I’m all for girl power – but who’s f ighting for our boys?

LAST week began with a dinner at The Garrick Club and finished in AllBright, a young women’s networking club. The Garrick is the complete opposite of AllBright. Founded in 1831, it still – staggeringly – does not accept female members, and its rules state that the club should never be used for business, although we all know that some of the most important connections are made without a laptop or sheaf of papers on the table.

The Garrick epitomises the culture of the old boys’ network that has kept men at the top for centuries. Despite all the advances of recent years, many women are still fighting against lower pay and for a greater voice.

But for the vast majority of today’s younger generation of men, for whom that old-school-tie culture is as distant and irrelevant as the land of hope and glory, it must at times seem as if the playing field, rather than being levelled, is skewed in the opposite direction.

You only have to look at Instagram and millions of T- shirts to see the flood of female empowerment messaging and hashtags urging women t o feel proud, clever, strong and beautiful. I might be missing something, but I’m not spotting any of that coming from men.

And I don’t believe that’s because they all feel they are already proud, clever, strong and handsome. University entrance is now dominated by girls, with even the most traditional Oxford colleges showing a greater female UK intake last year.

The Booker Prize longlist of 13 features only four male writers, explained by the fact that apparently nobody is interested in reading their stories. Even the phrase ‘old master’ as a descriptor of artistic value i s under t hreat. Close t o my