This International Men's Day, us men have some demands – starting with making half our MPs male

Happy International Men’s Day!

Before you haters, you feminazis (is that how Rush Limbaugh spells it? Can he spell?), pinkos, tree-huggers and other ingrates start comparing it to International Dry Cleaning Day or International Sparkling Water Day in terms of relevance, I’ve got news for you.

This is about more than simply letting blokes be blokes for once, about giving us one day a year where we can do things we never normally get the chance to do like watching sports, drinking beer, eating burgers, talking about women we fancy. You know. Manly things.

This is serious stuff. We have demands. We want them heard.

If you refuse to listen we’ll get jolly cross and write something fierce on the Mail Online’s comment boards, before dressing up like Batman and blocking the roads in central London. Or something. So just pipe down at the back.

First off we want 50 per cent of MPs in the House of Commons to be men. We’re usually opposed to quotas, but the underrepresentation of men in the Mother of Parliaments (TM) needs to end now. And while we’re at it, let’s call it the Father of Parliaments for a change. I think we can all agree that what this country really needs is more people like Christopher Chope and Philip Davies to put a stop to the outrageous victimisation of people who just want to indulge in a bit of harmless fun by taking upskirt photos of women and posting them on the internet.

We also demand half of the directorships in the FTSE 100, and the FTSE 250. And a lot more male bosses. This shouldn’t just be about the appointment of more non-executive directors who turn up every couple of weeks for a meeting, a spot of lunch and a nice fee. There are far too many “one and done” companies that think their job is complete by having the odd bloke in roles that don’t matter all that much.

Don’t let’s forget the courts while we’re at it. More male judges and QCs would surely put a stop to men getting barracked by feminazi barristers over their sexual history, and having what they wore on the night they got assaulted picked over to show how it served as a provocation. If men want to wear tight T-shirts to show off their beer guts it doesn’t give women the right to waltz over and start feeling them up.

While we’re at it, would it kill people to stop calling us radicals for growing beards – body hair is natural, after all – and constantly judging us by our appearances?

We need to make reporting the gender pay gap mandatory too. That’ll highlight just how badly men get it in the workplace.

What’s that, you say? We’re already doing that? And it shows women get paid a lot less? Oh, erm, right. Well let’s do something else then.

At this point there are some people who will have blown a gasket. When they’ve calmed down a bit they’ll compose tweets describing me and the Independent as a “shitrag”, like the risibly named “English Patriot” who responded that way when I had the gall to point out the economic consequences of Brexit. Or even worse.

But there will also be some more thoughtful and intelligent types who might say OK, I get it, but men still have issues. Too many kill themselves, or have mental health problems. Prostate cancer is really nasty.

My family and I have some experience with those two and I agree that they matter. So I tell you what. Let’s have a suicide prevention day. Let’s campaign for more funding for mental health services. Ditto prostate cancer, which has been moving up the agenda (however, it’s interesting that it did so in part courtesy of the Mail juxtaposing its funding with the money breast cancer gets, as if it was a scandal that breast cancer gets such a lot of attention and not simply that prostate cancer needs more attention. They are both horrible diseases. So how about we tackle both instead of making it about one versus the other?)

Prostate cancer, the mental health issue, and one or two others are typically deployed by angry advocates of International Men’s Day not because they need campaigning on, but as sticks to throw at International Women’s Day: “You lot, you really don’t have it so bad, you know. Look at the issues we face!”

Thing is, men run the world and always have run the world. We get most of the best jobs. We’re paid more money for doing them. We dominate business, much of the arts, sports, the legal system, the civil service.

We can wear what we want when we go out without having to worry about creeps in dark alleys and people telling us we asked for it when they attack.

We have it pretty good.

Sure we have some issues that need addressing, but they pale by comparison. Those of us with an X and a Y chromosome and who are grown up and honest with ourselves know that.