2010 - ANOTHER BAD YEAR AND ANOTHER BAD GOVERNMENT FOR BRITISH MEN

When the coalition government came together (also with lots of new MP's) there was some hope that the prospects for equality for men would improve after 13 years of a proudly anti-male Labour government with Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, proudly proclaiming her anti-male credentials.

When the coalition government came to power, there were a number of positive things it outlined. Family law reform (still pending), anonymity for rape defendants unless found guilty and a commitment not to implement the controversial 'positive' discrimination sections of the Equality Act specifically designed to undermine the employment chances of men. Plus there was a general feeling that there would no longer be the harsh anti-male tone of the previous Government.

There were still troubling issues such as the fact that there was again a Minister for Women but no Minister for Men (how can a government state it believes in equality and have a Minister for one gender and not for the other, if it has to them at all). It also talked about equality in the boardroom (now going ahead), continuing with pension age discrimination and also nothing on men's health or education.

So what has happened, well its worse than we feared:

(1) The government performed a heinous u-turn on anonymity for rape defendants.

(2) The controversial section (section 159) of the Equality Act was implemented (on the link see latest news on 2nd December 2010) and hidden in the small print on its announcement on its Equality Strategy (see 8 below). This pernicious part of the Act was substantially covered on this site (1 and 2 ) and the u-tunr was covered in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Metro, Daily Telegraph 2, Daily Telegraph 3

(3) Still no Minister for Men

(4) The government adopted the End Violence against Women & Girls strategy which has meant that male victims of rape and domestic abuse do not feature in government, police or local authority plans in tackling rape or domestic abuse. The outcome can be seen by the way the government handled its trials on 'stop' orders which were framed at female victims (thereby setting the tone for the way the police will handle the issue) or its Christmas campaign. For an example of how it percolates through the system, see a response the ManKind Initiative recently received from the Equalities Commission.

(5) Its continuing and deliberate misinterpretation of the gender pay gap, even though we now know younger women earn more than younger men. Plus resurrecting the issue that there are not enough women in the boardroom (1 and 2) and stating it has an aspiration to ensure 50% of appointees to public bodies are female.

Lord Mervyn Davies who is leading the taskforce looking at the female make up of boardroom has already declared "let's put women first for 2011". I kid you not. With this and the Equality Act, men are being shut out, make no mistake. Academies for female executives, board internships and now the 30% club.

Equality should mean the best people, now basing people on their gender but that is now what is happening and in many circumstances men (and of course that means their wife/partner or daughter as well) will lose out because good men will be held back to allow a woman with less skill to take their place. How can this be equality, gender is irrelevant.

Can Lord Mervyn Davies hand on heart say that a black boy from a run-down council estate attending a sink school has more chance of being on a board of a FTSE-100 company that a white girl living in Knightsbridge and going to a private school. Davies thinks so. 

(6) No action on boy's education, men's health (Prostate Cancer society article shows why) or suicide (80% of young people committing suicide are men).

(7) No one in Parliament (including the 232 new MP's - 35% of the total) and certainly no one in the Government is standing up for men and men's issues. It means the anti-male feminists in all parties are again riding roughshod over the true meaning of equality and doing all the can to marginalise men. 

(8) And finally - the coup de grace - the government's shiny new Equality Strategy - Building a Fairer Britain. At no stage (except fleetingly on Caribean boys)  does it ever mention men and boys or the isuses facing them. None of them in this post are ever mentioned. Nothing on education, higher rates of unemployment, health, suicide - just example after example on issues affecting women.

The Equality Strategy published this month, makes it completley clear - this governement is no better and no more interested than the last in tackling issues that affect men & boys (and consequently their mothers, sisters, daughters and wives/partners/girlfriends).

It actually wants to make things worse not just by the overt discrimination (see 1, 2,3,4 and 5 above) but the covert discrimination of discrimination by omission. And with Parliamentary terms lasting five years now, we have over four years of this to go.

There have been a few advances, equality of pesnion age, a family review still pending (who know what the result will be) and Mirko Fischer's BA win. Plus some organisations seem to be pushing more and more (Men's Network, ManKind Initiative, Prostate Cancer Society, Families Need Fathers, Parity, False Allegations Support Organisation, Men's Health Forum amongst others) and they will need to be encouraged by us all to continue.

However, looking back, the hopes at the beginning of the year have proved unfounded and it is clear that things have got worse in 2010 for men and boys.

Posted by Skimmington 

Comments

[John Kimble]

Nice comprehensive summary. The sentiment is spot on although I think you could have added a few more small but significant pluses:

1. the Lib Dems forcing the man hating Scottish government to debate violence against men was quite an achievement and highly unexpected. It's true that no one stands up for men in Westminster, but that's clearly not the case in Scotland at all.

2. Vera Baird lost her "safe" seat in a humiliating fashion. Everyone knows how sexist Harman is and she gets all the headlines, but if anything Baird was the most misandric MP in Parliament.

3. The Lib Dems producing a men's manifesto was a landmark, though I'm not hopeful they'll get much done with Lynne Featherstone in charge of equalities.

4. A number of feminists got slapped down for lying. Most notably Harman on pay gaps. Also the Stern rape review was a plus, echoing our accusation that the antics of feminists lying about conviction rates harms victims.

Of the top of my head the only negative you've missed is the legalisation of CRUK's sexist Race for Life (though such legislation at least suggests we were in the right in the past and it was illegal up until now).

[Chris]

An excellent summary:
With respect to legislation requiring a percentage of women on company boards, foresight would require that we ensure that men are written into the legislation ensuring that they too have a guaranteed percentage participation. With women comprising 60% of college graduates it is inevitable so this proposed legislation is actually required to protect men in the future. So feminists want it legislated that at least 30% of a board to be women (AND we need to ensure that at least 30% are men is written into a gender neutral legislation)

[paul parmenter]

It is important to understand the bigger picture of how the vicious circle works in practice.

Women live significantly longer than men, therefore there are significantly more women voters than men. Women voters therefore get the MPs they want. Forget the fact that most MPs are still male: that is irrelevant. Women are perfectly happy with male MPs so long as they promote the best interests of females. Which is how the whole rotten system works.

Women voters ensure that their MPs are overwhelmingly pro-female and committed to maintaining the status quo where women are given priority in health care, social services and the soft jobs that are never going to kill them. The legal system and law enforcement agencies are also heavily biased in favour of females, as we all know.

In contrast, those pro-female MPs will naturally continue to bear down heavily on men and boys, ensuring they get the poorest health care and dismal or non-existent services from the taxes they pay. Instead they will be cemented into the jobs that will kill them, made subservient to females under the law, punished more heavily and regularly sent off in numbers to be butchered in crazy foreign wars.

The result is the glaring life expectancy gap that continues to ensure women stay in control of the votes and therefore of the MPs who will continue to implement all the above policies.

Each general election simply gives another twist to this circle. It has been going on for decades. It makes no difference whatsoever which political party is in power: they are all pro-female and anti-male, and it is female voting power that will ensure it continues that way.