Celebrity News:

NO wonder men (well, some of them anyway) are suffering a crisis of confidence.

This week, B-grade celebrity Dannii Minogue reportedly said she was desperate to have a baby and would consider adopting one to satiate her desire for motherhood.

Depending on your view of babies as commodities, you might think that, so far, there's nothing wrong with that.

Lots of babies need adopting and there are lots of desperate parents-to-be hankering for the chance to fill a deeply felt maternal and paternal desire.

But, if the report has any truth to it, there's a sting in the tail. The fact that Minogue doesn't have a husband, fiance or even a casual boyfriend appears not to matter one bit.

Men, apparently, are redundant when it comes to parenthood, particularly in the world of celebrity, where adoption as a single mum is considered a fundamental human right. Forget the rights of a child to have a mother and father.

The reality TV judge also reportedly said "that all the best-looking men are gay'', presumably meaning that the only choice left for one of such pulchritude as herself is baby-to-order adoption.

The big problem for Minogue though is, it seems, finding the right balance between motherhood and career. At 36, she's a pragmatist and putting career first. And who can blame her, stellar as it is.

If men are feeling a little dejected, I don't blame them. Whoever invented the twisted notion that men were irrelevant to parenthood should try doing it for 24 hours on their own.

Babies are not accessories and men are not, and should not, be considered redundant by women when it comes to such an important - and privileged - role. When it comes to parenthood, fathers are vital.

The story for men also took another battering last week with the release by NSW Deputy Coroner Jacqui Milledge of some 550 recorded phone conversations between some of the "persons of interest'' in the shockingly sad death of Diane Brimble while on a P&O cruise several years ago.

As the men chatted about their situation they uttered grotesque and derogatory comments about women and showed a callous and ugly posthumous disregard for Ms Brimble's character and memory.

One even showed an abysmally low sense of self-worth when he uttered: "If it wasn't for, like, this media thing I probably wouldn't have the girlfriend I have now. I think she's attracted to the hype of it and me being famous''.

Ugh.


The comment reveals a warped thinking on the concept of manhood in contemporary society, celebrity and what it is that men think women want from them.

I'm pretty sure it's not men who speak about women in such a repulsive manner, nor is it a man with such a conflicted sense of himself that he thinks a perverted infamy is something to boast about.

In recent years men have been dished up several versions of themselves that they've been led to believe women want.

At the end of last century it was the straight-gay guy who was, supposedly, just gay enough (that is, liked foreign films, hair care products and designer jeans) to make women swoon. I dismissed it as a fad and the men as frauds.

The straight-gay was the precursor to the ill-fated metrosexual, whom I similarly dissed three years later and am now happy to report is almost extinct.

Both were men masquerading as half men, and few women are happy with half.

What I can say with absolute certainty is that women want many things but when it comes to the opposite sex what they mostly want now is what they've always wanted. And that is decent men who respect themselves and others, are able to change a lightbulb without too much fuss, use underarm deodorant, have what it takes to be a great dad when and if that time comes, and can handle themselves in polite conversation, good company and elsewhere.

Basically, real men.