The Rights Of Man

RECOGNITION FOR MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE - SOME PROGRESS BUT STILL LIKE PUSHING BOULDERS UPHILL

A constant issue is often the way that the media forget that men can also be victims of domestic abuse.

Part of the problem is that they are constantly being fed by organisations like Women's Aid and Refuge who live off the mega-million-pound domestic abuse industry and do not want the money shared around to male victims. Also they are being fed only side of the story by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission as well as organisations like the Government's Equalities Office (which incidentally has a budget of £69 million reduced from a massive £83 million in 07/08!!).

But legally the Government has to ensure legislation applies equally to male and female victims and often it will make announcements that affect all victims but these are written up by the media as if they only apply to female victims. A recent article (The Media's Invisible Men) on the ManKind Initiative website (they have also update their stats package) shows how this occurred recently when the Home Secretary  and Minister for Women spoke about a New York style system of keeping tabs on perpetrators.

Much of the media then converted the story into one about wife beaters when the system applies to perpetrators from both genders and Theresa May never mentioned wife beaters once. The Guardian repeated the trick in this article. Still May is hardly blameless in forgetting about men on this issue.

There has been progress in some quarters though and some has been covered here on the site  but additionally.

Firstly, new Oxford West and Abingdon MP, Nicola Blackwood, covered the issue of male victims in her Maiden Speech in Parliament, though this is tempered by the fact that Baroness Scotland has maintained her position as Chairman of the All Party Group on Domestic Violence (with Caroline Flint alarmingly as Secretary) so male victims have absolutely no chance of getting any semblance of a hearing or recognition with those two running it.

Secondly, a few new groups have sprung up including in Derbyshire (good ITV feature on it) and in Scotland (which must be better than the Government funded Mens Advice Line who are running a Scottish helpline and are a sub charity of Respect - who do nothing for female perpetrators becuase they do not believe they exist). De Gwynedd Women's Aid also changed its name to show it supported men as well.

Other coverage not covered on this site before includes the plight of Kieron Bell (This Morning and Daily Mirror).

Some progress is being made but it still does feel like it is pushing a boulder uphill.

Posted by Skimmington

THE FEMINIST WORLDVIEW AT THE BBC

Well, it's my first real go at blogging and, as is probably usual in these situations, I kind of feel it has been thrust upon me by circumstances more than anything else.

The story started a few weeks ago, where on a long car journey home from work I happened upon the views of one Lynne Franks, as she was asked for her impression of "Men's Hour", an experimental show for men that pitched itself (no joke) as "Women's Hour's cheeky younger brother". Lynne was asked her opinion of whether the show was necessary and worthwhile, and proceeded to heap scorn on both the show, and the notion that men as a group might find more media attention helpful.

After spending the remainder of the drive quietly seething to myself, as soon as I got home I wrote an indignant email to the feedback section of the show - the full text of which you can find here.

I got what I would call a cursory response; more intrigued as to why I might possibly have anything to complain about than, well, appreciating and understanding the complaint and perhaps even (gasp) apologising for the broadcast.

After returning from my holidays last week there was something more promising: an email from the BBC's iPM programme, which deals with listener feedback. They were planning a "Men's Hour" version of iPM, including interviews with a man who survived breast cancer, and a man who ran a 'domestic violence unit', in their words "...a field so dominated by women that he has very interesting things to say about how his co-workers view him and the effect on his own masculinity." This is a very interesting choice of words, and one that I will return to before I finish the article.

A brief phone call followed who, to the production team’s credit, were very enthusiastic and eager to have my feedback and input into the show. I had a real hope that this show might be worth listening to, and really raise men's issues, from a men's perspective.

You can hear the full broadcast here, if you are in the UK and until Saturday I believe.

So what did I think?

A brave but severely misguided attempt.

The piece on male breast cancer was very interesting - John Nestor tells the story of his experiences being treated for the cancer, alongside his late wife. But why no mention of the disgusting 'Race for Life'? This would seem extremely relevant to the story, especially as it is yet another example of blatant apartheid against men. The "men's issue" here should have been Race for Life, as well as the lack of funding for male cancers, not just the occasional breast cancer case within men.

The piece on domestic violence was a vivid reminder of just why we need a men's rights movement. I guess I should have been forewarned by the intro piece at the beginning of the show: "..dedicated to the things men do, like domestic violence".

