The Rights Of Man

CHANCE TO QUESTION THE COMMISSION FOR EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS ON MENS ISSUES

In October 2007, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (link) will be launched and it will subsume organisations like the Equal Opportunities Commission.

2007 is the European Year for Equal Opportunity for All and the CEHR are organising  regional roadshows which are open to the public (link) though if you work it will be difficult to get to them as none are at a weekend (you can't expect civil servants to work at the weekend surely!).

The roadshows will be at:-

6 June    London - Oval Cricket Ground
12 June  Birmingham - NEC
21 June  Leeds - Leeds Park Plaza
26 June  Cambridge - University Arms Hotel
28 June  Gateshead - Gateshead Hilton
3 July     Bristol - Bristol Marriott
5 July     Reading - Crowne Plaza
12 July   Blackburn - Blackburn Football Club
17 July   Leicester - Leicester City Football Club

This is a real opportunity to ask questions on why issues affecting men are so routinely ignored especially by the EOC and ask what the new Commission are going to do about them.

A list of some issues can be found here (link)

PHILIP DAVIES MP : EQUAL OPPORTUNITES COMMISSION'S UNEQUAL PAY

Philip Davies MP (Shipley : Conservative) asked the Minister for Women how many men worked at the EOC and what the average pay was (link).

There are 30 men working at the EOC and from previous information they only make up 20% of its workforce. So much for equality and shows why so many male issues, like the underachievement of boys, are ignored by the EOC.

The figures on pay showed that

Average Male salary	26,962
Average Female salary	25,128
Average for All Staff	25,463

The story was covered here (link).

On the face of it, it does show hypocrisy especially as the EOC constantly campaigns on the gender pay gap which is one of the most abused and manipulated statistics used by the politically correct (just because women get paid less than men does not prove discrimination because it depends on the job, overtime, job experience, skill and the company they work for).

However, I fear this is a Pyrrhic victory and to neutralise this embarrassment, the men at the EOC will probably see their female colleagues receive larger pay rises solely because of their gender.

In addition, by making a story out of it, means that the mythically discriminatory gender pay gap has more substance than it deserves.

BIASED BBC REPORT ON STALKING : NO MENTION OF MALE VICTIMS

The BBC has had many critics down the years accusing it of institutional bias. Normally these accusations have come from people who are supporters of conservatism (not necessarily the Conservative Party) who believe the BBC are full of the soft left/liberal wing of the country's elite. There is a blog on it (link) and even a book by Robert Aitken entitled Can We Trust the BBC? (link)

Charles Moore explained this well in The Telegraph in 2003 (link)  "The BBC's mental assumptions are those of the fairly soft Left. They are that American power is a bad thing, whereas the UN is good, that the Palestinians are in the right and Israel isn't, that the war in Iraq was wrong, that the European Union is a good thing and that people who criticise it are "xenophobic."

Bearing this ideology in mind, the soft left are exponents of the politically correct scourge coursing through the veins of the UK especially the state. This means men = bad : women = good rather than treating people as equal individuals. It is why there has been a call for a Minister for Men (when there is a Minister for Women) to help raise issues which are purposely ignored by the state. This includes male domestic violence victims or other intimate crimes.

A feature run by the BBC in January 2007, shows this bias clearly. The feature concentrated on a report produced by the Home Office based on the 2006/07 British Crime Survey (link). The report's chapter (see page 54) showed that during 2005/06, 9% of women and 7% of men were victims of stalking.

The lengthy report (link) headlined "Living In The Fear of Stalkers" published on 26th January 2007 states that "According to the latest British Crime Survey, one in 10 women in Britain now say they have been stalked in the past year."

What makes the report biased and symptomatic of this men=bad : women = good attitude pervading the soft left is the fact that no mention in the report is made of the 7% of men who feel they have been stalked.

To make matters worse, a week earlier an infamous case came to court where a male psychiatrist had been stalked and had led to a conviction of the female stalker. This was covered fully by the media including the BBC (link). However, again, no mention was made in this feature of this case, it only concentrated on female victims.

If this report was not biased then there would either have been a feature on male victims or better still a report on stalking that discussed both male and female victims, thereby treating the issue of stalking as a social problem not that only females are victims.

In keeping with the editorial policy of this site, this is not saying that more stalking victims are men when the statistics show women are slightly more likely to be victims. The issue is that the debate about stalking, just as in domestic violence, is so one-sided that only women can be victims. Reports like this from the BBC entrench the views of the politically correct soft left of which the BBC are a crusading force.

DARLINGTON SCHOOL FINDS WAY OF IMPROVING BOYS EDUCATION

A report in the Sunday Telegraph on 7th May showed how Hurworth School in Darlington had improved boys education by setting tough targets and adding a competitive aspect to learning.

As quoted in the report :- 

Assertive mentoring, where pupils are made to focus in monthly meetings on the marks they should be getting and the practical means of achieving them, is banishing the anti-learning culture that has developed in some schools, particularly among boys.

