I am a man. There is nothing inherently admirable about that, nothing particularly laudatory. In fact, I find it's mostly a series of contradictions. I have my wishes, my ambitions. But the facts of me confound. There's not one shred of role model inside me. I suspect there's nothing worth emulating, not that I can declare to the world, anyway. So, not great, I guess. Here's the thing: I don't worry it too much. I am a man. Two years ago, I first heard the term mancession. A term that purported to describe these as tougher times for men than for women. Inside the recession data, it seemed, there was a heretofore-unseen trend that showed men were at that point the primary victims of the economic downturn. More men worked in the private sector, the reasoning went, so they were the first to lose jobs and would be the last to get them back. The stimulus money propped up public-sector jobs first, in which women dominated the workforce. Two years ago, for just a moment, women occupied more jobs in this country than men. As further evidence of the suffering of men, economists predicted the closing of the perpetual wage gap between the sexes. Headlines trumpeted that sixteen of the country's highest-paid CEOs were women, that the glass ceiling had finally been shattered. Before we'd had time to really breathe that in, thoughts turned to the implications for men. Women — single, college-educated, unmarried, childless women living in major metropolitan areas — had started earning more than their male counterparts. Somehow, this was supposed to be bad news for men. Thus deepened the mancession. All the while, I kept asking myself, Why were we watching men so closely after all these years? Why is everyone concerned with the fate of men except men themselves?

It's because men are men. Like, I hate having physicals. I'm told most men do. (Though I'm equally sure many men love them. It's important to remind yourself that you can't generalize when it comes to men. But I'm go...