Then Simon Currs 'Domestic abuse partnership manager' from Cambridgeshire came on and was if anything as sad to listen to as Lynne Franks. This guy not only has significant mistrust towards the male gender as a gender, he has been so programmed during his 'training back in 2002' that he considers domestic violence to be a gender crime. This flies in the face of the a comprehensive study by California State University, which examined 275 'scholarly investigations', and concluded that "women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners". So why does Simon describe DA as a gender crime? You can get some hints from his comments about the 'King of the castle' character that he goes on to describe:

"I wasn't sure of the history and dynamics of domestic abuse, really and fully until I undertook some training back in 2002, based around an individual called the 'dominator', a male individual who exhibits certain abusive characteristics. The idea of this 'dominator' really made me look at myself, my use of language, the way I conduct myself, the beliefs I have, and certainly, at some level, the character of the 'dominator' is exhibited by all men.

"'The king of the castle'; I'm sure you'll recognise the stereotype.

"He has his own chair at home, sits with the remote control on the arm of the chair and a beer in the other and scratching... his balls, if you like. I know its a bit of a stretch to get from that type of individual to an abusive personality, but its indicative of the types of behaviours that all men exhibit - I certainly do it..

"That is me acting in my capacity as king of the castle."

Er... what!?

Having a favourite chair, drinking a beer, using a remote control, and scratching your balls are all signs of a potential abuser? A good editor could have cut this right down to the words 'x chromosome'. So wait a minute… if a woman has a favourite chair, drinks wine while watching TV and using a remote control (gasp), and occasionally adjusts her bra strap, should she be on the watch list? Or is this just another way for feminists to basically describe men as evil, by their very nature?

This is why I know that Simon Currs is a feminist. He views all males with distrust, including himself, and 'realises' that deep down inside, every man has domestic abuser traits just waiting to come out. I suspect that the 'training' he undertook in 2002 was in fact simply feminist brainwashing.

In short, Simon Currs is the last person we should be hearing from on a show broadcast to publicise 'men's issues'. A domestic violence feature from a 'men's perspective' should feature the severe under-reporting of domestic violence against men (briefly mentioned, admittedly), but then feature details of shelters for men, men's stories about abuse they have suffered, the reaction they got and the support, if any, when they reported it. It should also mention the fact that for every pound spent on DA shelters and support for men, three and a half grand is spent on women. Simon says that, in Cambridgeshire, the ratio of men to women reporting DA is 15% / 85%. Even if this is correct (which is doubtful), why, on average, do female DA victims get 99.97% of the funding?

The answer is simple. There is a gender crime being committed, and it isn't Domestic Abuse against women, it is the ignorance of the needs of male victims.

So, to summarise. To the BBC, thanks for the effort, but no thanks. All you have done here is to demonstrate what you think are 'men's issues', and to frame them through the feminist weltanschauung lens of the Beeb.

I see this time and time again from the BBC. Here is the most recent example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10826350

Can you see where you went wrong there? I sincerely hope so.

 

Posted by Jon Horridge

FOR EVERY £3,500 SPENT ON FEMALE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS, £1 IS SPENT ON THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS

Last week a hugely significant and historic debate took place in Scotland when the Parliament got round to finally discussing domestic violence against men. As highlighted in the discussions it's quite shameful that it took 11 years after the initial Liberal Democrat proposal to actually have the debate, particularly given that debating "violence against women" is quite literally an annual event.

The debate itself makes fascinating viewing and a number of those taking part really should be commended for their knowledge of the issues and determination to expose the truth with particular credit going to Mike Rumbles of the Lib Dems. The most positive aspect of the proceedings was the recognition of how badly the Scottish Parliament was failing male victims. It was noted that the Scottish Executive had spent some £100 million helping females victims, compared to £28,000 on men. Feminists moan about all sorts of inequalities such as supposed discrimination in pay, yet even with their skills at fiddling the figures I doubt they can find any area where the disparity in government spending between the sexes amounts to more than 350,000%. As noted in the debate, such a lack of funding means there's no actual helpline based in Scotland for men, and further still no services that victims can be referred to one they call the helpline. It's  akin to setting up a "999" call centre but neglecting to employ any fireman, police or paramedics.

