The Rights Of Man

MEN'S HOUR IS BACK

Men's Hour is back on Radio 5 - worth listening because while it generally is a magazine it does  discuss serious issues and need our support.

MEN'S HOUR IS BACK

Men's Hour is back on Radio 5 - worth listening because while it generally is a magazine it does  discuss serious issues and need our support.

TEN THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CANCER RESEARCH UK'S SEXISM

Over recent months and years this blog has published a number of articles highlighting sexism by Cancer Research UK, with a particular focus on its disgraceful Race for Life event. As the backslash against Race for Life grows ever stronger and as so many new readers become interested in this issue I felt it was time we took a wider look at CRUK's activities as a whole. Race for Life is simply a symptom of wider problems at the organisation and in my view the entire charity is institutionally sexist, particualr given the fact that, even according to CRUK's own reports "In general men are at significantly greater risk than women from nearly all of the common cancers that occur in both sexes".

I therefore present a summary of the ten of the prevailing sexist attitudes at CRUK. I strongly sugget readers support other cancer charites until some of the issues below are addressed.

1. Male fundraisers are not wanted
It's pretty obvious that the organisation who set up Race for Life and deliberately excludes men from "the biggest fight against cancer" doesn't want their money (unless it's arrives via a female intermediary who then takes the credit for raising it). Lets examine exactly what happened to get us into this situation of CRUK barring most fund-raising by men. In the mid 1990s CRUK (then under a different name) purposely went out and set up large numbers of female-only fundraising events. Contrary to the spin they put on things, at no point have they engaged with men in a comparable fashion, nor really attempted to do so. Unlike with some other fun-runs we don't merely have a case of gender segregation here, there simply is no parallel event for men and never was. The few attempts made to solve the problem occurred years after the launch of Race for Life and were all half-hearted afterthoughts, destined to fail due to their narrow scope. For the most part, male fundraisers simply are not wanted. CRUK describes a man's role as a "supporter", which in reality means a second class citizen who's purpose it to clean up after women at events.

2. Men do not buy things
The merchandising work at CRUK again follows an overwhelmingly sexist and non-inclusive pattern. Other than clothing, items for sale on their website mostly consist of flowers, a selection of cake-related items, aprons, wedding planners, baby journals and pink diaries. An "Essential" section of the site includes a whole series of hideous Race for Life clothing and accessories for women and girls. Finally, just for even more gender balance, we then have a series of breast cancer awareness related goods on sale, including pink ribbons and bra key rings. Not one single item can be found anywhere highlighting a male specific cancer or a male focused event or where the funds solely go to combating a predominantly male specific cancer. I did find a number of rubber ducks which looked like nice gifts for children, but a closer look show even those to be plastered with breast cancer awareness ribbons.

3. Men do not get breast cancer
Race for Life began as a women-only event aimed at raising money for breast cancer, yet this is not a single sex cancer. Yes far fewer men get breast cancer than women, but those unfortunate enough to do so are more likely to die than female patients, mainly due to a lack of awareness. The way Race for Life portrays breast cancer as simply a women's issue therefore causes real harm but they don't stop there. CRUK's slogan for their breast cancer campaign is "join the fight for womens' survival", so once again, men are out of the picture right from the start.

4. Men are sex objects
A recurring theme in CRUK's work is their portrayal of men as sex objects. Previously we've seen breast cancer awareness videos featuring a woman groping a half naked male model and CRUK's notorious e-male app of male celebrities begging to perform a strip-tease to get women to participate in Race for Life. Newer developments in this area include teams of specially selected  "hunky" corporate male cheerleaders at Race for Life events. I've I've stated before, I'm not anti-sex, and such objectification doesn't necessarily present a problem in itself, particularly were it to work both ways. However I'm yet to see any evidence of CRUK presenting women in this way, and when considered in conjunction with CRUK's other activities it becomes clear they have an issue with their attitudes to men.

