I’m home in Sydney for a few weeks, visiting family and enjoying the crisp early spring after a long, sweaty New York summer.

Last week I opened our local paper to find an article about a plan to build and open a men’s shed in my suburb. What is a men’s shed? you’re probably asking if you’re not one of our many Australian readers. (If you are one of our many Australian readers, you might be bored by my explanation of men’s sheds, so please go watch this video of a baby wombat while I break things down for all those Feministing folks not lucky enough to live in the Land of Plenty).

A men’s shed is a space where ...