The Rights Of Man

NATIONAL CONFERENCE REVIEWS WELCOME

If any readers are turning up tomorrow to the conference, reviews for the site would be very welcome.

Posted by Skimmington

MALE BREAST CANCER CAMPAIGN

Sorry for lack of posts recently.

Once of the key themes expecting to come out of tomorrow's National Conference for Men and Boys is the need for men and men's groups to better work together or form groups in their local area like the Men's Network has in Brighton.

Part of the reason for this is that we cannot rely on the government, councils, NHS, Equalities Commission etc to do anything to support men in today's Britain. They are content for men to become the Second Sex. This is why we need to do things for ourselves or to lobby groups to extend their services to include men as well.

Last week, a new campaign by healthtalkonline about men's breast cancer was important with 70 men dying a year from this. It at least starts to put it on the agenda when it is clearly being ignored. The videos will encourage men to come forward.

As Professor Kate Hunt of the council's social and public health sciences unit rightly said: "We need some blue in those pink bows to remind everyone men get breast cancer, too."

Posted by Skimmington

Other media coverage included - BBC Isle of Man

FAWCETT SOCIETY AND IT'S FUNDERS

Having yesterday looked at the ridiculous anti-male march that the Fawcett Society are undertaking, I thought I'd dig around a bit more.

Their 2008/09 annual accounts (could not find any more recent) make interesting reading.

Firstly, the society states it believes in equality between men and women and these are its founding principles (page 2) but nothing it does actually means that - it is about special treatment and extra rights for women.

Its charity commission entry is far different. It says:

FAWCETT IS THE UK'S LEADING CHAMPION OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS. OUR ROOTS ARE IN THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE VOTE AND TODAY OUR AUTHORITATIVE, RESPECTED AND VIBRANT CAMPAIGNS ENSURE THAT WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HIGH ON THE POLITICAL AGENDA. OUR CAMPAIGNS AIM TO: ELIMINATE DISCRIMINATION, VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT AGAINST WOMEN AND ENABLE WOMEN TO PLAY A FULL AND EQUAL PART IN DECISION MAKING, EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT.

 During the year it had 14 staff and only two were men - how gender neutral.

The most important issue is about where it gets its money from. Page 16 shows they received money from the Cadbury Trust, Lloyds TSB, Barclays and BT.

Page 17 reveals they also received £80,000 from the Electoral Commission (paid for by taxpayers - those heinous men going out to work), £64,000 from the Unison trade union and £17,000 from London Councils. It seems there is little central  government funding. It had £158,000 off of the Electoral Commission between 2007/08 and 2009/10 - for what?

They got £70,000 for their Sexism and the City campaign in 2009 from the City Parochial Fund.

There are no figures for 2009/10 but don't think that means they have no influence. According to coalition government records, since May 2010, they have met officially - Lynne Featherstone once, Theresa May thrice and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, once.

It would be great to get hold of the 2009/10 or 20110/11 annual accounts but the Fawcett society seem reluctant to publish them. Is that because they don't want to reveal, and the government does not want to reveal either, how much money they get off of the taxpayer to fund their anti-male campaigns.

Posted by Skimmington 

FAWCETT SOCIETY'S HYPOCRITICAL DAY OF ACTION: DON'T TURN BACK TIME - MYTHS AND LIES

Somehow the Fawcett Society find it useful to keep this blog on its email list and as ever it is very useful as they have told us they are running a day of action called "Don't turn back time".

This of course is not a day of action against obvious grievances (like the St Paul's crowd for example), it is a day of action to protect and enhance women's rights over men. A day of action for more special treatment.

It is worth looking at the lies and myths they are using for the basis of their day of action (comments in italics).

On average, women earn less, own less, and are more likely to work and retire in poverty than men.

It has never been proven that women get paid less than men for doing the same job and according to gender pay gap younger women earn more than younger men. Men may own more, but as most of the male owners are married and will have daughters then those women own as much of it as the male owner does. More retire in poverty than men - where's the proof and what's the definition of poverty?