5. Men's views don't count
A key component of the CRUK world-view is that men's views on matters simply don't count. Time and again we've been informed that Race for Life remains a sexist event due to the wishes of a minority of the participants, but why don't CRUK survey non-participants interested in cancer and see what their impression of the event is? The theme of CRUK ignoring men's voices again came to the fore earlier this year when the option of boys running in the event was reinstated. This came about directly because of the actions of Claire Parker, even though the likes of John Taylor have argued exactly the same thing for over a decade. Of course I congratulate and thank Claire for her work, but it's unfair that, in the eyes of CRUK, her views should carry so much more weight than that of any man. The organisation is so blinkered that I understand they have now gone as far as even refusing to open emails from John Taylor, thus showing a huge amount of disrespect for such a successful and longstanding equality campaigner.

6. Men aren't important
CRUK produces many excellent posters and they can also be downloaded from their website. Mouth, breast and ovarian cancer posters are available but nothing for prostate cancer. This is despite the likes of ovarian cancer being  rarer by a factor of more than five. CRUK's complete disregard and failure to understand prostate cancer is also illustrated in more subtle ways. For example it's breast cancer and even gullet cancer publications are available in a special large print but not those for prostate cancer. We know that besides gender, the other reason prostate cancer gets neglected it due to agism, yet here we have a group of older cancer suffers, clearly with the greatest need of the larger text, but yet again they are ignored. Sexism is found elsewhere too, the most obvious example being CRUK's dedicated awareness sub-sites. Their breast cancer site in particular is highly comprehensive and has had a lot of effort put into it, but the corresponding site for prostate cancer (or any male specific/associated cancer) just doesn't exist! Their disregard for men couldn't be much more blatant. CRUK's report on "The excess burden of cancer in men in the UK" acknowledges that "a lack of knowledge of cancer" is one factor which results in the development of cancer in men, so why are they making this situation worse?

7. Violence against men is great
In addition to its sexist slogan, CRUK's breast cancer campaign even appears to encourage violence against men. Posters inviting people to join "the fight for women's survival" featured two female figures wearing boxing gloves attacking a male figure. So, not satisfied with neglecting men and male cancers therefore consigning men to an early death, CRUK's advertising effectively endorses a quickening of this process thorough physical assault.

8. Men don't make good employees
Although I haven't been able to uncover any figures, one striking aspect of CRUK's activities appears to be the sheer volume of women employed there. In my experience, if you send them an email, phone them up or post a message on their forums the odds are that you'll almost never come into contact with a single male employee. For example, a quick glance at CRUK's cancer chat forums shows the entire moderation staff to be female, as were all those moderator's predecessors. It would appear that this female dominated workplace has resulted in a clear prioritisation of female-associated cancers and patients despite the fact that most cancer patients are male AND those male patients are more likely to die from cancer. I don't' believe in sexist quotas or anything of that nature but it's ridiculous that females dominate an area of most relevance to men and at the very least CRUK might provide a few token men for say prostate cancer suffers to talk about sensitive issues. Compounding this matter further is the particular type of female recruited to the organisation, with many I've come across fitting the Guardian-reading gender feminist stereotype, and therefore having the bizarre attitude that CRUK's sexism is acceptable or somehow even a good thing.

9. Men are worse than dogs
Strangely, CRUK allows dogs to participate in Race for Life. It's not just female dogs either, even male dogs are welcome to participate. This therefore means dogs actually have more opportunities for involvement in fundraising activities with CRUK than men, and suggests the organisation has a higher regard for these animals than actual human males.  If your dog is so crazed and likely to bite others that it needs to wear a muzzle it can still "Race for Life", yet even a Hannibal Lecter style mask, various restraints and being wheelchair-bound would not facilitate entry for a man. Obnoxious misandrist feminists regularly write hateful comments and signs about men being chaperoned so they don't rape anyone, but CRUK's position is in some ways even more extreme, and even a chaperone or two isn't sufficient supervision.

