Yesterday, I lambasted the government for failing men and giving them false hope even though there are MP's on the Conservative benches who wish to stand up for them. I mentioned Brian Binley and Charlie Elphicke on shared parenting, Dominic Raab on feminism (he has been quiet on it recently) and there were Conservative backbenchers who wanted anonymity for rape defendants.
Then last week Universities Minister David "Two Brain's" Willetts said that feminism had reduced social mobility for working class boys (Daily Mail and Telegraph).
The government seems to be split between those MP's who just want equality and fairness and then people like Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone who do not think it applies to men and boys.
The issue that Willetts should be looking to address though is that it is the aggressive female fundamentalism that is crushing boys. Equality for girls and ensuring there are opportunities for them is of course no problem. But the feminist fundamentalists have taken it a stage further. Not only do they want to give special treatment to women from all backgrounds (including the already 'privileged' middle class women that Willetts alludes to) such as the hideous Section 159 of the equalities act but they actively stop anything from being done to help social mobility.
Education results show that boys are around six years behind girls when it comes to exams results and that fewer boys go to university than men (51% women and 40% men) but there is no public policy response. Not anything even in the government's laughable 'equalities' strategy.
So there is no point Willetts pointing this out unless he is going to do anything about it. We wait to the social mobility report he alludes to and what it will say.
Posted by Skimmington
Postcript - the usual backlash from the fundamentalists: Suzanne Moore (Daily Mail), Barbara Ellen (Guardian) laughably calling Willetts ludicrous!, Guardian news story and BBC,
Great article on feminism by Christine Odone (Telegraph)
BBC article
You can watch Moore and Odone debate the issue on Newsnight (about 25 mins in)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25
Posted by: John Kimble | Monday, 04 April 2011 at 16:37
The work by Catherine Hakim "myths and magic medicine" does an excellent job explaining this. Deserves wide dissemination. Get your local libraries to order a copy. Understandably you are inpatient with lack of action. But unless people in the public eye do question current orthodoxies
There will be no movement from the misandry underpinning the thinking of our elite. Sometimes stating the obvious does help. As usual Willets is criticised for saying things he didn't.
Posted by: Groan | Monday, 04 April 2011 at 17:32