The Rights Of Man

VICKIE PRYCE SUCEEDS IN PROMOTING MALE EQUALITY BY ENDING SEXIST MARITAL COERCION ACT

Does Justice Secretary Chris Grayling read this blog? He may do as he announced in The Sunday Times (behind a paywall but the Guardian cover it) that he will end the Marital Coercion Act on the basis of being 'out of tune with gender equality' and 'not in keeping with the modern world.' A point made in February.

It was always of the greatest hypocrisy that such a liberal and 'progressive' such as Vickie Pryce was to try and use a sexist law to try and get her off from going to jail. Inadvertently, by bringing this to everyone's attention and if Grayling pushes this through, she will have succeeed in progressing the cause of equality for men and boys.

As Groan pointed out in his comments on a previous piece (his and MaleMids32 have been added in the comments section so not to be lost - and thanks MaleMids for highlighting) what will the feminists say about this. More so, who will speak out against the change in Parliament or elsewhere when it goes through. Who will show themselves to be hypocrites and anti-equality?

Posted by Skimmington

 

From MaleMids32

Ha! Looks like pressure from J4mb might be having an effect already!

 Just today it was announced in the Sunday Times that Chris Grayling is planning all of a sudden to scrap the law of marital coercion, because it is 'out of tune with gender equality' and 'not in keeping
with the modern world.'

 Wow, since when have Tory politicians been concerned with striking off anti-male laws?

Is it not the case they know that if J4MB gets it act together, they will harness the 'UKIP' effect and knock out all those weak, Tory marginals up and down the country?

  Well they're gonna have to do more than that if they want to win back voters' trust before election time! :-D

 

From Groan

 Now here is a test. How will the radical feminists respond to an obviously discriminatory and paternalistic law being scrapped. Support for Chris Grayling?

As with the few other discriminatory laws that were mainly swept away in the seventies this is another example not of "patriarchy" but the now outdated impulse to protect the "weaker sex"

 My own mother widowed young and with two sons to support fell foul of two such laws in the 1960s ;one with regard to mortgages and the other bank loans. Both had been put on the statute books to spare women the genuine horrors of Debtors Gaols by making husbands responsible for debts. This was in the mid sixties and these Victorian statutes were swept away in the seventies. Clearly these old statutes created problems for my mother( and indeed for husbands with profligate wives) but they were emphatically not some plan to subjugate women and actual barely lasted a century. What is more many such laws had their genesis and support from women's organisations of the time!!!

So good luck Mr. Grayling.

 

I wonder if this implies will spread to changing the legal definition of Rape. As in the USA where it is a crime men and women can commit. A bridge too far for this Parliament

MALE CIRCUMCISION BAN GATHERS PUBLIC SUPPORT BUT WHY WILL NO POLITICIAN SPEAK UP FOR EQUALITY?

When news emerged this week through the Jewish Chronicle that the majority of the public believe that banning circumcision is supported by the majority of Britons, it is clear there is now momentum on this issue - but a voice in Parliament is now needed. The poll showed:

• 38 per cent supported a ban,
• 35 per cent were against a ban, and,
• 25 per cent were undecided

I would expect that the 27 per cent was largely made up of people who had not thought about the issue or were unaware that it was an issue. According to the Jewish Chronicle Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation Beth Din, said: “It’s worrying and it shows we need to do a lot more public relations to put our case." A public relations campaign would be fantastic because the figure in favour of a ban would increase greatly so we look forward to Dayan Yisroel's campaign.

An issue (covered here, here and here) led by the excellent Norm UK and sister campaign.

As a further post by Glen Poole's Helping men website revealed that this issue is more popular than any political party.

One of the key themes now, is whether any politician will speak out against it. We know Ed Miliband will not as he agrees with it.

We know no leader of a party will, but considering there are 650 MP's, we can hope one will. Looking at the political landscape it is an issue that the secular Liberal Democrats are more likely to speak out as they are not beholden to the religious or politically correct lobby that Labour are (Female Genital Mutilation is awful but for men it is OK) plus Labour has always had support from the Muslim and Jewish communities and they will not want to lose that.

It is also interesting that the Conservatives dare not speak about it. While not getting into the debate about gay marriage, but the Conservatives are happy to take on Church of England/Catholic Christianity on the issue of gay marriage but are scared of the Muslim/Jewish communities when it comes to butchering young boys in the name of religion. Why are the Conservatives so scared or are they as politically correct as Labour?