10. Men are stupid
Above all else, CRUK believes men are so stupid that they can lie to them over and over again without anyone noticing. Perhaps the most visible aspect of this is CRUK's laughably dishonest slogans for events such as Race for Life, whereby the organisation loudly proclaims  "it's all of us vs cancer". Other CRUK gems include repeatedly telling us "Together we will beat cancer", whilst simultaneously creating pointless gender divisions therefore and reducing "togetherness" at almost every possible opportunity. Further dishonesty and hypocrisy is in evidence in the organisation's strategy document, under the heading  "Tackling cancer inequalities".  CRUK states "a number of different groups in society experience unacceptable inequalities in cancer. The nature of these inequalities in cancer is complex, and we have only limited evidence in some areas. But we will push Government to do more to tackle cancer inequality where it can." As we showed earlier CRUK have already admittedly that men are significantly more likely to get cancer than women and those getting it also more likely to die, yet their spending patterns bear no relation to this evidence nor do they have any polices in place to solve the problem, instead only identifying LGBT, people, ethnic minorites and rural dwellers as legitimate groups needing help. Many of the previous nine points demonstrate clear inequalities in spending with regards to education/awareness etc and the trend continues for actual research. Using the statistics on CRUK's own website I calculated CRUK's 2010/11 spend on gender specific/associated cancers as:
£453 for anyone with prostate cancer
£902 for anyone with breast cancer
£1,615 for anyone with ovarian cancer.

Despite there already being clear cancer inequalities in society, and in particular a sickening neglect of prostate cancer, CRUK is actively making the gender gap worse in almost everything it does and it a major contributor to the phenomena. What on earth gives them the right to lecture and lobby the government on such an issue where they are so clearly such a major part of the problem?

CRUK really needs to decide if they care about men or simply want to be a women-only organisation. Right now it appears that they are the later, masquerading as an organisation that pretends to care about everyone.

 

by John Kimble

NEWS UPDATE

Here are a selection from the last two weeks (in no particular order) and thanks to those that sent them through:

The Guardian: Neither breadwinners nor losers - what role do young men play next? (Ally Fogg) Ally's article makes a number of key cornerstone points - first about men being ignored by social policymakers and also the example on ESF funding. The only issue I take with Ally is he is reluctant to really name the guilty parties who are deliberately ignoring men and carrying out these discriminatory policies. I may well be unfair here as he does mention ESF, but who are the politicians responsible for this policy - list the guilty men and women. He has a new blog.

HR Magazine: Businesses hold dads back when it comes to family (David Woods)

The Guardian: These Tory women are narcissists, not feminists (Tanya Gold) If you read the comments sections, it shows these men-haters are bing challenged.

Equalities and Human Rights Commission: Reading Lists published - The EHRC is now making it even easier to find the texts they love - I have seen the JR Schackleton pamphlet on gender pay is on it though!

Equalities and Human Rights Commission: Staff reduction announced

London Evening Standard: London can seriously harm men's health (Sophie Goodchild and Emma Slater). The full reports from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can be found here and here.  

Various: French tennis-player Gilles Simon says men should receive more prize money than women at Wimbledon (Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian)

A Men and Women's MRA request for London

Daily Telegraph: Girls outperforming boys in masuline subjects (Graeme Paton)

Men's Network - Funding for male cancer

Please let me if I have missed any?

Posted by Skimmington

FORUM ON WEBSITE

A number of readers have requested a forum be set up as part of this site. This may be a tad time consuming to run and moderate. and I would love to if I could. Great idea.

However, it is worth reiterating that everyone has an opportunity to submit an article/post to the site, or alternatively if they wanted to open a discussion up  - all that would be needed would be the title of the discussion and a paragraph (or two) to introduce the subject  - then let the debate commence.

Any views?

But happy to receive topics for discussion right away.

