The Rights Of Man

AUGUST ARTICLE SUMMARY

Been away so sorry for the lack of posts, anyhow, here are a few issues that have come up lately which should be shared:

General

Men's Hour - BBC Radio 5

Men's Matters - Express FM (scroll down)

Daily Telegraph - Feminism, forget it, sisters (by Neil Lydon)

The Spectator - The death of the male working class (by Fraser Nelson)

Domestic Abuse

Northern Echo - Women jailed for stab attack on ex-boyfriend

Dorset Echo - Weymouth councillor on assault charge (oh the irony)

Irish Times - Hypocrisy over ability to be hypocrites (by Padriag O'Moran)

Medical News Today - Counsellors struggle to treat male victims

The Herald - Male abuse victims face extra barriers

Scotsman - Male victim tells of decade of abuse

Scotsman - Council accused of ignoring male victims

False accusations

Daily Telegraph - Britons trapped in false rape sting

Daily Record - Boxer's son released

BBC Dorset - Warning after Bournemouth woman jailed

Scotsman - Father wrongly accused in flawed abuse inquiry

BBC Norfolk - False rape mother is jailed

If Caroline Flint & Co say there isn't a problem, why is it that every week a woman is jailed for making false accusations!

Employment

Daily Mail - Work experience at Foreign Office: Not if you're a white middle class male

Daily Telegraph - Debt 'Men are new underclass'

Mixed-sex wards and health

Daily Telegraph - Government announced the end of mixed sex wards

An issue raised some timeago as the last Government promised it way back in 1997!

Pfizer - Man MOT

This is a brilliant initiative by Pfizer

Education

European Union - Study into gender inequality in education

Why is the EU having to do this when the UK Government should have done it years ago, but even Gove, the new Education Minister is not bothering. 

Politics

BBC - Harman wants half of Shadow Cabinet to be women

 

 

EQUALITY FOR MEN VICTORY AS BRITISH AIRWAYS CLIMB DOWNS ON ITS SEXIST POLICY

As covered comprehensively on the site (and here and here) and rightly a cause celebre for anyone who believes that equality should also apply to men, British Airways had a policy which stopped a man from sitting next to a child unless he was their father. 

After suffering from this sexual discrimination (the policy did not apply to women) Mirko Fischer won a court case at Swindon County Court after he has was told by British Airways to move from his seat. It also forced British Airways to review its policies.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that British Airways has now changed its policy and dropped this discrimination.

This is a clear victory for male equality campaigners and shows what can be done as many have written and called BA to keep the pressure on. The policy probably would not have changed though without Mirko Fischer winning his court case so as well as male equality campaigners keeping the pressure up, sites like and others disseminating information there is a need for men to challenge issues through the courts.

This is glib as men are not backed by or supported by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission or has a vociferous and well funded group (including by the public sector) organisation like the anti-male Fawcett Society (though they will have been screwed by their pathetic and ridiculous challenge to the Governement's Budget).

Putting that aside the equality legisiation is therefore of men and women.

On other issue is something that has been seen before (the MFI advert was a classic example) is the fact British Airways does not show any sign of remorse that it operated a sexist policy. It hides behind jargonese but does not say sorry, that is shameful and speaks volumes.

Now it is just Qantas that has such a sexist policy. 

Posted by Skimmington

HOME OFFICE: FEMALE PAEDOPHILES DO NOT EXIST

Our newest writer on this blog yesterday drew my attention to this article at the BBC. The document discusses "Sarah's Law"  a new piece of legislation permitting parents to check the background of those people who have unsupervised access to their children just in case they are paedophiles. The piece gives five scenarios the scheme could cover, and there's a rather disturbing common theme throughout. I've since discovered that the five scenarios given actually appear in various different articles on the issue on different sites, therefore it's uncertain as to who is to blame exactly.

One of the characters we get to hear about is a male sports coach offering informal football training. It tells us that parents can find information about him due to "rumours about the man doing the rounds". Obviously checks based on rumours aren't especially desirable but the piece is well balanced and does warn of the danger off vigilantism.

We also read about an "odd-looking" neighbour. Again this potential paedophile is male as well as "shifty, reclusive" and "always rude", though at least the piece informs us that no check are likely to be performed on this particular character due to the lack of evidence of risk.

A second neighbour "playing with children" is another possible paedophile discussed. We hear how neighbours are suspicious about the "individual" and their intentions towards local children and one is given the impression we're finally at least seeing a gender neutral scenario or perhaps even a female sex offender discussed. However this all change in the final paragraph where it's revealed that the character in question is an offender though perhaps not thought to be a risk because "he is co-operating with monitoring arrangements".

