Men are everywhere. We're the politicians, the church leaders, the business owners and the sports stars.

Pick up a paper and the media's full of us, we're the murderers, the rapists, the scandal makers and the crooks.

Tune into a random radio phone-in and you'll soon find out what we think about football or politics.

You'll see us in the cinema; we're the goodies and the baddies in almost every major film – the protectors and the perpetrators, the cowards and the clowns.

So why do we need an International Men's Day ? Are 364 days of patriarchal power and privilege not enough for us?

Well, we may always have a point of view about the world outside – and we may still occupy most of the senior positions in the outside world – but what's happening inside men?

Twelve of us men will kill ourselves today, in the UK alone, and for each man who dies there will probably be an external factor we can point to, such as a divorce, drug addiction, debt or unemployment.

But what's happening inside the dozens of men who die from suicide each week, when the internal pain of living another day becomes greater than the fear of killing yourself?

And what's happening inside the rest of us men, those of us who aren't suicidal but still face challenges in life: the overweight, the unemployed, the lonely and the sick? The fathers struggling to connect with their kids, the partners in unhappy or abusive relationships, the stressed-out workers with not enough life in their work-life balance and the low-paid and unemployed men who face the emasculating shame of being a man who can't provide?

On the surface men have it all – the jobs, the money, the cars, the clothes, the power, the authority and the free time to play golf, watch football and laugh at Jeremy Clarkson. On the outside men are always acting out – drinking to excess, harassing women in the streets, grooming kids for sex and keeping the police and prison service busy.

But what's happening inside men?

From the day we are born, we are fed a story that there are only two types of men in the world. Men are either heroes or villains, we're either strong or weak and there is no shade or colour between the black or white choice of being a good man or a bad man.

What's it like for men, living within these narrow confines, between a heroic rock and a villainous hard place?

Take the daily onslaught of social media campaigns repeatedly telling the world how awful men are to women. How is the average man expected to respond?

We have two choices – pick a box – hero or villain.

Either we step into the protector role, like a good little man and speak out against the bad men ruining the world for our womenfolk – or we're a villain.

Men's expected role in the gender war – as in every other war – is to choose a side; goodies or baddies. You either wear the "this is what a feminist looks like t-shirt" or you're a woman-hater; you either fight against the Germans or you're a traitor; you either support Emma Watson's #HeForShe campaign or you're a misogynist or a rape apologist.

What's it like for men to have such limited choices – and if men have all the power, why don't we just give ourselves more choice?

The challenge we face as men, is that these rigid masculine roles have been locked in place by a silent conspiracy between the socially conservative and progressively liberal.

The sexist rallying cry of traditionalists has long been "women and children first"; for the liberal feminists, their sexist motto is "women and girls first". Can you see who's missing from both of those slogans? It's the invisible gender in both his forms – the good man and bad man.

Who puts women and children first? It's the good man. Who do women and girls need protecting from? It's the bad man.

When William Hague was still Foreign Secretary, he made an official announcement that "all men" should feel shame about war crimes against women – and to fail to do so was "unmanly". That's right male citizens – you're either a good man feeling shame or bad "unmanly" man – pick a box.

So what's happening inside of the nation's men when we are repeatedly called upon to pick a box? Goodie or Baddie? Hero or Villain? Perpetrator or Protector?

The truth is, most of us are neither good nor bad. Most men are somewhere in the middle of the statistical bell curve that defines the male population.

Most men are not murderers, rapists, wife beaters or street harassers. Most men are not politicians, church leaders,