One might well ask how narcissism managed to become a social duty instead of a vice. Am I to ignore every injustice that might be inflicted on those belonging to a group to which I don't belong? Is this not a strange sort of feminism, that calls of men to be as indifferent to the treatment meted out to women, as a Klansman would have had Caucasians be toward the injustices suffered by African-Americans? Is it more more a sign of respect to be there for others, or to not care about them at all? If a member of the very group for whom one would offer one's support calls for a standard of disregard that is akin to that of the Klansman mentioned above, is that advocacy, or a sign of hate for the other so intense, that it becomes hate for oneself?

"Do you think that women need men's help?" Yes, because in real life, everybody needs everybody else's help. The "rugged individualist on the frontier", the one who triumphed over all adversity with no help from others, so deeply rooted in American folklore, was always a myth, as anybody who ever spent any time in a rural area knows. People in hard times got by because they learned that they could, in need, lean on each other, and because when danger came, a man didn't have to ask his neighbor to stand with him as he protected himself and those he cared about. It was just understood, and there's no reason for that principle to change when the one threatened is female instead of male. But some will still want an answer, as if I hadn't just given one?

Fine.

What a sexist remark that would be, that such a person would have made with that leading question! What does my gender have to do with the subject at hand? And yet, people will ask this rhetorical question as if it could be a serious one. Finding inspiration, no doubt, in a philosophy manufactured for them, that serves to keep public opinion conveniently malleable, for those in power who would divide and conquer the mass of the less influential beneath them.

One thing is for certain. If we embrace a philosophy that tells us to dismiss what an entire class of our peers has to say without further examination, calling for stonewalling rather than suspicion, we will divide ourselves into small, defenseless camps, and be far easier prey, for the predators among us. There are some who would argue that a man should not argue a point here unless he was following a woman's lead, because they didn't need "male guidance". Nonsense. You're a person, and I'm a person, and I should take an interest in your well being, for just that reason. That recognition, is what civilization is.

I wouldn't want you, a stranger, to put uncritical trust in me and I don't ask you to accept my conclusions without examining the arguments that support them - and they have been mentioned here. Given that, is my gender even slightly relevant? And how would one argue, that the assertion that it was, was not an ad hominem? If each of us does not watch out for the others, being open to making common cause, though, or listen to the warnings that others will offer, then we will be isolating ourselves from the social support that has made life a safer and more pleasant endeavor than it might otherwise be. If someone would do that, then what does it say about her? That she hates men more than she loves herself? I pray that I will never be so consumed by bigotry.

• Let's continue ...