The National Secular Socity is clear on the hypocrisy of British politicians and the General Medical Council on this issue

"In an article released last week by Frisch et al in the American journal Pediatrics stated that 'circumcision fails to meet the commonly accepted criteria for the justification of preventive medical procedures in children', that it 'constitutes a violation of the UN convention on the rights of the child' and can have 'serious long-term consequences'. The 38 authors from 18 countries included senior representatives of the German Pediatric Association, the Royal Dutch Medical Association and the British Association of Paediatric surgeons amongst others.

"It is unlawful under the Equalities Act 2010 to discriminate unfairly on the grounds of gender. The SMF calls on the GMC to amend this new policy on forced infant and child genital cutting which adversely discriminates against male children. The main body of GMC guidance places the healthcare needs, dignity and integrity of the patient as of primary concern. The tenets of a religious belief held by somebody other than the patient can never be sufficient reason to justify the forced removal of intimate parts of a patient's body."

It is untenable on the basis of equality that there is rightly an act against female genital mutilation and pressure groups and the Guardian campaign against it but there is no problem with male genital mutilation in the eyes of the politicians, government and media. Their tacit acceptance (doing nothing) and explicit acceptance (Ed Miliband) is a real sign of the anti-male and anti-equality culture we live in when it comes to men and boys.

So, when will a politicians in the UK - a Member of Parliament- speak up for equality - and call for a ban on male circumcision. As the polls show the public wold support them or are they too scared of the religious lobby (Jews and Muslims) and are not interested in equality if it means equality for men and boys.

Posted by Skimmington

AUDIO AND VIDEO ROUND UP

Here are a few audio and video clips from this week

Mike Buchanan on Women's Hour with the ghastly misandric John Farrell and Jenni Murray - both sniggering from behind their hands (you can hear it)

Tom Martin and Ally Fogg in a video produced by students.

 

 

KEEP CALM AND KEEP ON THROWING ROCKS AT BOYS? by TOM MARTIN

Action Alert

Two weeks ago, mainstream news and social media sites joined forces, convincing Amazon
to remove adverts for T-shirts with wording such as 'Keep calm and rape a lot' and  'Keep calm and hit her'.

The sexist slogans were a result of a computer programme generating thousands of random phrases,
the manufacturer claims. What cannot be written off as an accident, are the eight ads
still on Amazon for “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them” gear, 13 ads for a man-shaped knife block, two ads for an “ex-boyfriend punch bag”, and dozens more ads for T-shirts calling men “pigs”, “dogs”, “idiots”, and “animals”.

You may think comedy items targeting males or females are just a bit of harmless fun, but according to 2008 research by Professor Thomas Ford et al, of Western Carolina University, sexism is
spread by the use of sexist humour in particular.

Jokes about women's violence towards men get easy laughs even though violence by women is on the increase. In one survey, 60% of female university students thought it acceptable for wives to hit their
husbands. The marketing and media authorities should be setting a better example by cracking down on depictions of violent humour against men, as with women – but it is up to men's rights activists to put pressure on the relevant authorities to make them change.

 I contacted Amazon over a week ago ago by phone, and the call centre worker said she had escalated the complaint to management who will investigate the anti-male products on sale. Men's rights activist Glenn Sacks launched a high profile partially successful campaign 10 years ago to get the “Boys are stupid” range banned, so it is time to finish the job. It has taken a few days to get some violently misogynistic T-shirt ads removed, but 10 years and counting to get some well known violently misandric merchandise banned. You can contact Amazon here.

Tom Martin is a men's rights activist and film maker. Email, sexismbusters@hotmail.com -
twitter: @sexismbusters - youtube: sexismbusters

 

NEWS UPDATE

Sorry everyone for letting things slip the past three weeks- its been hellish at work. Hopefully things are better now. Anyhow, here are some latest news and thanks to those who have supplied them:

Mike Buchanan: Compendium of recent media interviews and his article on Politics.co.uk - Some of the opposition to Mike's comments show the sexism that in endemic against men.

