The Rights Of Man

NEWS UPDATE

I hope Christmas was Ok for readers. Just a few from the last few days:

The Good Men Project - The Feminist I used to know (Glen Matlack): the site does not often link to international debates but this one is fascinating between a feminist male who declared his unhappiness with the 'all men are potential rapists' culture in the US and then was hit back with all sorts of nastiness from the Marxist feminists. This is his reply. Fascinating stuff and expect similar things here in the UK but my God there are some real man-haters in America.  By the way one of the Good Men's Projects chiefs resigned because of it and is a Gender Justice campaigner (a new slogan to be used no doubt in the UK soon to bash men).

Daily Mail - Thousands of children have spent Christmas without their fathers, that's criminal Mr Clarke (Sonia Poulton) - Another superb piece from Ms Poulton

Scotsman - My life stopped when I was accused of rape (David Goodwillie) - Women still gets £11,000 compo.

The Guardian - Diversity in public life: More extremist male bashing and pleas for special treatment

Posted by Skimmington

NEWS UPDATE

Friends - this will be the last update for the next week or so as I need to go away and get some sleep.

Anyhow, here a few articles not covered that I hope are of interest.

 Merry Christmas one and all and if you are not in the situation yourself spare a thought for those fathers who will not be seeing their children over Christmas because of recalcitrant mothers.

The Guardian - Forced marriage is inhumane (Sayeeda Warsi): Welcome recognition that 14% of victims of forced marriage are men.

Daily Telegraph - Parents who abduct children should face tougher sentences (Tom Whitehead): As long as that counts for the legions of women who abduct their children and relocate abroad to deny the father a chance of contact.

Wales online - Erin Pizzey came out to support Cllr McEvoy and recived some letters in return. Though one of them by Cardiff councillor Iona Gordon said that Erin Pizzey had been brought into dispreute by Women's Aid - I think Cllr Gordon has it the wrong way round.

Daily Mail - The female only Facebook (Lauren Paxman): More sexist nasty belittling man bashing - women who use this site are men-haters in the same way as the women who bought "Men are stupid, throw rocks at them" The comments are well worth a read and who will be the first to sue one of the people on the site for defamation. To be honest the site is illegal.

The Guardian - Biased Book Choice (Jan Pahl): a look into the mind of the paranoid radical feminist.

The Guardian - Why is British public life dominated by men (Kira Cochrane): Not one shred of evidence of sexism but plenty of pleas for special treatment and pleading. It really is quite a dangerous piece of McCarthyite 'reds under the bed' research because there is no evidence of sexism but Kira sees sexists and sexism everywhere (she should have been in the Sixth Sense).

Daily Mail - Former racehorse owner jailed for contacting her daughter (Paul Sims): This awful case of how a woman tried to brainwash her daughter into thinking her father was a paedophile should be shown to every anti-male radical feminist in the country.

 Posted by Skimmington

 

 

 

 

THE POLITICAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF MEN IN BRITAIN: A CHRONOLOGY

One of the key issues Britain's political class never want to talk about is how all-women shortlists, gender quotas, A-lists and special women-only courses discriminate against men wanting to stand for office and also the voting public who want to be sure they are voting for the best person.It is a theme well covered on this site.

In response, the following paper has been produced setting out what has happened, the key dates and the key people.

Download Political discrimination against men in Britain

Lastly, I would want to say that all those in the men's equality movement should pay tribute to Peter Law, Peter Jepson and Roger Dyas-Elliott - three men who fought against the injustice of all-women shortlists and have never recieved the credit and plaudits they deserve.

Posted by Skimmington 

THE SCANDAL OF INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HOMELESS MEN

One kind reader sent over a report by St Mungo's homeless charity called Battered Broken Bereft.

Homelessness is not an issue covered much on this site but at Christmas it seems apposite.

A few core figures stands out. Firstly that 81% of homeless clients of the charity are men and the biggest reason that men are homeless is due to relationship breakdown (42%). The report highlights that 35% of women who are made homeless due to domestic abuse and it would be interesting to see what the figure was for men.

What it revealed though on the relationship breakdown issue was to highlight another clear area of institutional discrimination against men.

Page 8 of the report states:

"Many men had waited until they were in desperate need before they approached the local authority. They had all approached housing advisors when they had no one else to turn to. Instead of getting the help they needed they were more often subject to petty wrangling by local authorities over who should take responsibility for them.

"The advice and support they did receive was more often to be given a list of telephone numbers, some of which were obsolete and some which were always engaged."

Can you seriously imagine the same situation for a woman - there would be a scandal. But here we have the equally scandalous situation but this time involving men. All we get are petty wranglings from councils not caring a jot because the person in front of them is a man.

