CABINET RESHUFFLE MEANS LACK OF PROGRESS ON EQUALITY FOR MEN CONTINUES

So the new cabinet comes in and what changes for men?

 

Maria Miller is the Culture Secretary with responsibility for Women and Equalities. This role at Cabinet Level was previously Theresa May’s.

   

Helen Grant MP, replaces Lynne Featherstone at equalities minister to become joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Ministry of Justice and for Women's and Equality issues. Helen Grant was one of Cameron’s A-listers which was specially designed to stop men from becoming MP’s. She has benefitted from sexism against men so no hope of equality from her.

 

On the Justice front, at least Ken Clarke recognised the need for reform on shared parenting and that even admitted that many mothers break contacts orders and get away with it. Chris Grayling his successor is a robust politician so we can hope he will drive things through on shared parenting and hopefully take a tougher stand on family courts.

 

Tim Loughton going as children's minister is a blow as he has been someone who has kept the flame alight on shared parenting. Let's hope his continues to do so on the backbenches.

 

In terms of health, I cannot see Jeremy Hunt being any more bothered about men's health than his predecessors. He seems the archetypical politician/corporate type who has no view on anything so it’s likely he just simply won't be interested.

 

Gove remain in place on education which means no reversal of the plans to do away with GCSE's and he at least wants rigour and discipline in schools which boys need.

 

The one additional issue is the continual pantomime about how many women and how many men are in the cabinet and have ministerial position. Of course, to anyone who believes in equality, the gender of those in government is irrelevant. But to those in the partisan/radical feminist camp like the Fawcett Society, BBC, Guardian and Equalities and Human Rights Commission - gender is more important than ability.

 

So the number of men and women in the new ministerial team will be picked apart and will do so I am sure over the next week. The Fawcett Society are on the case already.

 

Because of the political attention on the issue, it pressurises Cameron/Clegg (and Blair and Brown before them but that's their fault for encouraging it) to keep the numbers of women up. Cabinet is one thing and the number has been reduced to 4 from 5 but what about at the ministerial level. More will come out over the next few days.

 

We know there is someone into the Cabinet Office collating the information will be totting up the number of men and women. If the number of women are not high enough to satisfy the covert quota (the quota is at least the same as before with some upward ratchet – Cameron himself has declared hir goal to have women in one third of government postst by the end of this parliament) some women will be pushed up because they are women and some men pushed down or out all together because they are men. We know this is the likely answer. Even the Conservatives themselves see it.

 

It does not matter if Cameron/Clegg say there is no quota, there is one subliminally and the coming day or so will see what the shift is. We know The Guardian is watching with McCarthyite intent, and if the numbers are down overall it will be down to evil men not based on the available talent.

 

It is just like those in the 30 per cent club or Women on Boards who debated with Mike Buchanan on Radio 4 who say they do not want a quota. That is an untruth. Not only is the 30 per cent club named after a quota, whenever, there is not an increase of women in FTSE roles they scream blue murder, therefore an unofficially sublimely quota comes into existence.Covert pressure in terms of "if we don't put more women on the board, we'll be attacked for it, no matter whether or not we have suitable people or not."

 

Overall the cabinet reshuffle does nothing for men - many of us knew it would be the case so we'll carry on with our campaigning - its too important to stop.

 

Posted by Skimmington

Comments

[Stuart]

Your journalistic Poetry offends women everywhere :-)

Truth always offends.

[John Kimble]

Featherstone was a really nasty, sexist piece of work. I don't believe there is anyone in the coalition quite as sexist against men as her, therefore even if she has been replaced by the second most sexist person in the coalition it is still an improvement. I agree with most of the article but getting rid of Featherstone is a clear win, so lets not be too downbeat.

I see Grant was previously in the Labour Party which says a lot about her and is a worry. Also the fact she worked in Family law may well be a concern. On the other hand she worked with Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice so that may well be a positive sign?