The two remaining characters supposedly representing likely scenarios are both "new boyfriends" . It' essentially the same scenario twice, the only difference being the source of the concern. One is where a mother wants to know more about someone she is dating, whereas in the second case the relationship is more developed and the concern instead comes from the grandparents.

In total we've got five possible paedophiles (or even actual paedophiles in some cases), every single one of them is a man. The scenarios manage to be perfectly gender neutral in terms of the possible victims of these sex offenders so why demonise all men in this way?

Last year the BBC produced an article asking "are there women paedophiles?" . It comes to the conclusion that there are indeed plenty of female paedophiles though notes how they often go undetected. It states that "society's different attitude to women offenders is reflected in the language of the media reporting it" and the writer goes on to say that "that victims suffered a peculiar sense of isolation and stigma because this form of abuse was not so widely recognised."

To be honest I couldn't' have put it much better myself. By ignoring female paedophiles whoever came up with these five scenarios is not only unfairly stigmatising men, but it's making it easier for female child abusers and mean their victims feel less able to come forward. Despite the lack of effort in detecting such abusers and the reluctance in victims coming forward, research still puts the percentage of female paedophiles at up to 20%. Therefore we should certainly have seen one female abuser featured for the sake of accuracy yet we didn't even see a single gender neutral scenario thus thoroughly reinforcing the myth that only men sexually abuse children.

The misandry doesn't stop at pretending there aren't' any female paedophiles either. There is vast dishonesty in the identify of the parties concerned about potential paedophiles too.  Every single scenario in the piece either features a parent who's gender is undisclosed worried about a random neighbour/coach, or a mother/grandparent worried about a boyfriend. Nothing wrong with that you might think, but lets consider the reality of the situation and the options open to the parties involved.

If a mother is so worried about a potential new partner that he might be a paedophile then it's pretty obvious there isn't any level of trust in the relationship and she's surely going to find someone else rather than instigate a police investigation? On the other hand a father cannot put a stop to his ex wife's new relationship and he actually faces far more barriers in terms of contact with the child than almost any other male on the planet. Therefore fathers are the one's mostly likely to make use of Sarah's law, and they'd be quite right to do so given that one of the most dangerous environment for a child is with their mother and her latest boyfriend.

Some readers may well be sceptical of the above assertions, but they're not just random likely suggestions based on probabilities - the actual evidence from the four Sarah's Law trials  shows these fathers to be the main users of Sarah's Law, with mothers not even mentioned as one of the smaller groups making requests.

So the question is who exactly is responsible for such dishonest writing? The earliest trace of the article I can find is actually a BBC piece from 2008 by Dominic Casciani, I've contacted him and he informs me the piece was based upon Home Office publicity material and this really is very worrying indeed. It's not the BBC pretending that there are no female paedophiles, they're merely giving coverage to the sexist lies manufactured at the Home Office.

How can we possibly protect victims of female paedophiles if we refuse to acknowledge their existence? Lets hope the new coalition government put an end to such sexism and starts protecting all children rather than just those with the "correct" type of abuser.

by John Kimble

COALITION'S NEW PUBLIC BODY ASPIRATION HEAPS ON MORE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN

As each day goes by the Coalition Government is exhibiting more and more of the Marxist feminist anti-male traits of its predecessor. As set out here it is backtracking on equality issues all the time extinguishing any hope that men will no longer be treated as second class citizens.

Last week, the Coalition Government announced that it had aspirations on the following:

1. By the end of the Parliament at least half of all new appointees being made to the boards of public bodies will be women

2.Business Minister Edward Davey and Lynne Featherstone, Minister for Equalities, have today announced that Lord Davies of Abersoch will develop a business strategy to increase the number of women on the boards of listed companies in the UK (covered here and here).

As this site and any one who believes in equality knows, positive action means negative action for someone else and that someone else is always men. This is what makes the Equality Act anything but about equality, when employers can discriminate against people because of their gender (the powers not yet taken by the Governement - interesting)

This of course is no difference to what Harman, Flint, the Fawcett Society and the Equalities Commission wanted before the election. Plus Ca Change.

The Government has tried to couch the policy on public bodies by stating that it will be based on merit. But we all know what happens in the real world of politics behind closed doors.

Good men will be weeded out at the selection process, subtle pressure put on public bodies to meet their target, even non-subtle targets (you'll lose funding if you don't appoint a woman), retiring men being replaced automatically by a women and of course there will be the full blown pressure put on public bodies to toe the line. Now this aspiration has been made, Harman will not let them forget it.

