Australia: Putting a blowtorch to ‘toxic masculinity’

Article here. Excerpt:

'With Australia’s catastrophic bushfires making headlines around the world, newspapers featured a photo of an iconic kangaroo illuminated by an apocalyptic scene of a burning house.

But worse than the hundreds of houses lost or the millions of hectares of land burnt are the fatalities. So far at least 19 people have died, with dozens missing. Amongst them were three young volunteer fire-fighters.

Geoffrey Keaton, a 32-year-old with one son, and Andrew O’Dwyer, a 36-year-old with one daughter, were killed when a tree fell in front of their truck, causing it to veer off the road and roll.

Samuel McPaul, a 28-year-old whose wife is expecting their first child in May, died when his truck was flipped by a fire tornado.

In fact, nearly all the fatalities have been men – firies like Keaton, O’Dwyer and McPaul – or men who stayed behind to defend their houses from the flames. Academic studies confirm that there is a distinct gender difference in bushfires. Over the past hundred years, 60 percent of fatalities in Australian bushfires have been men. Most of them died while attempting to protect homes; women and children died while sheltering in a house or attempting to flee.'