After decades of battle, the war on men is finally being recognised. A soldier reports.

We’ve been fighting the war on men for so long we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a chattel. I’ve been on the frontlines since I was a child, recruited by my feminist primary school teacher and indoctrinated into the army of women. The army is underfunded but the propaganda is strong, with war cries of “girls can throw” and “the doctor was his mother”.

There are millions of us. Walk down a darkened alleyway at night and you’ll hear whispers that there are in fact billions of us. It never ends, and it won’t end until every man is gone. Until every man has been cancelled. Until every man has stopped being a little bit shit. In this week’s Listener magazine, the skin of a man – flayed in the midsts of battle and visibly dry – is stretched across the cover, a warning to the few men remaining. The skin is white, signalling the key target. “THE WAR ON MEN: Isn’t it time it stopped?” A question for all people, followed by the lesser advertised articles about menopause diets and wine. The holy woman trinity.

The message is spreading. This week it’s the Listener, next week, the world.

First there was the war on drugs – a heavy-handed approach to a harmful substance, with questionable results. The war on men is the same. We know they’re out there. We know some people – even young people! – use them for pleasure, and in moderation they can be harmless, even enjoyable. But overall, they’re dangerous. They hurt people, they kill people, and they’re not going away. That’s what this war is about: clearing our streets of the things that harm us the most.

If you don’t think you’re part of the war on men, think again. Everything is a weapon and everyone is a target. Are you a man saying dumb shit? You’re a target. Are you a man obsessed with beef and trans people? You’re a target. Are you in a position of immense power and privilege and have you also behaved questionably? Uh oh, watch your back, buddy.

Every man is a target and every woman is nearby, hiding, ready to lob grenades like hey, that’s gross and please stop saying that gross thing and please stop doing the gross things when you’re born with an innate advantage in both social standing and upward mobility. You men won’t see it coming and it’ll ruin your life. So many lives have already been ruined. Jobs lost, fortunes seized, livelihoods threatened. It’s happened to so many men and it could happen to you.

But it takes two sides to have a war. And while the war on men has been dramatic, with the deadliest social media posts, violent business boycotts, placards and the most high level forces deployed at protests, the army against men isn’t invincible.

We’ve lost hundreds and thousands of soldiers in the war. Some cannot enlist because they’re too busy being underpaid. Others pull out of the army, too busy raising young boys who they’ll sadly have to brutally fight when they’re older. Many have been wounded on the streets, raped, murdered in their own homes, during this war on men. Isn’t it time it stopped?