Posted by Skimmington

TWITTER ACCOUNT SET UP

Just a quick post to say this site is now on Twitter. The name of the account is

Rights of Man (UK)

or #RightsofManUK

https://twitter.com/RightsofManUK

Posted by Skimmington

EARLY BIRD TICKETS STILL LEFT

The UK's National Conference for Men and Boys on 2 November 2012 still has some early bird tickets left.

INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM AGAINST BOYS HAS LED TO THE GENDER READING GAP

The report today by the All Party Parliamentary Literacy Group Boys' Reading Commission and the National Literacy Trust is the first major piece of research work recently in the UK that has seriously looked at the gender reading gap.

In fact, there is hardly any research on the educational gap because academia and the establishment are not interested in men and boys only women and girls. It was therefore refreshing that this report was produced and also that it was led by politicians.The report pulls a lot of the statistics together and shows the journey boys are taking through their educational life so it is a good compendium of the latest statistics.

Some key facts include

• 59% of boys achieved an A* to C in English GCSE compared to 73% of girls
• 76% of respondents said boys in their school did not do as well in reading as girls
•  82% of schools have tried to tackle this issue

The report does give a view about what causes the problem whether it is parental interaction, the school environment and male gender identities.

Three issues stand out.

School system

Firstly, there is the point (Chapter 2, page 12), and the report is brave enough to say it (it should not have to be classed as brave but others are too scared to say it) that the feminised education system is working against boys. Whether that is because there is bias in marking, reading selection, lack of male teachers, national curriculum (exams versus coursework), boys not as interested in 'pleasing the teacher', the differences in reading materials being available and so forth.

All in all that is some list and when you combine them together - it is no wonder that boys are behind. What it clearly shows is the system is stacked against boys - it is institutionally sexist.

A comment on the BBC site from a mother (Catherine Beak) is worth sharing:

 I have both a daughter and a son. They are completely and utterly different in what they choose to read. Why do they push boys into reading books, if what they want to read is newspapers or sports magazine

I believe that it doesn't really matter what they read, as long as they do. My son is well above average for his reading and we just get him things that he's interested in.

Fathers   

Chapter three highlights the problems where fathers are not around to read to their children and that can harm boys reading. Perhaps if the family courts and CAFCASS believed in shared parenting then this could be avoided.

Policy Response

The conclusions at the end are an impressive list and are practical way that boys reading can be supported without damaging girls reading.

The subtext is clear though and this is the most shameful and disgraceful part as it shows the institutional sexism with in the system. Sexism by omission.

Basically the report is saying that the the education establishment, the Department for Education, Government more widely and all the other opinion formers have deliberately done nothing to investigate this problem that they have known about and then delivered policies to solve it. 

They still have no strategy to solve it. If the genders were reversed, there would be armies of people armed with case full of money and projects to deal with it. 

For decades boys reading has been damaged by a system that is not suitable or flexible for them, and as the report says, "while it is an international problem, we do not believe that it is simply biological or inevitable; girls are not more likely to be 'wired' as readers."

This report is an invaluable contribution and I hope its recommendations are taken forward. It has also served to show the institutional sexism within the education system in this country - which has been a blight on generations of boys.

Posted by Skimmington

Media coverage - BBC (recognises the lack of action) , Daily Mail, Huffington Post

 

WHERE EQUALITY FOR MEN MUST TRANSCEND RELIGION TOO - MALE GENITAL MUTILATION (CIRCUMCISION)

Sorry everyone - been away again

Following the decision (and here) this week by a German court that infant male circumcision (male genital mutilation) is illegal (unless for medical reasons) and those carrying out the procedure can be charged with assault/GBH means another step has been taken in the issue being treated in the same was female genital mutilation.

The court ruling is clear why: The court weighed up three articles from the basic law: the rights of parents, the freedom of religious practice and the right of the child to physical integrity, before coming to the conclusion that the procedure was not in the interests of the child

There has long been a conspiracy of silence (and here) on this issue in the UK by the 'establishment' albeit one where the BBC and Guardian have spent time on and children are losing their life because of it.