The approach, pioneered at Hurworth School in Darlington, which has seen its five A* to C GCSE score soar from 38 per cent in 1998 to 92 per cent in 2006 is being adopted by other secondaries. The gender gap in the school's results of 12 per cent has been eradicated.

It's quite clear that this school is cutting edge in dealing with the issue (link) of raising the results of boys who are seven years behind girls when it comes to GCSE results.

As posted on this site before (link), the feminisation of the education system over the past 20 years  generations has let down two generations of boys. Only now, is the education establishment thinking about this problem but much more is needed including structural changes such as more sport, more personalised reading books (history, action, sci-fi) and re-introducing O-Levels for those that wish to take them.

MIXED-SEX WARDS : SCANDAL CONTINUES

Despite over 80 tax rises, an increase in NHS spending from £44 billion to £76 billion p.a. since 2000 and being promised that voting Labour would save the NHS, the key issue of ending the indignity of mixed-sex wards still continues.

The Guardian newspaper (link) summed it up on 10th May this week when a report conculded that 28 trusts still had not solved the problem:-

The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, admitted yesterday that thousands of NHS patients were being caused "great distress" by the government's failure to honour its 1997 manifesto commitment to eliminate mixed-sex wards in England.

An investigation by the health service's chief nurse found more than 16% of NHS acute hospital trusts were still struggling to provide single-sex accommodation.

The finding - disclosed in a report yesterday from the Department of Health - appeared to contradict ministerial statements to parliament in January 2003 assuring MPs that 95% of trusts had met the target. Last year Ms Hewitt said 99% of trusts provided single-sex accommodation in general wards, including single-sex bathrooms and toilets. 28 trusts which are finding the target of eliminating mixed-sex accommodation "challenging".

Other coverage is here (link) and here (link).

This scandal affects both men and women equally and for this idignity to still be happening in the 21st century shows how awful the NHS management is. They treat people as numbers not as individuals.

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SUPPORT THE USA EQUAL PARENTING BIKE TREK

On August 11th 2007 Robert Pedersen and Rob Mackenzie from the USA will start a bicycle trek covering over 600 miles from Lansing, Michigan to Washington, D.C.. 

The two fathers are going to attempt this trip all in the name and support of shared parenting. They are doing this to protect a child's right to EQUAL time with BOTH fit parents.

For further information, please visit Daddyblogger.com at http://daddy.typepad.com/daddyblog/2007/04/robert_and_rob_.html

MINISTER FOR MEN : TWELVE KEY PRIORITIES

The Minister for Men petition (link) has 144 signatories so far and I would urge all visitors to this site to sign it. Ever since the Labour government were elected ten years ago, there has been a Minister for Women but nothing for men. Consequently, some issues have been seriously ignored. (Other articles on the issue are here)

What would the Minister's priorities be? Here is my manifesto and any other suggestions are gratefully received.

REGIONAL VARIATION IN PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT EXPOSED

The Daily Telegraph has recently run features in the week of 23rd April 2007 on the NHS (link).

One of the key parts of the campaign was to continue to highlight the NHS con trick where politicians state that the NHS is free for all and then deny people treatment simply because of where they live. This is made worse by the cuts many hospitals face in the infamous postcode lottery (link). It is one of the biggest con tricks perpetrated on the taxpayer and prostate cancer sufferers have been one of the worst groups affected as shown at (link) , (link) and (link).

The Telegraph highlighted the gap in treatment available in key areas and one of the areas they studied was on Prostate cancer. Their findings show that Cystoscopy (a test involving the use of a scope to examine the interior of a bladder), a crucial early warning system, is practically non-existent in Northern Ireland and also is lacking in areas such as the West and East Midlands.

Men and women should be able to get the same treatment wherever they live. Rightfully, there have been many campaigns for nationwide access for Herceptin, the breast cancer drug, and the same is needed for prostate cancer treatment especially as many men find they have a battle to get their hands on Taxotere, which costs less than half of Herceptin. This problems faced are clearly seen in the case of John Verrier Jones (link) (link), which highlighted the problems men face.

Prostate cancer sufferers are already seen as the forgotten cancer victims, this has to change and is why we need a Minister for Men (link) .

SIGN THE PETITION ON FAMILY EQUALITY

In addition to the petition calling for a Minister for Men (link), there is now a petition calling for equality on Family Law. The petition is submitted by Robert Lamb and it states:-

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Change the law to ensure it is the norm for there to be joint custody when parents divorce/separate.

At present the law favours women in terms of custody of children, taking it as the norm that children remain with the mother. I feel this breaches human rights and equal opportunity laws discriminating against the rights of children and men. In many European countries the norm is joint custody by law. If the UK law were reversed and men were the beneficiaries then I am certain womens' lobbists would decry this as sexual discrimination.

We are often told Fathers are equal parents when referrring to financial responsibilities but this is also the case in terms of emotional development for children. As such they deserve equal footing with mothers. Men and women are supposed to be treated with equality for employment, education and criminal law and women's rights are protected by UK, European and Interantional law as well as a host of campaigners. Should not family law then provide for the same equal treatment regardless of gender?

You can sign the petition here (link).