The government’s approach to cutting the deficit will widen the gap between women and men:

- Female unemployment is rising as jobs are cut in public service

The latest unemployment figures (Table A3) show that 1.486m men and 1.047 women are unemployed (June to August 2011). A year ago, the respective figures were 1.424m and 992,000. It means the number of men unemployed has increased in a year by 62,000 and 55,000 for women.

More men have lost their job in a year than women and far more are still unemployed. Nailing the Fawcett Society lie.

In addition, the rate of job losses at the beginning of the recession for men when the private sector was hammered was far higher than for women. Something Harman was caught out on.

The benefits and services women rely on more are being slashed

There is no difference between the benefits men and women receive except that child benefit normally goes to the mother. As this is a benefit for the benefit of children, it benefits the family unit - that is, it for the father and the children as much as a women. Even if there is no father around - it still benefits his children! An examination is here.

- Women on low incomes are becoming poorer
- The pay gap looks set to widen
- Women’s access to vital support services is being undermined
- Increasing numbers of women are being forced to give up work as cuts to childcare support means their jobs no longer cover the family's care costs.

These have been lumped together because they are all hypothetical because the Fawcett Society offer no proof and they are based on what could happen. There is no proof on low incomes, the pay gaps issue is just an opinion and a red herring as are the other issues. WHERE IS THE PROOF?

If you compare the depth of the issues affecting men and the maturity of the Men's Network in dealing with them at the conference on 1st November, the cries of justification of the Fawcett Society are desperate and unfounded. They are not based on any facts, they are based on the cry for more special treatment.

One issue worth looking at in the next few weeks is to see how much media coverage there is of the first national conference for men and boys and the Fawcett society's march. If there is no coverage of the Men's Network conference but lots of the march then we all know how biased the media will be against issues affecting men and boys.

Posted by Skimmington

 

NEWS UPDATE

Here are a few recent articles:

 Irish Independent: Charity dismayed at banned ad (Fergus Black) A good example of how to use equality laws to fight the case for male equality. Further debate in Irish Examiner, Irish Herald and ASAI.

 BBC News Scotland: Rise in male victims of domestic abuse  - Excellent work from Abused Men in Scotland

 Daily Mail - Cameron demands more women to be in top jobs (Kirsty Walker)

 Daily Telegraph - Ed's pro women reshuffle gives Cameron a problem (John McTiernan). As with boardroom appointments, the positive discrimination for women in politics continues apace as it dominates the news agenda with Miliband's reshuffle and it dominates the Conservative Party's thinking. Talent is secondary to gender.

 BBC: Nearly half of allegations against teachers are malicious - Still waiting for the government legislation on this stopping teachers from being named unless guilty.

 Guardian -Women need quotas not canapes (Jane Martinson) - More dangerous antimale nonsense from Ms Martinson

 Guardian - Boardroom quotas for women? Good or Bad (Jill Treanor)

Posted by Skimmington

 

MEN'S MATTERS - OCTOBER

James Williams' October Men's Matters show is available on Express FM.

DELOITTE ADD TO CHORUS WANTING TO END MERITOCRACY IN BRITAIN'S BOARDROOMS

The 30% Club, the anti-male group who want preferential treatment for women to be placed on the boards of major companies, despite the fact that younger women earn more and therefore more will be on boards soon, were joined by Deloitte this week. An issue covered extensively before

They joined the carnival of anti-male groups desperate to get headlines for their company and the easy win is to go in for man-bashing. Their report said 20% of FTSE-100 companies had no women on their board, and many had not set equality target sdemanded by the government specifically designed to promote women over men to tick a box.

The key issue from Deloitte, the 30% club and those who fall behind this issue, is the fact that nowhere do they mention talent or give examples where more talented women have been denied a place on a board by less talented men - a clear case of discrimination. But that argument is never made, it is all about the statistics. And from companies like Deloitte and organisations like the 30% Club that is rather pathetic. Deloitte claim to provide a quality service, but their research is shallow and panders to the anti-male carnival.

Two trends are emerging from all of this:

Firstly, there is now clear impetus on this issue and men will face the double whammy of underachievement in getting into professions and being out-competed because their exam grades will be lower.