And why has there been a conspiracy of silence? It is clear this is due to political correctness within the political, media (not all) and medical classes in trying not to offend people of the Jewish and Muslim faith. Offending Christians (and I am not defending Christianity) is OK.

Political Correctness is a pseudo-religion itself. Issues like this always leave those who practice it in ideological torture when a group the politically correct industry choose to support has practices that undermine political correctness itself and offend another victim group. Nick Cohen's What's Left? book articulates this clearly. 

On this issue the 'establishment' generally dare not want to cover the story or pass any comment. The BBC and the Guardian have covered it because of their atheist position but do not really have an 'opinion'.

Religion

Getting to the point, the condemnation poured on the Cologne court's correct (morally and legally correct) decision by the two religions shows why the conspiracy of silence has existed. It is an attempt to scare people into silence and to claim special treatment and exemptions from equality, humanity and human rights because of their tradition and opinion (religion).

 The Guardian reported as did the Telegraph that Muslim and Jewish leaders called it "insensitive and discriminatory" because in their opinion circumcising a boy without his consent is not insensitive or discriminatory. The News Statesmen reported  that Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies in the UK described it as "intolerant, ill-informed and deeply troubling."

Brendan O'Neill in the Daily Telegraph suggests it an 'anti-semitic' decision. 

Silence from equality campaigners

Why is there no comment or campaign by the UK government and Minister for Equalities, Equalities and Human Rights Commission and others.  Always quick off the mark on the female mutilation issue, silence on the male issue.

Are they following the lead set by Katrin Altpeter:

Women's rights groups and social policy makers also condemned the decision, but for the reason that it would have the effect of putting male and female circumcision on the same footing, when they were "in no way comparable", said Katrin Altpeter, social minister in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Female circumcision she said, was a far more drastic act. It is already outlawed in Germany.

As ever, women's rights groups are not speaking up for women (see discussion on Mumsnet).

Again, it shows that Women's groups and campaigners who condemn the decision do not believe in equality for men and women, just special treatment for women and special pleading. It helps their funding of course.

A complicit government

The government should just make male genital mutilation illegal as they have done female genital mutilation. What is the difference?

And going back to the politically correct point, female genital mutilation is a religious matter. The government is choosing what religions it supports (those that circumcise) and what ones it doesn't (or effectively what religions it can afford to upset and what ones it can't.

Where next?

I think there are a number of planets that are coming together that will lead to a ban at some point in the next two years.

Firstly, there are sensible mainstream groups in the UK such as NORM-UK, Ending Unneccessary male Cicrcumcision in the UK   and other wider groups such as the British Humanist Association and the Men's Helath Forum who want a ban. This means the issue will be  kept on the 'agenda'.

Secondly, the hysterical response from the two religions will ensure it remains on the agenda especially as it shows how out of touch they are (you only have to read the comments sections in the debates). They will now have to campaign against the courts decision, therefore keeping it in the spotlight and shining a spotlight onto how naked they are.

Thirdly, some doctors and hospitals will start to look themselves and also fear the law. One hospital in Germany has already stopped carrying out the procedure (There is a Circumcisions Direct company - as if mutilation is the equivalent of selling car insurance!)

Lastly, the case in Oldham will actually mean the judge will now be crossing the line into politics as the judgement (and the reason for the judgement) will have implications (one way or other) on male cicumsicion in the UK.

I think that if the campaigns continue and the spotlight is shone - there will be a tipping point and I think the German court has helped move this further - the Oldham case may be the one that does it in the UK.

Once again though, it is the courts that place male equality in its rightful place - an equalities, moral  and human rights issue. It remains shameful that male equality has to rely on the courts rather than politicians and the 'establishment' to make decisions for male equality.

Just like the issue on equalising state pension age, the British Airways ban  on allowing men to sit next to unaccompanied children and now this. All could have been be stopped at a stroke of a legislators pen, instead men have to go to court for equality.

Posted by Skimmington