Men's Organizations, Resources and Issues in Canada

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

This directory, a companion volume to Cheriton’s Child Support,
Divorce, Custody, Access and Government Policies, could be useful if the
reader ignores Cheriton’s antifeminist rhetoric. Fortunately, the
rhetoric, which appears throughout the text, is conveniently shaded and
sometimes almost blotted over by poor page design, which makes it fairly
easy to skip. The book comprises 43 short chapters. Each chapter focuses
on a different subject (e.g., addiction, adoption, circumcision,
convicts, dads at home, disability, divorce, employment equity, false
accusations, false convictions, gay, gender, government, grandparent,
health, homeless, human rights, husband abuse, immigration and
development, legal, mythopoetic, Native, prostrate, self-help,
seniors/elders, service clubs, spiritual, sports, suicide, veterans, and
women’s organizations) and most list male-oriented community
organizations by postal and e-mail addresses (including telephone and
fax numbers) that serve these areas.

The downside of this work is the author’s tendency to list
organizations that might be of interest to men like him. The spiritual
section, for example, contains only Christian and pseudo-Christian
fellowships even though Canada has sizable Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and
Hindu communities. In the women’s organizations section, there are
only seven addresses— five are for Catholic Women’s League chapters,
one is for REAL Women of Canada, and one is for Canadian Second Partner
for Action. Cheriton also fails to describe what most of the
organizations do or who is behind them. The result is a haphazard
collection of lists compiled with an obvious agenda in mind.