Another positive side of the debate was the recognition that abuse takes many forms, with one of the more serious being women denying fathers access to their children. It was also mentioned how young men suffer more abuse than any other group and there was a promise to investigate the disparity between the reported number of male victim in surveys compared with the actual of them feeling able to report the matter to the police. Similarly it was acknowledged that most domestic violence against men is of course committed by women.

An interesting aspect of the debate was the quite disgraceful conduct of the MSPs from the Labour Party with the event exposing their incredibly backward and one-sided approach to the issue (though it was refreshing to see the rapidly growing gap between their sexist views and those of almost every other party). First of all we got to hear from Johann Lamont,  who sought to add an amendment to the proposed motion stating ""that overwhelmingly victims are women". Fortunately MSPs from other parties were on hand to remind Ms Lamont of the work of Parity and the excellent Statistics Authority who had already taken numerous government departments to task for using such a dishonest and inaccurate statement which downplayed the large proportion of domestic violence victims which were men. Ms Lamont wasn't finished there either, her next attack on male victims of domestic violence was to suggest that many male victims were lying, and further still were in fact perpetrators of domestic violence themselves! Now I don't' doubt that some men lie on this issue, but given that the police invariably take the woman's side who exactly is in the best position to make false allegations of abuse? Lamont will no doubt have been aware of the gender feminist Labour colleagues telling us how female rape victims will supposedly not be believed if anonymity was introduced, yet here we've got an elected official herself denying men's suffering and accusing genuine victims of not only making it up but actually being guilty of the offence themselves! Further still, it emerged she had repeated such an accusation on a radio broadcast earlier that morning too! Lamont also exposed her contempt for the facts in other dishonest statements about men and children, even repeating the discredited and disgusting assertion that "Paedophilia is almost exclusive to men" whilst also downplaying the amount of violence women commit against children.

Of course Labour can't pretend all male domestic violence perpetrators are liars or even the actual perpetrators of such offences, and they did begrudgingly acknowledge the existence of male victims with Bill butler significantly involved in the debate. So what was his attitude to these people faced with begin in such a desperate situation? Did he perhaps propose more funding, or setting up an actual helpline in Scotland itself, an advertising campaign or maybe even a shelter? No, Mr Butler instead sought to excuse women's violence against men. He told us how "When women use violence in intimate relationships it is often, though not always, in self defence or defence of a child or as a form of resistance." When Labour politicians talk about violence against women they always tell us you should "never hit a woman" and "there's no excuse for abuse" yet here was a Labour MSP justifying the abuse of men and even blaming the victim suggesting they are child abusers or a person who somehow need "resisting" whatever that means. His views were branded as "shameful" by the Liberal Democrats and quite rightly so.

My one criticism of the event is the failure to recognise the harmful anti-male agenda of the Men's Advice Line, the organisation receiving the £28,000. The group behind "service" is unapologetically gender feminist in it's outlook and mainly concerned with male perpetrators and female victims. There was some recognition of the fact that the helpline scheme hadn't gone out to tender with the Sottish Executive had only considering the Men's Advice Line or a Scottish feminist group as candidates. However, whistle quite rightly attacking the disgusting attitudes of the Labour MSPs to male victims, the politicians didn't seem to realise they were handing over money to an organisation with the exact same agenda and prejudices. When vulnerable male victims make a phone call they wouldn't be getting a genuinely sympathetic response, but instead someone with exactly the same attitudes as Johann Lamont, i.e. someone who believes that many men lie about being victims of abuse whereas women almost always tell the truth. Perhaps worse still, their words and experiences will almost certainly be twisted to suggest they were the perpetrator of the offence, with such statistics used by misandrists, even in the Scottish Parliament itself, as an excuse to deny help to men or to downplay their suffering..

On a more positive note we did see a tremendous understanding of the issues, for example the quite brilliant Mike Rumbles stated "I hope that we will all see the evil of domestic abuse for what it is—an evil that is perpetrated on the weaker member of a relationship. It is not a gender issue. If we treat it as such, no progress will be made in tackling its true evil. Members should not continue with the mistake of saying that it is simply a gender issue. It is about the abuse of one person in a relationship by their partner. Once we recognise that, we might at last get on the right track and have a chance of helping all those victims who really do need our help." However, such tremendous understanding of the problem didn't merely come from the Liberal Democrats, but also from the Conservatives and even some SNP members such as Christine Grahame. She quoted a domestic violence victim who stated "I find it painful that the Scottish Government has funded a series of TV ads for Christmases highlighting the awfulness of domestic violence in which every example is of male violence against women. It hurts to see messages on buses that men are violent and women are victims. Not a hint that it can ever be the other way. I have no sympathy for men who assault a wife or partner. But I object to my own experience being disregarded." These words led to calls for a campaign or even just a single poster showing males being abused by women, though alas no action was promised.

