In a recent essay for Newsweek, Anna Quindlen wrote a laudatory article about a church that feeds the hungry. She noted that most of the recipients of this charity are “single men.†However, Quindlen, a liberal feminist, did not speculate on what it means about the bi-sexist nature of our society that this should be so.
Why would men be more apt to be hungry than women? Perhaps for some of the same reasons that men are more apt than women to sink to the bottom in other respects: to be the majority of the homeless, the incarcerated, the alcoholic, and the addicted. Men simply have fewer life options than women. They cannot, for the most part, choose to leave the labor market for fulltime homemaking. Most men do not have the option of making a living in the sex industry. Since they are not the ones who get pregnant and usually not the ones raising young children, they do not usually benefit from services designed to assist children that inevitably also assist women.
They may even end up on the streets or without adequate food in part because of society’s attempts to aid children. Extremely poor men may have to choose between feeding themselves or paying the child support that will (hopefully) feed their children.
Men are more likely to be victims of violence both in civilian life and in war. This means that they may be more apt to suffer the sort of damage that makes it impossible for someone to eke out even a minimal living.
Traditional sex roles advocate George Gilder calls single men “naked nomads.†They may also be hungry nomads.