Another example of the institutional discrimination that men face - made worse when dealing with the most vulnerable, like these men, in our society. We hope St Mungo's having identified this issue, now take it forward.

Posted by Skimmington     

HOME OFFICE ALIGNS FATHERS 4 JUSTICE WITH TERRORISTS GROUPS

If anyone has been watching the Channel 4 programmes under the umbrella of Black Mirror will understand what a scary Orwellian place the future could be. In an article for the Times Higher Education supplement it has been revealed that the Prevent anti-terrorism strategy has lumped Fathers 4 Justice under the same banner as terrorists.

While many people have many views about F4J, they are not terrorists and only adopted the tactics they did because the family law courts did not (and continue not to) uphold the law over child custody and allow children to have a meaningful relationship with both parents.

To put that on a par with terrorism shows the lack of understanding the Home Office have in thinking that all groups that do not kowtow to the 'system' must be placed in the same group even if some want to kill people like the terrorist groups.

Posted by Skimmington 

LISA LONGSTAFF BELITTLES AND DENIGRATES ALL 2.6 MILLION MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

A few weeks ago the site commented that the the real reason that some feminist writers and bloggers did not like men (though there is a lot of women also hostile to their misandry) making comments on their sites was because they do not like the fact they had to listen to put up with people who disliked their dislike of men. They only want equality and freedom of speech on their terms, which means no opposition and no platform.

An example of some offensive, gratuitous and anti-male nonsense can be seen in Lisa Longstaff's article in the Guardian.

In her article on the domestic abuse consultation she complains that women need action not consultation - the argument here is not with that.

The issue is with the paragraph:

Moreover, cuts to refuges, legal aid, Citizens Advice and other community support remove the expert help women need to get any legal protection at all. Instead the government is putting £225,000 into a fund for male victims of domestic violence.

Firstly, the cuts to the services mentioned affect men as well as women, but the main issue is that she is complaining about the paltry £225,000 of extra money (women's refuges receive about £65 million per year and male refuges probably get about £500,000) that the undeserving 2.6 million male victims of domestic abuse do not deserve. She tries to make the point that this money should not be available at all and even worse it is due to cuts from women's services that is making this money available - when it is not. There is real hatred there.

How dare the government (she is effectively saying) give those men with their children (both sons and daughters remember) any money at all. She think its offensive. All those men abused physically and emotionally by women (and also by male partners) are treated with such disdain. There are so few services for male victims at a national or local level so to complain about this little extra is frighteningly mean and spiteful.

Her belittling of male victims is a total disgrace and she has shown she really does not like men at all. What other reason could she possibly have for writing that paragraph, and could you imagine the outcry if a man had written the same and reversed the genders.

Lisa Longstaff has a problem with the fact that women can commit domestic abuse against men. No matter what some feminist bloggers want, sites like this and also those people who commented on Lisa Longstaff's article at the botom of it will continue to speak up against misandry.

Posted by Skimmington

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONSULTATION - GOVERNMENT STILL CANNOT BRING ITSELF TO PLACE MALE VICTIMS ON A PAR WITH FEMALE VICTIMS

On Tuesday, the site commented on the government's (leaked) new consultation on domestic violence also that there was to be a fund for services for male victims of domestic abuse (the fund has a short period and groups have to spend the first batch of money very quickly - by the end of March 2012).

The press release and explanation has been gender neutral but the document itself sets out clearly that it is only really about female victims of domestic abuse - this is because of the foreword by the Minister for Women and Equalities who is also the Home Secretary - Theresa May.

The document explains that 1 in 4 women will be a victim of domestic abuse on their lifetime and that two women per fortnight are murdered as well as the fact that 1.2 million suffer per year. Looking at the ManKind Initiative's key facts about male victims you can see the alternative figures (1 in 6 men, one per fortnight murdered and about 700,000 men per year) so why are these not in the foreword. They are from the same Home office sources.

It may be OK to mention the number of younger boys who are victims (and it has been very good this issue has at least been raised) but only mentioning women when the alternative male figures are available on a consultation for both men and women is as clear an example of institutional discrimination against men as you will ever see. Someone at the Home Office who drafted the foreword had consciously decided not to include men. Must have been someone from the government's equalities department - that part of the government who explicitly states that its work does not include men:

 
Despite the coverage given however to the leak about the consultation, at least some of the media and otehr commentators had got better at producing a balanced view.

Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday was a case in point where while the case study was of a female victim it was made clear that it happens to men and women, with Carmel Napier from ACPO restating this. Sky mentioned men as well.