When writing the conclusions and summaries for pieces such as this I generally have to explain the problem myself and condemn the guilty parties where so many other have failed to do so, either due to a lack of understanding of the issues or a lack of interest in genuine equality. Refreshingly in this instance I can simply quote MSP Mary Scanlon who summed up the situation quite brilliantly herself: "To every male victim and associated child in Scotland, I say that Labour is not listening to you. According to Labour, men feel no pain."

by John Kimble

THE NEW STATESMAN PUBLISHES HATE SPEECH AGAINST MEN

Recently the New Statesman recruited extreme feminist Labour supporter Laurie Penny to write a blog on their website.

In her latest piece Penny writes of how her demeanour often means men sometimes suggest to her that she might perhaps smile. Now of course any reasonable person knows smiling to be a positive thing which has health benefits for the wearer and for those around them, something that should clearly be encouraged. However, Penny takes great exception to such a recommendation and somehow links it to "men's indisputable right to pass public judgement on absolutely any woman’s appearance and demeanour". She seems willing for one man to make such a suggestion as long as it is early in the day, but be warned if you make such a comment in the evening because as Penny states "that sort of thing makes even the gentlest soul long to execute the scumbags with a great big gun." Yes - that's right - if you are a man who suggests a woman should smile then your are deserving of execution for committing such a heinous act.

This brings us on the the main content of the article which a a violent feminist computer game, allowing the man-haters such as  Penny to fulfil their sick fantasies and execute men who they deem to be sexist in some way. Penny quotes Ellie Levenson author of The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism, who states "it’s definitely not feminist to fantasise about shooting men, although I can imagine it might be quite satisfying sometimes" Just imagine if the comments of these two women were about how satisfying it is to fanatise about killing black people, or Jews or gays or how they are scumbags in need of executing? The authors would be out of a job instantly and be facing an investigation by the authorities at the very least. The comments are a million times worse than anytihng written by  Jan Moir, yet her article provoked an outcry the likes of which we've not seen in years. Admittedly the New Statesman have done the decent thing and removed the hate speech but we really need to see a full apology and some wider condemnation.

Penny's sexist doesn't stop there either. She goes on to further apologise for the game by asking a series of questions, such as "What if we wanted to take bloody revenge on our oppressors?", "What if we wanted to create fear and havoc?" and "What if we wanted to rule the world?" It really is very troubling stuff.
I discovered this story though Iain Dale's quite excellent blog, though some of the concern there appears to be in the timing of the article as much as the content itself. To be honest I find such an argument quite offensive and timing merely compounds the issue rather than being of much significance. The fact is that the piece is sexist hate speech against men encouraging genocide against them. It isn't suitable for publication just after a gun massacre, but neither is it suitable for publication at any other time either.

It really disturbs me that that it's still socially acceptable in some circles to discuss the genocide of men as something that might be appropriate or at best some sort of slightly regrettable "final solution". Harriet Harman spoke about men fleeing the country if she got into power and Penny's piece comes from the very same mindset (albeit one far, far more extreme than even Harman).

Ironically, Penny's previous article consisted of a rant about violence against women where she condemns filmmakers as apologists for "thoughtless sexualised violence". She mentions Danny Dyer's "joke" of advising a reader to cut his girlfriends face and quotes Laurie Olivia who complains about how the media dehumanises female victims of violence. Now I'm sure some of these points are valid, but Penny's antics are immeasurably worse. She's excusing thoughtless violence, dehumanising men and urging far more extreme actions than Dyer all in a couple of sentences, and she's done so just several days after complaining about how violence against women is encouraged by the media. It's a classic case feminist double standards at their very finest.

Unsurprisingly, Penny's sexism has also gained her employment at the Guardian in addition to her role at New Statesman. I'd urge readers to write to these publications airing your concerns about this hate speech by their employee. Obviously it's the New Statesman who bear the most responsibility here and lets hope they do the decent thing an write full apology explaining why such an article is so sickening and harmful to the 40% of domestic violence victims who these publications continue to belittle and ignore (and worse).

by John Kimble

(SOME) HELP IN SCOTLAND FOR MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

In December last year, this site updated the situation in Scotland where there seemed to have been moves afoot fro some official recognition of male victims of domestic abuse. A petition (PE1307) had been put down in the Scottish Parliament by Jackie Walls and Alison Waugh.

