HERE follows one of those crashing generalisations that have made the great British press a shining example to world civilisation. There are four types of men. No more, no fewer. The first is gay, and has no interest whatever in the opposite sex. The second is gay, but treats the habits and tastes of the opposite sex as golden rules written in stone, with added lip gloss and long-lash mascara. The third is straight, but regards the little girlies as a gender to be placated, feared, bullied, patronised, or generally managed. The fourth is a man who likes women.

A quarter of a century ago, or thereabouts, Lou Reed devoted a song to the topic. Sexual ambiguity was not paying off as a career move for the singer. Uncle Lou, therefore, elected to come out in reverse, as it were, with a song entitled – but you guessed – I Like Women.

In one of his less-thrilling lyrics, he said he thought them “great”. Moreover, “a solace to the world” in something of – you just knew this rhyme was coming – “a terrible state”. Was this horribly patronising? Obviously. Somewhat ironic? Possibly.

I didn’t care. I thought it was about time, at that time, that someone should write as Reed wrote: women are smarter, better-looking, more hygienic, harder-working, and more reliable than any bunch of available beer guts. Yet to say so as a man implied that you were merely “secure in your identity”. Not a big help. Thanks a bunch, fellow simians.

Men get away with murder, actual or metaphorical. The world is theirs to command and control. They elevate or lower the glass ceiling according to their own career needs. Their behaviour towards 50% of the species is more or less abominable. Then, for such is their claimed right, they grumble.

Feminism. Political correctness. The arduous business of blokeishness. Laws that oblige them to keep their personal and financial promises. Poor bloody saps: anyone might think, reading the usual red-tops, that patriarchy and wife-beating had been abolished by the do-gooders.

I like women more than I like men: sorry chaps, can’t help it. The concept of a stag night, or a “boys’ night out”, I find bizarre. I tend to the view that the world would be a better place if we only let women get on with it. I grasp the horrific Thatcher anomaly. I understand that I retain certain age-specific prejudices towards power tools and altercations in the street on a Friday night. It remains the case that the prevalent male attitude towards the graceful gender does the world a disservice.

In Japan, last week, a few creepy chauvinists were yelling “Banzai!” just because their emperor’s consort had “produced” a healthy, perhaps bouncing, male heir. The suggestion appeared to be that one of the most sophisticated industrial societies on the planet would struggle through endless travails if it lacked a spoiled boy. I mean the kid no harm, but this does not sound like the modern world.

It did not sound like the modern world, equally, when the distressed Diana, Princess of Wales, produced her impeccably masculine heir and spare. By her own admission, the woman was not the brightest tiara in the box, but to treat her as a breeding unit, and to treat her capacity to breed as a constitutional issue, was grotesque. To put it no higher, British men did not emerge with distinction from that hysteria.

I was in Westminster Abbey for the Diana funeral: more fool me. It was strange on every level imaginable. The children, understandably, were in some bleak world of their own. Even nine years after the event, nevertheless, the memory of an institutional obsession lingers. The entire point of vain, foolish Diana, for the House of Windsor, was the production of young males, on behalf of a family and a husband who despised her. Long afterwards, amid all the daft conspiracy theories, I retain one belief: they never intended that she should become a queen. Her death was handy.

I could care less, obviously. The monarchic principle does not count among my favourites. It is striking, for all that, how casually women can still be acquired and discarded within the upper reaches of power in the Western world. Our own queen was never intended to ascend to the throne, but when push came to shove they were stuck with her. When push came to a second shove, HM, with all the innate empathy of her class, struggled to find a sisterly feeling for the wrecked corpse of her daughter-in-law. If that is not a failure of simple humanity, what is?

There is, in fact, a paradox of sexism: blaming men does not explain everything. One Japanese empress is no different from all the young Scottish women in ordinary maternity wards desperate, right now, for “a boy”, no matter what. But why? Have little girls ceased to count? Do they do less well at school? Do they show fewer signs of wit or will? Are they not, in fact, and by the usual educational measures, the superiors of their grubby little male counterparts? I believe the educationalists.

In the United States, the smart money these days says that Hillary Clinton is contemplating a run at the presidency. Those who claim to know say she is ferociously bright. They add, however, that she is burdened by two handicaps. First, her profile is defined by a spouse who would not recognise the truth if it took a bite from his rear. “Bubba” Bill lied grandly to a grand jury over his semi-sexual abuse of “that woman”. So why is Hillary still attached to the creep?

Secondly, and more important, the former First Lady – and how insulting is that appellation? – is a woman. America has never had one of those in the White House, with the big jet, the big car, and in charge of the big boys’ stuff. Check the US press and you will find people wondering, seriously and at length, over whether the continental republic is “ready” for a genitally alternative chief executive. Do they truly believe she could make things worse?

They mean, I think, that we men become uneasy when the bit of office skirt cannot be patted on the head (or otherwise), and decides to do some serious work. They mean, I suspect, that persons of my gender are uneasy at the thought of being found out.

When the day arrives at which Cherie Blair, or equivalent, refuses to be the on-call arm-candy for the usual superior male figure, progress may just have commenced. I am not holding my breath. Mrs Blair, like Mrs Clinton, is complicit.

I like women. I think (thank you, Lou) that they’re great. Truly. The next leader of the Labour Party will be portly and male, nevertheless. The next president of the United States will be one of the usual spoiled rich boys. The next emperor of Japan, the next British monarch, the next individual to win the Nobel Prize for Literature – compose your own list – will arrive with a certain grisly inevitability. Balls, and that other reproductive device, will be obligatory. I am not surprised, just a tiny bit depressed.

In my four arbitrary categories of common modern male traits, I failed to make one important distinction. I failed to say that those men, very possibly a majority, who regard “girlies as a gender to be placated, bullied, patronised, or generally managed” actually do not like the mothers of their children terribly much, or women, mothers and girlfriends included, in general. I find the very idea extraordinary, but I smell a truth. There are too many people of my gender who deserve this trouble.

Women have illuminated every undeserved chapter of my undeserved existence. Grandmother, mother, wife: each of these individuals has set the standards for any success I ever managed, and for any failure. I doubt that many men of my generation would think, or say, differently. Women bear us: parse the words as you prefer. If you truly work to keep such people in the kitchen or the hall, you insult yourself.

Still, men, eh? How bright are they? Beauty is female; intelligence is female; art is female. Rational toil was invented by women with a need to provide for children: what remains? Japan’s “need for a male heir” is both idiotic and hilarious. We need men, I suspect, who are prepared to be men. And to understand, seriously, what that means.