This is not an aspiration, in the real body politic world this is a hard and fast policy and woe betide any public body not meeting it. Because in reality if you have an aspiration you will do all you can to achieve it and if it looks like it is not working you will move heaven and earth to do so, and blow the issues of meritocracy or legality. Has any Government not wanted to meet an aspiration and gear policy both overtly and covertly towards meeting it? Never.

This aspiration is a policy and it is the end of meritocracy. All that matters is your gender, your ability is irrelevant.

Posted by Skimmington

Media Coverage - Telegraph, Independent, Independent

ANOTHER ANTI-MALE MYTH IS UNDERMINED - HOUSEWORK AND CHILDCARE

One of the stars who stands up for men (and women) and brings an injection of academic common sense and realism in the fight for equality and honest debate is Dr Catherine Hakim at the LSE. She really lays into the myth-making of the feminists.

She has been outspoken before on the Equality Act and speaks sense on the gender pay gap.

This week she published a report in Renewal (press release and report), a journal for social democracy, where she said that:

"Feminists are wrong to claim that men should do a larger share of the housework and childcare because on average, men and women already do the same number of hours of productive work. In fact, if we consider the hours spent doing both paid work and unpaid household, care and voluntary work together, men already do more than their fair share..."

and also as keen by this case, she says that:

"Furthermore, there is evidence that men are beginning to demand the same options and choices as women, with more claims of sex discrimination from men. Policy makers need to be aiming for gender-neutral policies that cater for all three main lifestyle choices..."

The importance of this report cannot be said enough.

Not just because it shatters another of the anti-male myths used by feminists to beat down men by suggesting they are slackers leaving women to work and then do all the housework while they skive off down the pub, it also highlights the choice that women make. This is the cause of the gender pay gap not discrimination which is what Flint, Harman and the Fawcett Society think.

Lastly, what is great about this report is that it is written by a women.

It shouldn't matter of course but if it had been written by a man, the report would have been ignored, condemned and patronised with the "he would say that would't he?" nonsense.

Posted by Skimmington

Media Coverage - Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph plus Neil Lyndon in the Telegraph

THERESA MAY'S LEAKED LETTER SHOWS MEN STILL SECOND CLASS

There is always the hope that when a new Government comes in, things may change, the site certainly hoped so. However, we have already had the bringing forward of the state retirement age for men, then the backtracking on the rape anonymity issue and now we have been shown the true colours of Theresa May, the Minister for Women and Equalities.

The Guardian revealed today that Theresa May had written to the Chancellor George Osborne before he gave his Emergency Budget to warn him that it could break equality laws. How so?

Well, under the Gender Equality Duty, when policies are formed they must take into account the impact they have on the differing groups in society. However, accriodng to Theresa May, one group which makes up 49% of the population does not count, can you guess who?

In her letter she contends that because of cuts in public spending, there were real risks that women, the disabled, the elderly and those from an ethnic background would be disproportionately affected. Also she said that women are employed in public services and also use them more, they could be disproportionately affected.

Once again, what this shows is that the Government, whether blue/yellow or red not only does not count men as equals (not withstanding that some men obviously fall into these groups but certainly not white men/boys) but also do not even given an iota of thought to the wrongful generalisations they make.

(1) There is the assumption that all men and women should be just lumped into their politically correct defined tick boxes and that all those in the boxes are the same and have more advantages/disadvantages than those in the other box.

If a part of the public sector is cut and job losses ensue then it depends on where those cuts are (it could be a male dominated area as much as a female one - the police service and armed forces are undergoing large cuts but the NHS which is female dominated is ring-fenced!), plus it is about individuals not gender.

If a man loses a job it is of equal tragedy as a woman losing her job. May suggests not, she suggests that a women losing her job is more of a tragedy than a man losing his job.

May also makes the common but fatal assumption that men and women live in isolation. If a woman loses her job in the public sector, it will also affect any husband/boyfriends/son/father she has.

(2)  May says that because women use public services more, then cuts will affect them more. Baloney.

Firstly, I come back to the false assumption. If a woman uses health care for herself or takes her children to the doctors, is May saying that the man is not affected if his children/wife/parneter/sister are suffering from health cuts.

The same applies to education, cuts on schools means cuts in services for children and the last time I checked children had fathers as well as mothers. Plus, as boys are so far behind girls now educationally, any cuts will affect boys!

Also there will be plenty more examples as well.

(3) This is the most concerning.

What May is effectively doing in a Harmanesque way, is to pressurise Osborne to skew his Budget towards cutting services and jobs in male dominated parts of the public sector to 'even things up' if you like.

Essentially if you cut services or jobs in a female dominated area, then you need to do the same in a male dominated area (of course she again makes the false assumption that if a man loses his job it does not affect any woman that he shares his life with).

