Sir, – In an opinion piece on men’s maladies (“Enoch Burke is someone I’d like to hug”, November 11th), Joe Humphreys writes: “Ultimately, men just want to be loved – or, at least, to know they’re not completely unloved. They need a shoulder to cry on when they screw up, and they want reassurance that they’re not weird for being deeply insecure.”
Can you imagine the ruaille buaille that would ensue if somebody wrote this about women? Indeed, it would be fully justified, as it’s a deeply patronising analysis. There are many problems facing men today (as there are many problems facing women) and most of them can’t be solved by a shoulder to cry on, as important as that can be.
Regarding Enoch Burke, Joe Humphreys has this to say: “He reminds me of many young men who go through a phase of extreme religiosity before they eventually grow out of it.” This is a very dismissive attitude toward a man who (whatever your view of his opinions) has taken a very principled stand for the sake of his beliefs, entailing great personal sacrifice.
Your columnist writes: “I don’t know him from Adam but I’d like to give him a hug – I feel he could do with one.”
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Somehow, I’m guessing that Enoch Burke isn’t too eager to be hugged by Irish Times opinion writers.
Hasn’t the man suffered enough? – Is mise,
MAOLSHEACHLANN Ó CEALLAIGH,
Dublin 4.