuge starting in Wellington Region.
Ideas and men’s stories wanted please: [email protected]

There have been attempts at refuges for men over the years, it’s not easy to get these things up and running, but the ones we are referring to here are refuges that deal with men ejected from their homes after domestic disputes or relationship break-down.

We have had refuges for men for many years but they are not so obvious and provide a place for men mainly suffering from addiction or their rejection of society. Organisations like The Sallies (The Salvation Army) for example, have been instrumental in providing major facilities and housing thousands of men over the years.

They are not the only charitable organisation that operates in this manner.

If it weren’t for these organisations we would be seeing truckloads of men on the street and male suicide would be much higher; as bad as ours is, internationally it is comparatively low.

Worse is to come – men have not weathered the storm of feminist-aggression well over the recent decades and now larger numbers of those affected will be nearing old age.

The numbers of older men beaten down by the system, robbed of their financial integrity, their homes, their opportunities in life and their retirement options, will increase substantially.

Retirement will become a gendered exercise where women will be a privileged class, but no doubt there will be mandatory patience-management programmes for those not already dealing with WINZ, perhaps even a free pack of cards.

For thousands of men, who are left with little more than the street as an accommodation option, there will be thousands of women living alone in their court acquired houses. It will be easy for the system to provide gendered benefits disguised as being available to all.

The pressure will go on our charitable organisations to cope with the increasing numbers of homeless and down trodden men who have lost contact with the children they were once a father to.

Just how visible this becomes is yet to be seen, and how refuges might change is yet to be decided.

The reality will be though, that for many men, retirement will be a refuge of some sort for a home.

Related post: Cold comfort for the working man.