However, because the foreword only mentioned men really and also the tone of the idiot, sexist and biased reporters had been set previously in the week, the notion that the consultation was only about female victims continued. Examples can be found here - The Sun, Daily Mirror, Standard, Daily Mail (Melissa Kite) and The Guardian (Lisa Longstaff)

Posted by Skimmington

THE DATI EXAMPLE SHOWS WHY POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION IS WRONG AND LEADS TO EVEN MORE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN

One of the inherent disaster zones of using gender quotas and promoting people not because of their ability but because of their gender means that whenever those people eventually fail, as they will always do, because they should not have been in the position in the first place is that you will be called sexist.

Not only when you use quotas or positive discrimination (which means negative disrimination for some one else) but also when you talk up a particular gender you say they suffer from discrimination - when they fail - you have left yourself wide open to the accusation of sexism. What can you do, when you have said yourself they should be there and then they turn out to be rubbish.

In a rational world, it would be mean you would admit that quotas and sexist positive action was wrong and only talent should count, but as we know the political class who promote positive action and positive discrimination never admit to making a mistake. So what do the metropolitan politically correct elite do? they bring even more rules to make sure it happens again and again.

Why raise this - well there was a story in the Guardian that caught my eye (I have to read it for reaserch for this site!) especially as politics has been a key area where discrimination against men is rife including the UK.

In France, Rachida Dati was the first Muslim woman with north African parents to hold a major French government post given to her by Nicolas Sarkozy. As seems clear by the story, she hasn't got where she wants in politics because of talent but obviously because of her background she has led to believe she has done and has doors opened for her which if she was a male would never have been opened.

This is what you get when you promote people not because of their talent but their gender - you get it the accusation of sexism and tokenism thrown back at you. Those who do it deserve it but us men suffer because the reaction is to give even more special treatment and special favours to women.

That's the sole basis of what Harman, Featherstone, Flint and the Fawcett crew do. Like an ever tightening ratchet of lies and sexism.

Posted by Skimmington

LAWBREAKERS AND JUDGES TO BLAME FOR MCEVOY'S CLAIMS

Neil McEvoy, the Cardiff councillor, condemned for accusing Welsh Women's Aid (WWA) of "publicly funded child abuse" because they supported women who break court orders on child access, has had his suspension from Plaid Cymru lifted.

This was after he issued an apology which was accepted depending on his future behaviour (Wales online and BBC).

What the story says is three things:

There are double standards in the gender debate where Harman, Featherstone and Flint (Macbeth anyone?) can come up with spin, half truths and lies on issues such as the effects of the recession on men and women, the Budget, gender pay gap etc and no one bats an eyelid. When a man makes a similar unsubstantiated claim on a gender subject (it is unsubstantiated because he admits he has no evidence) he gets hung out to dry and his head is placed on a spike.

Bearing in mind the double standard, it is why men's groups and commentators have to try and maintain (I know it can be difficult sometimes!) an air or robust responsibility in making claims - a higher level of evidence is needed than is required if you are a member of the Fawcett Society, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission or a Guardian commentator. It is wrong but that is where we are in the anti-male society we live in and shows the malign influence of women's and gender studies.

Thirdly, the whole issue of contact orders and the lack of punishment for those who basically are flouting the Rules of Law in this country remains a disgrace. The fact that Norgrove chose to just shrug his shoulders at lawbreakers and the Ministry of Justice cocks a snook at the men (and sometimes women) who are victims of this mean that people like Neil end up with being so exasperated they make claims like this.

If we had transparency in the family courts, and if CAFCASS and judges took the issue seriously, then perhaps Neil would not have made the claim.

Posted by Skimmington  

WHY DOES WEST MIDLANDS POLICE NOT SUSPEND THESE OFFICERS?

Tuesday the site covered this awful and pathetic sentence and then along comes newsfrom West MIdlands police who give Jess Cooper a £80 fixed penalty fine for making a false rape allegation which ended up with one man in hospital and another in a cell. The anger from the 192 comments tell a clear story.

The West Midlands police should be at least suspending the officers involved and publicly saying so. Firing would not be a problem either. Why the silence from them when these officers thought the false claim no different to someone caught shoplifting? The police did take forward this case so it is not as though all West Midlands police ignore the issue.

If the police are really clear on wanting to deal with the issue or false rape allegations, they must make examples of these officers and publicly do so. Otherwise two men hurt by this have been dealt an incredible injustice and the police are turning a blind eye to it. And Jess Cooper has let every poor women who is raped down as well, do the police not consider that either.

Still we all know where the Women's Justice Taskforce stand - another victory in their campiagn to end equality in justice.

Posted by Skimmington