The follow up to this was that a debate then took place before the Petitions Committee on 26th January 2010 where Alison spoke to the committee alongside two men who had been victims. Following the meeting (which also received good media coverage - Scottish TV and BBC) submissions were invited for later discussion.

What was interesting was that the Petitions Commitee made up of Backbench Members of the Scottish Parliament discussed the issue seriously and were clearly moved by the two men who spoke anonymously to them. 

The submissions that were requested showed the extent of the hostility of some organisations to the whole concept of male victims. Made worse as some supposedly believe in equal opportunities but do not want to accept men as equals (see Edinburgh Council's response). The ManKind Initiative response was typically feisty though.

Following this, the Scottish Government launched a help-line for a year (March Press Release, April Press Release of launch) bizarrely with English-based charity, the Men's Advice Line, who as a subgroup of Respect (the perpetrator charity) notoriously look at domestic violence from a feminist perspective (whatever that is). Alison and Jackie's organisation (Abused) Men in Scotland surely should have been considered.

The petition still remains live and was discussed further in May and the whole issue will be discussed on Thursday 10th June between 14.55 to 17.00 GMT and should be available to watch live on Holyrood TV.

At least this issue is starting to be taken seriously in Scotland, though there will inevitably be some resistance and it seems strange that a Scottish group is not running the help-line. With the new Coalition Government for the whole UK, let us hope that they make up the mantle on an issue  disgracefully ignored by the previous UK Government.

SEXISM AND DISHONESTY IN THE GREEN PARTY MANIFESTO

From reading the newspapers, watching the tv of even visiting this blog one might get the impression that in politics, misandry is something at which only the Labour Party truly excels. However, one look at the Green Party's manifesto shows just how widespread and acceptable discrimination against men is in our society.

A particular concern of the Green Party appears to be the gender pay gap. Now don't get me wrong, women do earn slightly less than men, but it's almost all about choice - there aren't any women doing the same job as men for less money. Men work longer hours, less sociable shifts, do more dangerous and unpleasant tasks and even travel much further to work than women. And it's not just more hours that men put in - they're forced to put more years in at work too, with women getting to retire a full five years earlier than men. Rather than pointing out this direct discrimination and making it campaign issue, the Green's prefer to focus only on it's financial consequences which, just as with the pay gap, is less money as a result of doing less work. 

It's already illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender in employment and pay, yet the Greens also want to "enforce penalties against employers who continue to implement unequal pay". In other words, if your happen to be an employer who's male employees are more talented and experienced than the females, then you're going to be in trouble if you reward such talent and hard work through say bonuses, commission and promotions. The Green's really don't seem to appreciate or encourage success, all they want is equal outcomes and the same pay for less work.

The most despicable part of the Green's manifesto is the dishonesty in terms of the figures they use to justify their polices on pay gaps. The only statistics on the issue are in their statement that "the pay gap per hour between men and women remains as high as 38% for part-time workers". Now any reasonable person would assume the party here is stating that part time women get paid 38% less than their male colleagues also working part-time. However, this is absolutely false, what Caroline Lucas and her colleagues have done in reality is to compare part time women's wages with those of full-time men! They're comparing apple with oranges and not even admitting it either! Given that Harriet Harman attempted use a 23% figure for the pay gap was officially deemed to be misleading, then I'd say the Green's preferred measure is nothing short of a lie.

Given the party's obsession with the pay gap anyone would think the Green's just wanted women to be promoted and paid extra because of their gender and didn't care in the slightest about minor details such as actually being competent or the best person for the job. However, we don't need to speculate as to their position here, as they gone on to actually admitt eh truth of the matter. The Green's manifesto states that they "require 40% of board members of larger companies to be female within five years." Thus the party not only wants to artificially raise women's earnings, they also want to force our most important and best companies to get rid of some of their best staff, instead filling the positions based of a person's genitalia. I'm sure we do need more women in business, but just as with politics any so called "positive" discrimination is certain to be a disaster and actually harm not just the economy, but the prospects of women themselves in the longer term. I suppose the resulting reduction in GDP as a result of this policy would at least help to cut carbon emissions if nothing else, perhaps that's the purpose of the policy?

