What If There Were No Men?

Have you ever wondered what this world would be like if there were no men?

Close your eyes. Remove the fathers who shield their children with their arms. Remove the men who work day and night to bring food home. Remove the workers who place stone upon stone, build bridges and open roads. Remove the men who shape the future through science, art and invention. Remove fathers from life, and look at what remains: a world profoundly incomplete.

I recently read a sentence somewhere: ‘A woman could never endure the standard loneliness of a man.’ There is a great deal of truth in it. A man’s loneliness can be so lonely in itself that it exceeds what many others could tolerate. Yet men, who devise solutions to almost everything, have never seriously searched for a solution to the loneliness that also surrounds their fathers and sons.

Women often reduce loneliness by sharing it; men multiply theirs by remaining silent. Worse still, almost no one asks a man, ‘Is something troubling you? Are you all right?’ Worse again, it has been this way for millions of years, and millions of men have died carrying that loneliness.

Think of these men witnessing humanity’s greatest disgraces in war. Among them is a man who writes poetry as his friend dies in his arms. Another creates a great invention and writes the most beautiful love letters. One remains a devoted son who never lets go of his mother’s hands. One saves a child he has never met from a fire. One dedicates his entire life to the eyes of a single woman. One has only enough money left for a sesame bread ring and gives even that to someone hungry.

Among these men are those who conceal their own fear and distribute courage to others; those who cultivate the soil and feed thousands; those who smile while carrying the heaviest load; those who surrender their own dreams to enlarge their children’s. Behind a song, a poem or a work of art, there is often a spirit trying to make the world more beautiful. Some make mistakes, but some devote a lifetime to repairing them. In the merciless competition among men, there are those who do not spread cruelty, but develop and spread virtue.

You may find it hard to believe, but among these men was a child who chased birds through fields, later faced a death warrant and ultimately became the liberation of a nation. Did anyone ever ask Atatürk, while that warrant followed him, ‘Is something troubling you?’

Those men have lived, and still live, knowing that when they need a shoulder on which to rest their heads, it may not be there. The hair of fathers of daughters did not turn white for nothing.

Some work metres below the ground; others search for cures or develop technology. Some work high above the earth, some enter sewers and remain in filth, some carry enormous loads on construction sites, and some defend their country in the mountains at minus twenty degrees. They are the other half of humanity, labouring everywhere for everyone’s comfort and safety.

If we enjoy comfort today, we owe a great deal of it to this labour. The cities in which we breathe, the roads beneath our feet and the water we drink all contain a man’s sweat and a man’s silent loneliness.

To the men who produce, protect, wear themselves down and still remain standing; to the quiet heroes of this world; to the men who continue to explore, repeatedly leave their comfort zones, struggle, win, lose and yet so often remain alone…

Women: when was the last time you stroked a man’s hair? When did you last let him rest his head on your shoulder? When did you ask, ‘Are you all right?’ and wait for the answer? When did you last remember that a man you consider strong can also break?

Men are often silent. Silence does not mean they are well. Sometimes the quietest man carries the greatest storm within.

Remember: a hand that strokes a man’s hair does not heal only one man. It heals a world.