[Mike Buchanan]

Thanks S. There's a nuance here not many people have spotted. The Conservative-led coalition appointed the LABOUR peer Lord Davies not to investigate WHETHER there was a case for increasing the number on boards (as is usually misrepresented in the media), but HOW to do so. Following on from the Davies report - which is predictably left-wing / feminist throughout - the government's official stance is that if FTSE100 companies don't have 25% female representation by 2015, there will be legislated quotas forcing them to do so. This is driving women onto FTSE100 boards, and the 25% target is on track. 14% of new FTSE director appointments in 2010 were women, while in 2012 to date it's been 44%. In 2012 all female director appointments have been non-execs, while all 18 executive director appointments were men. Here at C4MB we're campaigning for a retraction of the threat of quotas. I was on Nick Ferrari's LBC show this morning making these points. The tide is slowly starting to turn in favour of meritocracy... about damned time! S, thanks for your exposure for our campaign.

Mike Buchanan
[email protected]

CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS
http://c4mb.wordpress.com

[Groan]

really helpful analysis. One thing that does concern me is the overall supposed "toughening" of the Gov. The idea seems to be there are more ministers who will "get tough" on issues. My observation is that getting tough on many issues tends to be getting tough on men, for instance the P.M.'s speech on "absent" dads, and some similarish stuff from IDS. Given that there are no votes in getting tough with children and very few in getting tough with women then politicians wanting to look tough will pick issues that particularly impact on men. Expect more from the gov. on absent fathers, feckless young men, DV, the younger disabled (mainly men a fact rarely observed),alcohol and drug abuse,"bad" behaviour in schools from "youths" and so on. As often observed on this site there is a curious similarity with the ideas of gender feminism and the right wing on gender . Both expect much more from men and much less from women.Both assume all males are responsible for their ills but no woman is. Both also assume men will make it on their own and women need a leg up. It is the men in the Gov. as much as the women who have to be observed.
As you say Mike the idea that a 30% Club isn't about a quota defies reason. But I venture to suggest that support for these quotas comes as much from the "ladies first" brigade as the feminist firebrands.

[Dave]

Different but same theme: I see the usual BBC Eastenders Domestic violence white knight cobblers is to be spewed out again! She has an affair but of course, she is the poor wittle victim, blah blah blah.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2198187/EastEnders-Kat-Moon-finally-comes-clean-affair.html

[Stuart]

Well doesn't this show us a glimpse of how bad things are for young men in the West.

He felt the need to film his mentally unstable ex girlfriend jumping to her death because he thought "he would be blamed for it."

I can fully understand his thinking on this now I know what I know. I have always said all men, especially younger men should have surveillance on them or the ability to instantly record audio or video (or both) at all times to protect themselves from false allegations, and or other types of spiteful mentally unstable females. This is how twisted and sick feminism and it's agenda has made our society. People need to realise the level at which false rape, false abuse and such allegations are in this country, once they actually see for themselves, they will realise what I recommend men do, is not as unwarranted as they might think.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199097/Ex-boyfriend-filmed-teenager-jumping-bridge-feared-blamed-death.html?ITO=1490

[Groan]

Will quite by accident I managed to ruin my post Para olympic glow(following watching the closing ceremony/concert). I happened on and watched Hilary Devey "investigate" the lack of women in board rooms. As usual in such things various sexist assertions about the value of "diversity" were trotted out. Some of it was entertaining (in one bit one was supposed to take seriously the idea that potential high flying decision makers would be put off from applying for jobs due to the words "gravitas" and "demanding" being in an advert).
The dismaying bit was that this was an OU production, so rather than light entertainment it was porporting to be factual.
There was the usual Diversity Expert doing a gender audit of Hilary's company. Low and behold almost all the "blue collar" jobs were done by men while half the "middle managers" were women. Needless to say this particular imbalance didn't get looked at as it suggests that shop floor workers won't get much opportunity to move up in the company.

[Bob]

The day we get the media sorted out is the day we can start to galvanise men. Women have the idea of a 'sisterhood' drummed into them every day from a very young age, whereas men have the opposite; vilification and shame, certainly not brotherhood! Unless of course its an a gang, where many young men get their sense of society, brotherhood and their value systems from these days...then more vilification.

In the end what you have is a gang (for want of a better word) of women versus a nation of individual men. Women voting en masse to get rid of any pro true equality candidates, in fact getting them eliminated from the democratic process because of their gender and replacing them with feminists.

Of course you could argue that women shortlists don't necessarily mean feminists, but its funny how they almost always do though.