In the Labour Party manifesto we saw a commitment to sexism in terms of domestic violence policy, yet the Green Party's publication is arguable worse still. Not only dot hey use dishonest terminology such as "violence against women" when referring to domestic violence, they even state a policy of "providing funding for Women’s Refuges" and really seem to be pretending that domestic violence is a gender issue. Official figures show us that 40% of victims of domestic violence are men yet Caroline Lucas seems to believe that only women suffer domestic violence, and even if men suffer, they certainly aren't worthy of obtaining shelter and safety from their abuser as that's for women only. Interestingly, Lucas is not just ignoring heterosexual male victims here, but also homosexuals too - a group suffering more domestic violence than any other. You would have though that she might at least be sensitive to their needs given the demographics of her constituency.

So what about the positives of the Green Party's manifesto? There's a brief mention of paternity leave, which is far from unique these days. To be honest, the only real sentence of any genuine merit regarding discrimination against men is a recognition that poorer men suffer from low life expectancy, though there was no actual indication of how the Green's are going to tackle such an issue.

If anything, the Green Party appears to view men as a problem, for example emphasising how so much crime is committed by young males. They propose tackling this by raising the criminal age of responsibility, opening some youth centres and improving literacy in prisons. Don't' get me wrong, these are commendable actions, but it's far too little and far too late and misses the point entirely. Young men need a relationship with both their parents and a decent and fair education system if they are to succeed in life and be an asset to our communities. They should be taught to read by good teachers in primary schools and by their mothers and fathers and grandparents, not in a dingy prison cell.

I find it somewhat bizarre that a document with no less that fourteen specific LGBTI related policies pretends issues pertaining to half the population don't really exist. There certainly wasn't anything in the manifesto on the gender education gap, nor male suicide, false allegations nor the most important issue of all, that of family breakdown. Even on the odd occasion the party stumbles across a key equality issue they offer no real solutions.

I can remember a time when the Green Party was a genuinely forward thinking, fair, honest and progressive party which was genuinely a force for good and brought real change in UK politics. However, parts of their manifesto are now so sexist and discriminatory they could easily have been written by Julie BIndel. If the party truly is committed to "work to ensure respect for everyone whatever their ethnicity or gender" then I'd suggest they could make a start by re-writing their manifesto, removing both the lies and the discriminatory polices.

LABOUR'S SEXIST MANIFESTO FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION

Most major parties have now published their manifestos for the 2010 General Election. Over the next week we'll be reviewing the proposals of the various parties analysing any obvious misandry as well as pro gender equality content. Let's start by taking a look at Labour's plans for the next five years.

Given their track record since 1997, not to mention their sexist MPs, and the use of All Women Shortlists, the Labour Party is a almost certainly the most sexist party in Britain. However, for the purpose of this post, lets stick solely to the content of the manifesto as we are going to do with the other parties. The first sign of sexism is their boasts regarding the disastrous Equality Act. This legislation allows employers to discriminate on the basis of gender when recruiting staff instead of choosing the best person for the job. Legalising sex discrimination really isn't a valid method of promoting "fairness across our society" as they claim. The manifesto cites how the Equality Act will increase equality of opportunity when it's actually reducing equality and pushing unfair equal outcomes instead.

Further notable sexism in Labour's manifesto concerns the area of domestic violence. Section 5:3 concerning domestic violence states "we are committed to zero tolerance of violence against women". Whilst such a commitment is impressive, we mustn't forget that Home Office figures show that 40% of domestic violence vicitms are men. It's quite sickening that so many domestic violence vicitms dont' even get the slightest mention, nevermind any sort of commitment to their well-being or deal with their attackers. The party do at least note how domestic violence had fallen by 50%, though unsurprisingly, under New Labour the number of male vicitms bucked the trend and actually risen significantly! Clearly the number of male vicitms is likely to continue to rise under a Labour government given such a willingness to pretend that female perpetrators don't exist.