BBC News (Kent): Rochester nightclub's cleavage stunt condemned - Free entry for women to the nightclub again even if somewhat unsavoury

BBC News: Male identity crisis not due to feminism (Diane Abbott MP)

BBC News: Boys suffer poor body image say teachers (Katherine Sellgren)

BBC News: Helen Grant Minister to overhaul community sentencing to make them more female friendly - More inistitutional bias, can you imagine the government looking at more male-friendly sentencing? Fuller interview in Independent and you can see this in action for Vicky Pryce.

A Voice for Men: Spanish Feminist Establishment is shaking

Daily Telegraph: UCAS men are becoming the disadvantaged group (Tim Ross)

Guardian: False allegations are few and far between (Kier Starmer) - Pure mischievous bias from the laughable misandric Directory of Public Prosecutions. Full press release here. 

Daily Mail - Women lose out in pension revolution  - As Groan says "Typical; reporting by the DM. Leads off with 'poor women' headline yet the actual story is rather different as the women concerned will still be able to claim their pension earlier than men in this age cohort. A fact never explained by the DM. Of course they will also, on average, enjoy a longer life."

Huffington Post : Female Tory MP's tell Cameron to appoint more women 

Daily Mail - Butler Sloss apogises to F4J

 For other good sources of news - please add Helping Men and Fighting Feminism to your favourites amongst others.

Posted by Skimmington 

O2 AND SYMANTEC DEFAME AND CENSOR MORE MEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS SITES BY THE DAY

O2 AND SYMANTEC  DEFAMING AND CENSORING MORE MEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS SITES
BY THE DAY

Once again I've been busy monitoring what O2 and Symantec have been getting up to with regard to their censorship of human rights sites, and rather than fixing the problem things are getting worse!

Last month an article at The Register featured extensive quotes from members of the excellent UK blog MRA London regarding the censorship and hate site issue and condemning the actions of the companies responsible. The article correctly pointed out that MRA London wasn't even a victim of the censorship and they were simply concerned for their friends at avoiceformen and the wider men's movement.

Well it may well be a coincidence, or perhaps it's payback, but what we know for sure is that MRALondon have now been blocked as a "hate site" too. The MRA London team includes people such as Erin Pizzey, so Symantec are O2 and Symantec are branding as "hateful" people such as the UK's most important figure in gaining recognition and support domestic violence victims. How "hateful" it was of her to set up the world's first domestic violence shelter and support so many victims of abuse.

I've also investigated some lesser known sites  and even older sites that are no longer with us to give complete picture of the situation. This demonstrates not the the sheer scale of this problem, but also just how long it has been going on for. That now makes 87 domains censored at some point, with the current total standing at 84. See my prevous article for examples of O2/Symantec's most sickening cases of censorship.


Here's all the new entires for the roll of honour, again many congratulations to all those on it:

http://anirishmanagainstfeminism.blogspot.com
http://antifeminism.mathews.me.uk/
http://battlinbog.blog-city.com/
http://beatdeaddaddy.freewebtools.com/
http://callumphoenixrising.blogspot.com/
http://www.cooltools4men.com/
http://dhdiary.blogspot.com
http://www.dontmakehermad.com/
http://framedfathers.blogspot.com
http://www.genderwar.org/
http://www.hatemalepost.blogspot.com
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/verismo/
http://league-of-anti.blogspot.com
http://www.mens-network.org
http://mensaction.net
http://mens-links.net
http://mensrightsblogs.com
http://misformalevolent.blogspot.com
http://www.mralondon.org
http://siberianow.wordpress.com
http://sxmodels.blogspot.com
http://truthformen.wordpress.com
http://verlch.blogspot.com

by John Kimble

NOW OFFICIAL - O2 AND SYMANTEC BELIEVE HELPING MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEX ABUSE IS HATEFUL

By now most people are aware of the issue of men's rights website being wrongly blocked by Symantec and various mobile phone companies due to them somehow being flagged as "hate sites". I've done further investigations and can exclusively reveal the official response from these companies on this matter. There tends to be a bit of confusion about this issue and so firstly I'll attempt to explain what's going on and tackle some misconceptions.

Which sites are blocked?
I initially identified 48 sites blocked by Symantec/O2 and flagged as "hate sites". The list then grew to 58 as even more were identified. It's fair to say that a majority of key sites critical of feminism and supportive of men's rights are blocked. You can see the full list here.

What exactly does this mean for the sites concerned?
The "hate site" classification means a number of users are denied any access, particularly people accessing the internet in some restaurants, workplaces and via mobile phone networks such as Telefonica/O2. In total Symantec claims 250 million users of the filter worldwide, so it could easily mean a 10% reduction in traffic for mens' rights sites.