Secondly, years ago men were easy targets for man bashing adverts normally by trashy consumer brands and while this trend has continued unabated, it is now being joined by allegedly more 'respectable' organisations like Deloitte.

They don't use low grade advertising, they use shallow research to bash men like this report. And why do they do it? They need column inches so they are in the papers more than their commercial rivals (Ernst & Young, PwC etc) and an easy win for organisations is to go in for pro-women, anti-male research because it is so acceptable these days and the newspapers are more than happy to print it without question.

Posted by Skimmington

Media coverage - Independent graphic, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, BBC, Telegraph, Telegraph

 

CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE IGNORES BOY'S EDUCATION

Looking at what happened at the Conservative conference last week, I was looking to see if there was anything as remotely anti-male as the usual stuff we get at a labour conference and the expected diatribe at the Lib dem conference.

There was the usual guff about needing more women in power by discriminating against men through A-lists, gender quotas and otehr artificial selection criteria favoured by the Conservatives. Obviously with articles like this from Jenni Rusell, it just keeps the anti-male momentum going.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary and Minister for Women didn't even mention the latter brief ion her speech.

One speech worth reviewing was Michael Gove's, the education secretary. Considering how far boys are behind girls you would feel there would be a section in the speech dedicated to dealing with this issue. Switch the genders and you would expect it.

But there was absolutely nothing on the subject expect for a bit of father-bashing: . "That's why we should emphasise that the most important job that any man can have is being a father. And that your responsibility to your child is life long. If you were there at your child's conception, you should be there for the rest of their life."

Some of the policies on discipline, increasing rigour and less emphasis on continual assessment, will bring some balance back to boys,

So the Liberal Democrat conference went in for grotesque man bashing and wanting to join Labour and the Conservatives in not wanting men in Parliament, Labour just banned men altogether and the Conservatives just ignore their problems altogether.

Posted by Skimmington

NEWS UPDATE

A few to catch up on

Cycletta - Women-only cycle rides inclduing at Whipsnade Zoo

The Guardian - Labour must stand by side with women (Yvette Cooper)

The Guardian - Rolls Royce points to lack of female maths and science students (Jill Treanor)

The Guardian - Sheffield council agrees to backpay of thousands of women (Owen Bowcott)

Evening Standard - The one woman Dave needs to listen to (Sarah Sands)

Irish Times - Amen launch abuse campaign (Aoife Carr)

The Guardian - Is Iceland the best country for feminists (Kira Cochrane)

The Guardian  - Is it any wonder women's support for Cameron is dwindling (Jane Martinson) - Ms Martin does not seem to like women who do not share her "all men are bastards" worldview.

Posted by Skimmington

 

GENDER PAY GAP AND THE INDEPENDENT'S INTERNAL CONFLICT

Many of you rightly pointed out (see comments) to Monday's Independent front page  about the gender pay gap being in favour of women for people between 22 and 29 - a story we commented about at the end of last year.

There are as ever two areas to review - firstly the comments section (the Independent piece had 298 comments) which gives those who truly want equality for men and women a voice across the UK.

The second piece is really around the comments and this is where you see the institutional antipathy of men especially by those who 'claim' to believe in equality.

Exhibit 1: Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union

She said: "I am pleased that young females are now earning more but we still have a lot of work to do before we bridge the pay gap between men and women in higher education, especially at professorial level."

So Ms Hunt is happy females are earning more than men, but does not say that we should now look at why men are underperforming (we know why - fewer education grades) and do something about that.

This is where you really do see the antipathy about men - sit on hands.

Exhibit 2:The Independent's leader 

This is a classic example of the conflict between those who believe in equality for both genders and the fear they have of the backlash for saying so. The leader says the gap is both welcome and unwelcome. It cannot be both.

Why does it not just say it is unwelcome if they gap is to widen which it surmises (like this site has) rather than trying to couch it that it is welcome. There is clear tension in their thinking - their emotional brain has been brainwashed by the anti-male feminists (the gap is welcome) while their reason/logic part of the brain is, er, logical (which is why they say it unwelcome).

 Posted by Skimmington