So, this morning I woke up to a long, considered letter from a guy I went to school with accusing me (albeit in gentler terms) of male bashing, and challenging me to come up with something positive about men for a change. Which led to a rather painful, pre-coffee discussion with my husband about whether I could, in fact, come up with 10 nice things to say about the other gender (he assured me I couldn’t). Writing this without a hefty dose of generalization is going to be impossible, so bear with me. Let’s see if I can do this. Here are 10 awesome things about men:

1. Men don’t hold grudges
While we women will sulk till the cows come home, guys will have it out with each other and move on. Which saves a lot of time and unnecessary bad blood.

2. Men are long-suffering
While women will nitpick, whine and find fault with the smallest details of their lives, men will just get on with things – all the while working really hard to make sure we have nice stuff.

3. Men are generous to a fault
Someone will do something pretty crap to my husband and he’ll usually shrug it off as them having a bad day and not think about it again. Should the same thing happen to me, I’d probably plot their painful demise. Gotta hand that to him.

4. Men try hard to please us
They really do. I don’t see a lot of that coming from women, on the other hand. We force our men to be different – to open up, talk about their emotions and be sensitive to our feelings. But we’re not really prepared to change in the same way because we believe we’re always right. So, often the compromising is a little one-sided. In my experience, anyway.

5. Modern men are amazing fathers despite having had no blueprint for fathering
I have male friends whose fathering makes me look like Anna Wintour. They’re patient, hands-on, attentive and engaged, and somehow they figure out how to be these things without having had any proper fathering of their own. It impresses and humbles me to the nth degree.

6. The men I know are great feminists
Despite the fact that a mere 50 years ago women were being ordered to put a ribbon in their hair and have a good dinner ready when their husbands came home from work, I’ve only been involved with men who are encouraging and endlessly supportive of the women in their lives.

7. Men don’t care when we gain weight
They don’t. It’s us putting the pressure on ourselves.

8. Men are easy to please
You’ve heard the jokes about beer and blowjobs. It’s not quite as simple as that, but almost.

9. Men aren’t conniving
They’re more inclined than women are to tell it like it is, which means there’s less second-
guessing and game-playing involved. Usually you know where you stand.

10. Men will write letters to women complaining that they’re being misrepresented
Which means that they care what we think and that they want things to be different. And they’re getting different, it just takes time.

SO THERE.