How long has this being going on?
It is uncertain as to exactly how long this has been an issue. I became aware of the problem in May 2012 though it appears to have been going on in some cases for at least two years. It must have been happening for a considerable length of time as some of the blocked sites no longer exist.

Hold on, I thought avoiceformen.com had been unblocked and Symantec had backed down?
Sadly this is not the case and such a suggestion is based on a false report in the media. Avoiceformen.com was never unblocked at any stage.

I find this all a bit hard to believe, how can I check a site's classification for myself?
There are currently two ways to check whether or not a site has been branded as a "hate site". Users have previously checked a site's status by enabling Norton's DNS service, but a much easier method is O2's url checker.


Other mens' rights activists and even member of the media have had difficulty getting any sort of meaningful response from Symantec so I've taken a different approach and been in touch with O2/Telefonica management. I asked them to classify the blocked websites more appropriately and to stop censoring such content.  Eventually I was put in contact with O2's head of complaints, Antony Gibson, and he confirmed that O2 use the same filter service from Symantec, called Rulespace, thus explaining why the two block lists of the two companies are identical.

Mr Gibson liaised with Symantec and informed me they had reviewed the list and decided to reclassify just 2 out of the 47 sites I presented them with. This therefore means the "hate" classification/block officially stands for the bulk of this content (including avoiceformen.com) and is no accident. Mr Gibson explained that O2/Symantec regarded the sites to be at the "low end" of the spectrum in terms of hate and further explained that they were blocked and classed as "hate sites" due to reasons such as showing "aggression" and/or use of the term "anti-feminism"!

Mr Gibson did express some concern about people seeing men's rights sites listed as hate sites and smeared in this way, but O2's solution to our concerns is that they will disable their url checker so no one can see the reason why a site has been blocked. In other words O2 is fairly happy for the issue of human rights for men to be classed as hateful, their only concern is people finding out that they're taking this stance. So, now we have no just a case of censorship and defamation, but a cover up too!

To compound matters yet further, many of these sites classified as hateful really are incredibly innocuous and deal with very important issues, many don't even use the term "anti-feminist" either nor contain "aggression". Such a term is so vague and ambiguous as to be completely meaningless, and proves absolutely how the filter is arbitrary and a nonsense and completely open to abuse. More importantly, if O2/Symantec have an issue with the term "anti-feminist", then they are quite blatantly taking an extreme political stance in favour of an ideology. Afterall, there's barely any more "aggressive" way of supporting feminist doctrine than to censor and defame anyone who dares critique or correct it.

I think this issue really sums up how important the men's' movement is today, not to mention the scale of the challenge facing us. We see countless feminist activists all over the media campaigning against free speech and equality and seeking privileges for women such as subsidised  insurance premiums. Feminists make endless sexist comments telling men not to rape and even the host of the world's leading feminist radio programme openly laughs at male victims of domestic abuse. Whilst all this has been going on, and despite spending countless hours on the matter,  I've failed with a simple request for companies to stop denying help to male victims of rape and domestic violence. In fact I can't even get these sick companies to remove their "hate site" smear from their classification of these vitally important resources. Perhaps I haven't yet been "aggressive" enough?

Here's a selection of sites O2/Symantec's insist on keeping in their "hate site" category:

http://dvmen.org  - A site in Colorado helping male victims of domestic violence.
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com - A blog highlighting the plight of male victims of rape and abuse.
http://www.ncfm.org  -Website of the longest running men's human rights organisation in the US (founded in 1977).
http://www.fathersforlife.org  - A site seeking for fathers to have a greater role in their children's lives.
http://www.debunker.com/patriarchy.html  - A webpage scientifically debunking the most common feminist myths.
http://disenfranchisedfather.blogspot.co.uk - blog by a fahter who doesnt' get to see his son.


For those who are curious, apparently the only two non-"hateful" men's sites out of the 47 are:
Hisside.com and dadi.org and both are now unblocked.