Perhaps the most offensive part of labour's plans for the next five years is the section titled "Punishment and Reform". On the one hand it talks about giving longer sentences to the most violent and serious offenders, yet the next sentence makes a commitment to  "work to reduce the number of women, young and mentally ill people in prison". Given that violence by females is on of the fastest growing crimes in society and that the number of male domestic violence vicitms is increasing, then surely the two statements are completely contradictory? Further still, given that the police have largely ignored female paedophiles until recently and caught a shamefully small proportion of them, is the party suggesting that raping children isn't a serious crime? A Labour candidate yesterday suggested the Liberal Democrats would be giving the vote to the likes of Vanessa George, yet given the content of the manifesto, presumably his own party is going to go further and release her altogether!

We should note that the policies proposed here aren't just misandric, the manifestos is also extremely offensive and damaging to women. Labour are also lumping in adult females with children and the mentally ill. There's a clear suggestion that women aren't at all equal to men, instead they're some sort of child like and mentally deficient beings, incapable of telling right from wrong and thus immune from punishment. Ending such infantalisation of women would do far more for equality in the workplace than any so called "positive" discrimination or pay audits.

Labour talk about a commitment to "always put the victim first" in criminal cases, yet there's no mention of how they' will protect men form false allegation allegations and put a stop to the deadly consequences of such incredibly serious offences.

In the interests of balance, we should examine any positive aspects of the manifesto in terms of commitments to gender equality. However, having read the documents I saw no mention of the gender education gap, the suicide rate, deaths at work, men's health and poor life expectancy, nor even any mention of equal parenting. It's all very well Labour proposing slightly more time off for fathers, but if they can't actually get to see their kids or if requires the mother's permission then they're basically just rubbing salt into the wound for so many dads. Further still, proposing four week's paternity leave for fathers, and 52 for mothers seems strange at best. The only positive aspects of the document are the recognition of the importance of marriage and that the Family Courts are in need of review. Yet even when talking about issues such as helping parents back to work, they bizarrely continue their misandry by stating the importance of "especially" helping mothers out of poverty.

Rather tellingly, Labour's manifesto doesn't' even restrict misandry to these shores, there's also a commitment to doubling funding to the new UN Women's Agency. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that is as most of the UN tend to be only concerned with the needs of women as it is, even going as far as denying food to male earthquake vicitms. If nothing else this certainly demonstrates quite clearly Labour's contempt for men, not only at home, but abroad too.

NEW MISANDRIC GOVERNMENT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN AIMED AT TEENS

Yesterday saw the launch of one the most incredibly sexist government domestic abuse campaigns to date.

A series of TV, and radio ads, poster and a website were launched aimed at those aged 13-18 and urging boys "not to use violence against their girlfriends". That's right, they're not even trying to hide their sexism anymore. Every single poster in the campaign and every single video contains a male abusing a female. There isn't even the usual token male victim, not much mention of homosexual relationships (where abuse tends to be even more common than with heterosexuals). In the past it was more common for the government to outsource broadcast of such propaganda to anti-male charities such as Women's Aid, but they're now brazen enough to put their own name to the material now.

The sexist theme continues throughout the site. For example the FAQ section does contain some gender neutral questions, but five types of abuse listed are written in an exclusively male on female context. Even the one question referring to help for males victim still doesn't' dare suggest said abuse came form a female, presumably it's only gay males who get abused and all girls are sweet, pretty and innocent?

The hypocrisy of the campaign when it comes to discrimination is quite bizarre. Clearly every attempt has been made to be neutral in terms of race. For example two inter-racial couples are shown in the videos, one has a black male abusing a white female, whereas the other shows white male abusing a black female. Such balance is hugely commendable, but why does such equality only apply when dealing with race and never, ever with gender?

The site appears to attempt to justify it's gender based approach by stating "Research shows that suffering from abuse in relationships is more common for young women but young men can experience it too." In a away this is true, at least in terms of the 13-18 year target age group. But the same research also shows that as soon as these children grow grow up and reach adulthood the roles are reversed, and it's mostly males who are the victims. Therefore, given the government's (admittedly ridiculous) premise of only targeting the gender with the most victims, are we also to see a further £2 million spent telling 20-24 year old women to stop threatening, hitting and controlling their male partners?

One of the worst things about these campaigns is that even in the event of a  male victim seeing past the dishonesty and realising they need to get help, not charities that actually care about male victims are listed as a resource. Rather than being referred to the quite brilliant Mankind Initiative or a similarly gender neutral organisation, the feminist leaning organisation Respect have a monopoly. Such an organisation worships at the alter of gender based approaches to abuse rather than living in the real world. Is a boy really going to gain anything from talking to such obtuse people who only basically only really see males as the guilty party? In fact I imagine it could be quite a damaging experience for them. Why does the government happily provide lines to the gender feminists, at Respect, the Men's Advice Line, Refuge, Women Aid etc, but doesn't have the decency to give equal access to an organisation genuinely interested in helping men?

