THERESA MAY'S LEAKED LETTER SHOWS MEN STILL SECOND CLASS

There is always the hope that when a new Government comes in, things may change, the site certainly hoped so. However, we have already had the bringing forward of the state retirement age for men, then the backtracking on the rape anonymity issue and now we have been shown the true colours of Theresa May, the Minister for Women and Equalities.

The Guardian revealed today that Theresa May had written to the Chancellor George Osborne before he gave his Emergency Budget to warn him that it could break equality laws. How so?

Well, under the Gender Equality Duty, when policies are formed they must take into account the impact they have on the differing groups in society. However, accriodng to Theresa May, one group which makes up 49% of the population does not count, can you guess who?

In her letter she contends that because of cuts in public spending, there were real risks that women, the disabled, the elderly and those from an ethnic background would be disproportionately affected. Also she said that women are employed in public services and also use them more, they could be disproportionately affected.

Once again, what this shows is that the Government, whether blue/yellow or red not only does not count men as equals (not withstanding that some men obviously fall into these groups but certainly not white men/boys) but also do not even given an iota of thought to the wrongful generalisations they make.

(1) There is the assumption that all men and women should be just lumped into their politically correct defined tick boxes and that all those in the boxes are the same and have more advantages/disadvantages than those in the other box.

If a part of the public sector is cut and job losses ensue then it depends on where those cuts are (it could be a male dominated area as much as a female one - the police service and armed forces are undergoing large cuts but the NHS which is female dominated is ring-fenced!), plus it is about individuals not gender.

If a man loses a job it is of equal tragedy as a woman losing her job. May suggests not, she suggests that a women losing her job is more of a tragedy than a man losing his job.

May also makes the common but fatal assumption that men and women live in isolation. If a woman loses her job in the public sector, it will also affect any husband/boyfriends/son/father she has.

(2)  May says that because women use public services more, then cuts will affect them more. Baloney.

Firstly, I come back to the false assumption. If a woman uses health care for herself or takes her children to the doctors, is May saying that the man is not affected if his children/wife/parneter/sister are suffering from health cuts.

The same applies to education, cuts on schools means cuts in services for children and the last time I checked children had fathers as well as mothers. Plus, as boys are so far behind girls now educationally, any cuts will affect boys!

Also there will be plenty more examples as well.

(3) This is the most concerning.

What May is effectively doing in a Harmanesque way, is to pressurise Osborne to skew his Budget towards cutting services and jobs in male dominated parts of the public sector to 'even things up' if you like.

Essentially if you cut services or jobs in a female dominated area, then you need to do the same in a male dominated area (of course she again makes the false assumption that if a man loses his job it does not affect any woman that he shares his life with).

This is pure tokenism and special pleading and once again men are at the bottom of the heap. They are not an equality group, they are to be treated as second class victims of the cuts in jobs and public services. Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.

Posted by Skimmington

Comments

[paul parmenter]

These women are the most appalling hypocrites, are they not?

If more women than men are employed in the public sector, and more women than men use public services, does that not prove that the public sector is ALREADY discriminating unfairly against men? If you already have the lion's share of the goodies, it is inevitable that when the goodies are cut back, you will lose proportionately more.

But so you should. That is a move TOWARDS fairness and equality, not away from it.

Theresa May's illogical argument could be applied in many other areas. How about looking at it in the context of that perennial favourite of the feminists, men having the vote but women not having it? In that situation, if anyone proposed women should have the vote, the men could simply claim that it would discriminate against them because their rights would be watered down and diminished (because their votes would be proportionately worth less) whereas women's rights would be increased. So no votes for women - it would be unfair on men.

Does May agree with that logic? She ought to. It is exactly the argument she is putting forward. Except of course it is completely different when men stand to gain, isn't it?

The fact is that the public sector has been a gigantic job creation scheme for women for many years. And it has displayed a crushing bias towards females and other priority groups, paid for predominantly by men. Women have thus cemented themselves into positions of advantage and privilege; but now that the country can no longer sustain the staggering costs inherent in this bloated and wasteful sector full of unproductive parasites, and have to start some much-needed pruning, the privileged groups are screaming blue murder.

It's a nauseating sight. As a taxpayer who does not and often cannot use the inefficient and often quite useless so-called "services" offered up by this female-dominated menagerie, but for which I am forced to pay, I strongly resent being told that I should continue to work my nuts off so that endless groups of females can spend their time sitting on their useless backsides yakking their stupid heads off and occasionally shuffling worthless bits of paper back and forth between them.

I not only want them to stop burning my money, I want a refund. A big one. They can start by dismantling the Ministry for Women and Equalities.

[Bob]

Very good point Paul, if the gender ballance is skewed towards women in the public sector then they should the a proportionate 'hit' of job losses anyway and hope no one decides to correct this gender inequality!

Its a pity there was no Minister for Men and Equalities to write his own preemptive letter to get the law tilted towards his beliefs. Its is disgusting that she did this.

It is absolutely incredible that we have got to the stage where there is such a double standard. Worst of all it seems to be accepted by the public at large.

If Ms May says women will be affected because there are more women in public services perhaps Mr Osborne should bring in a positive discrimination law to redress the ballance so men can be equally affected.

Surely as Minister for Women and EQUALITIES she would applaud such a measure.

[John Kimble]

A well written piece as usual. I was basically going to add the same stuff as Paul but he's saved me the trouble.

I think the best way to illustrate the point would be domestic violence spending. Of course any cuts are going to hit women more than men as each female victim gets 2,500 times more money spent on them than their male counterparts.

[Groan]

Deeply dissapointed in May. First off the gender equality duty should not be just about women. If only there was a body making the point that men benefit less from public services than women, same for cash benefits. What is obvious but not said is that men contribute in tax far more than wo
men. Of course all this goes to show what a cul de sac identity politics is,
men women and children all face our problems and all lose if we don't pull together. Shame on May for peddling this stuff.

[amfortas]

"....Essentially if you cut services or jobs in a female dominated area, then you need to do the same in a male dominated area ...."

Yep. So let's make a start with most Gumnut departments that are female-dominated and balance with all the road-building and repairs; the garbage collection; the sewerage maintenance; the water and electrical reticulation systems. When society starts to break down and the toilets overflow to match the rubbish bins, the Guvmunt can say that they are simply responding to woman's demands.

Crikey, we might have a lower demand on the NHS from the reduction in accidents at work.