This coming Thursday is International Men's Day. Unaware of it? So are most carbon-based life forms, even though it's been around for about three decades now.
Google Trends advises that the term "International Men's Day" bumps along at low rates of interest most of the year, with two identifiable annual spikes; one smaller, one larger.
The smaller occurs around now, in the lead-up to the day itself — November 19.
The larger spike occurs in early March, around International Women's Day. It doesn't take an expert to decode the March spike; men who've just seen a poster for International Women's Day (IWD) and want to know why there isn't a day for them, or women juggling a tray of IWD-themed cupcakes who've just been asked that question by a male colleague and are googling it with the other hand to confirm their vague recollection that it's not that there isn't one, it's just that nobody organised a brunch and a speaker for it.
It's coming along, though, and there are events planned for Thursday, a day on which we are encouraged to reflect on the broad patterns of male experience that are visible from space: higher suicide rates, shorter life span, higher likelihood of violent death, lower performance at all levels of education.