As an older man, I am lucky to have grown up in an era where men were treated with some healthy respect, and to have then lived through the feminist change, which has begun to teach us respect for women.

I do see some fallout from this change. Firstly, there continues to be an absence of good role models for men outside sport. Other than Barack Obama, I struggle to think of a good male role model outside the sporting arena.

And I think this is added to by the general media attitude to men. It is inevitable that female culture, being suddenly given rightful equality, has experienced a rush of power, and of bitterness over male repression. Unfortunately, this repression was not caused by a lot of modern young men and they grow into a world in which it is ok to say that men are inferior, are useless, have nothing to contribute to society, are stupid and are dangerous (we constantly see the crime figures that men perform worst in and the school figures that men perform worst in.)

Despite my own strong background in becoming a man, I have found this difficult, and I have none of the uncertainty of younger men. I have found great relief in the occasional documents by female psychologists who have researched male strengths. One such piece of research (and I regret that I no longer have the details) showed that the myth about men being unable to communicate their feelings was not completely true and that men in male groups actually communicated their feelings very successfully but in a form of verbal and physical shorthand.

I think we badly need to see media articles promoting the strengths and skills of men in the modern world (and we do have them!) We need these to promote male strengths and also to counter the men who were willing to lay down and die, when criticism of men began, and to write articles acknowledging how weak, stupid and awful we were (I meet a number of this type of man and to be honest I think they are just trying to be women. We can still be strong, to communicate in our own verbal shorthand, to be stable, to be good problem solvers and fixers and we can do all of these things whilst being creative, being respectful to women and adapting to the modern world. We invented half of it and are perfectly capable of adapting to it if we let ourselves.)

It is a big challenge to change the film industry, or to change the national media and advertising. It is perfectly possible to begin to create local discussions on the strengths and pleasures of being a man (and there are many). I play football (soccer) and see the young men in my teams growing tremendously from sharing a changing room and car journeys with older men. This can be replicated in other activities and in any gathering of young men.

We can also use easily accessible media. There could be a men's group on facebook, MySpace and other social networks, and on communication media like Twitter. Good writers can also write for magazines, local papers and online news groups. Men need to promote the strengths of men and to share the challenges of being men, without being attacked by bitter women or weak men. I also think that the marvelous and constructive women that I see out there can contribute to this as I do think it is in everyone's interests that both genders are strong, aware and contribute fully to a changing society.