Finally, lets not forget who the the victims of this misandry are. Yes it you and I who have to pay the taxes funding this hatred of males, but the campaign itself is of course aimed at children. Therefore we're talking about gender feminists trying to impose their "violence against women and girls" nonsense on vulnerable, young developing minds and brainwashing them into feeling guilty perhaps even before they've started a proper relationship. Further still, the campaign is simultaneously campaign sending out the subconscious message that these boys can't really be victims either, thus further compounding the existing barriers which stop male vicitms from coming forward.

To do these awful things to adults is bad enough, but what we've got here is quite simply child abuse in my book. Domestic violence is a psychological issue and really has little or nothing to do with gender whatsoever. It really is time to put a stop to this nonsense and for the government to stop playing gender politics with people's lives.

BTW, I don't wish to promote this sick campaign by posting a link to the site. If you want to see it for yourself just search for "thisisabuse".

RECOGNITION OF MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE IN SCOTLAND AND WALES IMPROVES

Back in December, the site commented on events in Scotland regarding the campaign and petition led by Alison Waugh and Jackie Walls for the Scottish Government to support male victims.

On the 26th of January, the issue was discussed in the Scottish Parliament and was also featured in the media (BBC, Scotsman and The Sun) and it is clear that the Petitions Committee gave those speaking a fair hearing but also treated them with good grace. They have asked the Scottish Government to respond.

Earlier this month, a Women's Aid organisation in Wales realised that equality means equality when male victims are also supported. De Gwynedd Women's Aidis changing its name to De Gwynedd Domestic Abuse Service from April to ensure it is clear that it helps male victims. Three cheers to that. The ManKind Initiative put a submission into the Welsh Assembly's consultation on this issue (updated ManKind web-site) and as there is no more information, there does not seem to be a response to the consultation yet from the Welsh Assembly.

So progress in Scotland and Wales, but silence in England, only a strategy aimed at women and girls. We need a General Election.

By The Original Editor who thanks John for his help in continuing the site while I had a few things to sort out.We have two direct contributors now which is great.

 

SICKENING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MURDER AND TORTURE CASE

Last month saw one of the most sickening domestic violence cases I've ever come across. You may well have missed the story given the relative lack of coverage it received in the media, undoubtedly it would certainly be be front page material if the victim were female. The case involved Clare Nicolls torturing her partner Andrew Gardner ove several week, eventually resulting in his murder.

Although she was assisted by others, it's clear from the sentencing and evidence that she was the primary offender in the case and the dominant figure in the household. There's such a huge catalogue of abuses the victim suffered that I can't really include them all and you have to read several news articles to get something close to the full picture. In summary Mr Gardner:

• Had 100 injuries including 21 broken ribs, burns, cuts, abrasions, a massive head injury, bleeding on the brain and blood poisoning.
• Suffered whipping and cuts with a knife.
• Had karate practised on him by Nicholls.
• Was marked as a result of people playing horrific games of noughts on crosses on his body.
• Had abuse written on his body using nail varnish.
• Suffered starvation and further beatings any time he tried to "steal food".
• Was deprived of sleep, being beaten any time he should fall asleep.

Any time gender feminists seeks to belittle and refuse to help male domestic violence victims I strongly suggest referring to cases such as this. Of particular note is the fact Nichols actually got other members of the household to restrain the victim whilst she carried out the beatings. In fact, she even encouraged their children to attack the victim too!

The only good news from the case case is that Nicolls actually received a sizeable life sentence for her deeds as opposed to the usual female sentencing discount we see all to often in such cases. Of course not everything is equal though - there are no quotes from any domestic violence charities in any of the coverage as would occur with your typical female victim, and the term "domestic violence" is of course totally omitted from ant articles on the case.

It's little wonder we fail to help people such as Mr Gardner when the term "domestic violence" is strictly reserved for female vicitms.

Clare Nicholls has admitted killing 35-year-old

Court told of lover's words after final attack

Torture victim had 100 injuries, court told

Life sentences for Chilton torture murderers