This is pure tokenism and special pleading and once again men are at the bottom of the heap. They are not an equality group, they are to be treated as second class victims of the cuts in jobs and public services. Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.

Posted by Skimmington

RAPE ANONYMITY U-TURN CONFIRMED

Just as we feared, the Coalition Government has chickened out of giving equal justice to rape defendents.

Howled down by Marxist feminists, it has run away scared leaving men who are falsely accused of rape to be torn to shreds by the media and have their lives ruined.

Can Caroline Flint, Yvette Cooper, Harriet Harman, Fiona Mactaggart, the Fawcett Society, Women's Aid and all the others look Grant Bowers in the eye and say that he is just collateral damage and its just hard luck.

His interview on BBC 1 Newsbeat is a reminder of the damage this defeat for equality will continue to have for generations to come.   

Coverage - BBC, The Guardian.

CANCER RESEARCH UK IN SEXISM COVER UP

Previously this blog covered Cancer Research's sexist Race for Life fund-raising event exposing why such discrimination is so wrong. As esteemed author Brian Clegg stated so eloquently  when discussing the subjects: "just because it's for a good cause doesn't justify discrimination".

Dissatisfaction with the antics of Cancer Research UK is becoming increasing widespread, a quick search on Google shows just how many people are concerned about their sex discrimination against men. Protest videos are even to be found on Youtube and it appears that all this pressure is finally starting to have an effect.

Firstly it has emerged that CRUK are now attempting to hide the inherently sexist nature of Race for Life. For example their recent press adverts now neglect to mention that men are barred from participating in the event. Luckily there are laws against misleading adverting such as this, and I can exclusively reveal that veteran men's rights campaigner John Taylor (with a little help from this blog) successfully forced the organisation to stop producing misleading adverts via the Adverting Standards Authority. If readers of the blog could keep an eye on future Race for Life publicity for any misleading information I'm sure John would appreciate it.

A second change in the strategy of Cancer Research UK seems to be their attempt to censor information about Race for Life sexism from the internet. The Wikipedia article on the subject previously gave an excellent and balanced summary of the issue and the history of Race for Life. However, recent unnamed edits removed information such as how the event was initially only concerned with female cancers and how CRUK responded to criticisms of sexism. It has now become apparent that these edits were made from CRUK's own offices and rather ironically, they even removed links to their own press release about how men have a "significantly greater" risk of cancer and higher mortality rates!

It's often claimed the organisation neglects men, but to go so far as deleting such mentions of men's suffering is almost beyond belief and such edits are a clear breach of Wikipedia rules on Conflicts of Interest. CRUK's misleading adverting could possibly have been considered to be an oversight, but the Wikipedia censorship places the issue in a whole new light.

We place a great deal of importance on fairness and honesty on this blog so it should be noted that CRUK is far from the only UK cancer or health organisation giving vastly disproportionate attention to women. The Macmillian cancer charity has been equally guilty in neglecting prostate cancer though I'm not aware of any obvious or systematic discrimination in terms of banning men from most fund-raising activities.

As a charity relying on people's generous donations and goodwill, CRUK has a duty to be open and honest about what it does. These donations fund the misleading adverts and the salaries of the CRUK employee's censoring Wikipedia. Surely it would be much cheaper and easier (not to mention fairer) to have fund-raising events open to everyone instead of banning every single male in the country from most event? There would certainly be less of a need for a cover up. Either way, it's becoming apparent that pressure on the charity is barring fruit and one has to wonder for how much longer their position can remain tenable.

by John Kimble

MEN'S HOUR - SECOND EDITION

I know there has been lots of cracking debate on the first edition and some of us were disappointed.

However, I felt tonight was far far better especially as it did tackle some real issues and mixed it with some humour. The issue on being overweight and also the mental health needs of soliders was spot on. The presenter Tim Samuels vastly improved and lets hope this continues.

7 to 8 out of 10.

COALITION GOVERNMENT LOOK LIKE CHICKENING OUT OVER RAPE ANONYMITY

Just as many on this site worried about, the Sunday Telegraph reports that there will be no legislation on anonymity up and until charge (which is worthless anyway) let alone until conviction. They are looking at some sort of fudge involving a "Gentlemen's agreement" for newspapers and bloggers not to report names until charge. Pathetic.

Looks like they have chosen to cower in the corner against the onslaught of the Marxist feminists who want men to be secondbest and not equal. Instead of standing up for equal justice, they have run away. This was the first skirmish between the Government and the Marxist feminists and the Marxist feminists have won.

Their victorymeans there is little hope for male equality in the UK, not just because of the decision but because the Coalition Government bottled it. They are chicken.

Posted by Skimmington