The Irreplaceable Role of Fathers, by Philip Martin

It has been three years since the President of the United States said the following: “There’s not a single thing a man can do that a woman can’t do as well or better. Not a single thing.” This was surely to many, of course, one of the most triumphant statements by a man on the role of women since Percy Shelley went about condemning monogamy and chastity to the fate of Ozymandias (“boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away”).

As much as there is fun in the debate over whether art imitates life or life imitates art (especially after quoting an artist like Shelley), in this case we have a clear case of art (words) imitating life (the loss of men as men). ….