Update:

O2 have been in touch and would like me to point out that O2 customers who are over 18 can remove the restriction and view any web site they want to by going through their age verificaiton process which can be found here. Customers without a credit card can visit an O2 store with photo ID such as a passport or driving licence.

by John Kimble

The following may or may not be the email addresses of the O2 board members:

Matthew.Kay@o2.com, Pilar.López@o2.com, Ronan.Dunne@o2.com, Trevor.Healy@o2.com, Kate Jarvis@o2.com, Simon.Linares@o2.com, Richard.Poston@o2.com, René.Schuster@o2.com, Stephen.Shurrock@o2.com, David.Arculus@o2.com, Peter.Erskine@o2.com, Cath.Keers@o2.com, Eduardo.Zaplana@o2.com

THE CENSORSHIP AND DEFAMATION OF 10 MORE MEN'S RIGHTS SITES EXPOSED

Previosuly, I promised to keep readers fully up to date on all matters relating to the censorship of men's rights sites by mobile phone companies and Symantec. I'll be bringing readers some big updates on this story in the next few days and in the meantime I can reveal ten more sites wrongly censored and smeared as "hate sites". The total number of sites on the roll of honour therefore now stands at 58.

 

The new sites discovered are:

http://contrafragmentos.blogspot.com

http://countersnippets.blogspot.com

http://www.gabnet.com/lit/demoh10.htm

http://lndavout.blogspot.com

http://www.lbduk.org/ (currently not working)

http://www.mamonaku187.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.menshour.com/ (currently not working, unrelated to the BBC radio show)

http://men.typepad.com/

http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/

http://www.ukmm.org.uk/(again not working but made the news quite a bit in its time)

 

by John Kimble

NEWS UPDATES

There has been a few recently and a few sent over:

Some new UK sites:

   Justice for Men and Boys (political party)

    Helping Men (Glen Poole)

   Cornwall Community News (some strong articles on here)

 

A Voice for Men: Interview with London MRA (25 minutes 45 seconds in)

South Wales Argus: Man found not guilty

Cambridgeshire Police: Domestic abuse against men podcast (a first perhaps)

Daily Mail: Men should be afforded anonymity in rape appeals says High County Judge and I agree (Peter Lloyd) and the original news item. John Cooper QC is happy for innocent men to be named though as is Lisa Longstaff of course. Men are collateral damage.

Miss Alisa Place: We can't fix domestic violence if we pretend 40% of victims are not there (Alisa Valdes)

BBC: Project highlights everday sexism against women

Daily Telegraph: Divorced fathers have a hard time (Jonathan Agnew)

Daily Telegraph: Council makes toilets gender neutral (Victoria Ward)

Daily Mail: Judge says conspiracy of silence in place about the value of fathers (Steve Doughty)

BBC Women's Hour: Jenni Murray laughs as wife admits cleaning toilet with ex-husband and toothbrush before he used it (19 min 30 secs in)

The Ignored Gender: Misandry and the Superbowl

Marie Claire: No Men allowed,the rise of the women-only club

Daily Mail: I should not have lied (Janine Yaqoob)

Evening Standard: Labour women-only shortlist (Joe Murphy)

MRA London: Site banned by Norton

The Guardian: On male privilege (Richard Seymour)

Posted by Skimmington 

NEW GOVERNMENT EQUALITIES OFFICE DIRECTOR TO CONTINUE TO IGNORE MEN

The Government Equalities Office (now transferred to the Culture Department), the taxpayer-funded civil service run organisation that believes that equality does not apply to men.

News reached TROM towers that they now have a new CEO, Rachel Clark. As you can see from the welcome message sent on, a new broom may be there but nothing will be changing - more sexism by ommission from the laughably named Government Equalities Office

Posted by Skimmington

Sent on behalf of Rachel Clark, Director

 Dear friends,

I am writing to officially introduce myself as the new Director of the Government Equalities Office. I took up the post from Jonathan Rees on Monday 4th February and would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Jonathan for the significant contribution he made to the Government's equalities agenda since starting at GEO five years ago and wish him the very best for the future. It is a tremendous honour to step into his shoes. Not only is this an area I am deeply passionate about, but I believe equality to be the cornerstone of society and central to the Government's efforts to rebuild and grow the economy.

I am delighted to be taking up this post at this exciting time for GEO as we drive forward the Government's new equality agenda, exemplified by introducing legislation to equalise the rights to marriage and to maximise the contributions of women to economic growth, through the Women's
Business Council and Think Act Report  initiative.

I look forward to hearing from you firsthand about the challenges and issues you face and progressing this important agenda.

Warmest wishes,

Rachel Clark