Father’s Day is nigh. But while we celebrate dads, their kind — male kind — is in trouble in contemporary American society.

Sure, much of males’ plight is their own doing. Many abdicate their family responsibilities. Many treat women poorly.

On the other hand, some of what besets our gender is a result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look at how society treats boys and men.

As a society we don’t take molestation of boys seriously enough. In many cases, especially in which the molester is a woman, it is brushed off as a harmless rite of passage. During my 27 years of university teaching, many male students and acquaintances have confided to me their childhood experiences of being sexually molested.

Rarely did they tell anyone, fearing they would not be believed. When they did, their elders didn’t take it very seriously, or they were blamed.

But almost all attention by victims’ advocates and the media is focused on female victims of sexual molestation and abuse.

Then there’s domestic violence, which is almost always treated as a problem for women only. Yet a 400-pound Waco woman recently was convicted of cutting her boyfriend’s throat while sitting on him.

Sentence? Probation.

A major type of domestic violence is teen boys being beaten up by their fathers. Male-on-male peer physical abuse and even sexual humiliation is common as a form of hazing in middle and high schools. Yet it’s rarely included in descriptions of family violence or sexual harassment by victims’ advocates.

Then there’s society’s lack of concern for men’s health and well being.

Recently Spry magazine, an insert in the Trib, announced a day dedicated to encouraging women to get annual physical checkups from their doctors. No special day exists for men.

Our government sponsors a center for women’s health but not one for men.

If women’s health was once neglected, that was a long time ago, and now the situation is reversed. Isn’t that the defination of discrimation?

I call on our local health and medical institutions to do more for men — perhaps dedicate a day or an event to men’s health.

I call on newspapers, magazines and TV news to give greater attention to men’s health.

I call on our justice officials and jurors to be blind to gender on sexual crimes and domestic violence. Whether the victim or perpetrator is male or female should not matter. The crime should bring the same time.

Roger Olson is a Baylor University religion professor.