Also, from the men I've seen over time, I get a sense that to be in a man's body out in the world is a lonelier position than to be a woman. I think that men, especially in mid-life, are often caught in a dilemma. They are expected to succeed in the world that they're in, and as time goes by, their work becomes less meaningful, and it's their primary source of identity. So they become depressed. What's missing for them often is a connection with their inner selves, a knowledge of who they are beyond their roles.
Most men talk more to women than they do to each other.
But in the Robert Bly movement, there is an opening up to each other, which is, I gather, the major value of such things as war. When men share a wartime experience, there is a letting down of barriers and a genuineness that doesn't happen for them in other situations. So maybe one of the things we need in order to move away from war is for men to find ways to connect with each other on their own terms, in their own way, not in the normal social situation - but in extraordinary circumstances, in some experience with an edge to it. Also, from the beginning of life in the uterus, baby boys are more vulnerable. More baby boys abort naturally, more baby boys die in the earliest period of life, more little boys are dyslexic.