The Rights Of Man

WHY DOES THE RATE OF MALE SUICIDE CONTINUE TO BE IGNORED?

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were having a drink and there was someone of a similar age drinking at the bar on his own but was clearly listening to conversations in the hope of being able to join in. So we let him join and spoke about football etc, the things men enjoy talking about. I left quite heartened because loneliness can be a real problem for men whether they are in or out of relationship or in and out of work.Seeing someone just staring into their pint is never a good sign.

Late last month, the latest suicide rates were published and they are disturbing reading. The trend continues that men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women. In 2010 4,231 men took their own lives (17.0 per 100,000) compared to and 1,377 women (5.3 per 100,000). It is an issue the site has raised a number of times (1).

As the Men's Health Forum point out, traditionally the highest age group for men has been 15-44 year old group (currently 16.7 per 100,000) but now it is the 45-74 age group (17.7 per 100,000). The groups are very broad so the Office for National Statistics should refine the groups in the future becuase men (and women) go through a number of life stages between 15-44 and 45-74 so by looking at smaller age ranges will help with conclusions and identifying the reasons why this happens.

The issue of male suicide continues to be an area with little attention especially from policy makers in the government and the health service and the equalities sector. The fact that three times as many men commit suicide than women is a clear inequality but the policy response is limited (not discussed in Parliament) and often the issue is completely ignored. You never hear the Equalities and Human Rights Commission raising it and you never hear of a big government or NHS initiative on this subject. Of course, if three times as many women than men were committing suicide it would always be mentioned. We all wait to see whether the government will actually do anything when it announces the results of its consultation later this year on the subject.

While there are great groups like CALM (a new London helpline and campaign last November) but they need more support and also more policy attention to ensure there are services to help and more awareness campaigns to encourage men to come forward.

In terms of why more men commit suicide, much attention is placed on those with underlying mental health problems but that can be a cop out because it deflects attention from those without those problems. With long-term unemployment for older men being higher than for younger men exacerbated by the recession, it is clear that will be one reason in particular. It also gives the lie that women are the biggest losers of the recession.

There is also the changing role of men and the fact they are becoming second best and are the victims of the aggressive anti-male feminism that rules the UK. The fact that younger men are finding it tough to get on the employment ladder as many traditional male jobs go and the eductaion system continues to blight them.

Silence from policy makers is no longer an option but we all have an individual responsibility to try and ensure we all look after any men we know who we feel are lonely and depressed.

Posted by Skimmington

  

OXFAM STILL SPREADING UNTRUTHS ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

After being offended by an Oxfam poster on a train telling everyone it was to support International Women's Day (offended because it would never support International Men's Day plus it is spending hard raised donations on this type of advertising), I thought it was worth having a look at what they say especially as this is a charity that is supposed to be "a global movement of people working with others to overcome poverty and suffering."

Firstly, it makes it clear that "Oxfam puts women's rights at the heart of everything we do." Obviously, the sons, brothers husbands and fathers of women do not matter. Plus what does this have to do with its aim to overcome poverty and suffering. Oxfam have form.

And then looking at a fact they are still perpetuating a complete myth and falsehood:

"In many countries, women are suffering horrendous domestic violence - the single biggest cause of injury and death to women worldwide."

This has been proved to be a myth as cancer is by far the worst caused of death for women.

It also brings into question all the other figures they use and where they actually get the figures from. What are the sources especially where they state that two thirds of children being denied schooling are women. Where is the research for this and is it down to religion rather than poverty?

Oxfam has been warped by Marxist radical feminists from being an organisation helping poverty worldwide to one who dislike men.

Posted by Skimmington

LESSONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN FOR MALE EQUALITY FROM THE SHARED PARENTING CAMPAIGN

So it has now become officialthat the government has rejected not only Norgrove's opposition to the concept of shared parenting but also the wrong headed rejection of it by the previous governments (Conservative and Labour) and the establishment (especially Cafcass and the judiciary).

This also includes those groups such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the government's Equalities Department and other like minded groups (Fawcett Society anyone?) who proclaim they are in favour of equality while purposely turning a blind eye to the fact that children were (overwhelmingly) not being able to share their lives with their fathers.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission's stance has been particularly sickening because it is clear there has been for decades a clear form of sexual discrimination against fathers in operation not only in the way the judiciary and Cafcass operate but also in the way that many mothers have been allowed to willfully break the law by ignoring court orders (even Ken Clarke on Radio 4's Today Programme on Monday morning bemoaned the fact that mothers broke court orders without any consequence and therefore were undermining the rule of law). Remember, if this was happening with the genders being reversed the Commission would be banging the drum every day. Their silence has been shameful and shows their antipathy towards men.

Until the ink is dry, the legislative statement in place and the judges acting upon it then we can not count our chickens.

However, it is worth reflecting on how the campaign was won.

Firstly, you do need a government that is willing to listen and is not ideologically driven to hate men (the previous government supported ideologically the view that men should not be part of the children's lives). While there is an anti-male element in the coalition government, overall there was a will to deal with this problem because of the family centred views of the two parties that form the coalition. It helps with a cadre of MP's who have had men turning up to their surgeries for years and not being to help. A new cadre of MP's suddenly facing this issue will also have helped.

Secondly, there was a pincer movement of more radical groups who worked outside the tent such as F4J and RF4J who brought the problem to the attention of every member of public and then other groups such as Families Need Fathers, Fatherhood Institute, Grandparents' Apart and Grandparents' Association amongst others who worked within the tent. This pincer and combination of groups broadly making the same arguments in different ways ceaselessly for years and years on end helped to create the framework for this week's result.

In terms of what lesson there can be learned for the future of male equality, dealing with injustice against men and men's issues in general, a few pointers could be made:

(1) The need to never give up - the campaign at all levels went through peaks and troughs but never ended and the campaign for equality for men must never end.

(2) The need for black swans/outliers, and wanting to be outside the tent is always vital. They help lay the ground and open the door for the mainstream. Here, despite the years of great work by FnF and others, if F4J had not brought the problem to the public fore, the impetus for change and the spotlight being shone on the subject in the way it did would never have happened. While this has been such a crucial and fundamental issue, Tom Martin's campaign against the LSE is another example of how the door can be opened and every year there are others (Mirko Fischer vs British Airways) who can make this happen.

(3) While (2) is vital, there also needs to be mainstream groups within the tent trying to influence public policy to ensure the government and others who are naturally conservative with a small 'c' have people they fell they can work with without controversy.

(4)  The need to be firm, consistent, fighting the corner on our terms but doing it in the right tone is also vital. While (3) outlines the need for mainstream groups being in the tent, there is no point being in the tent if it means sacrificing your core aims. This is why the consistency and the firmness of groups within the tent has been important because, especially under the last government, it would have been too easy to have become suckered into the status quo. But groups like FNF stuck to their guns.

A number of other groups working in other fields such as the Men's Network, ManKind Initiative, Abused Men in Scotland, Prostate Cancer Society and others are vital because while they are in the tent and are part of the mainstream they are not losing their message. And on many occasions they are verr firm in what they believe in but the tone is right. This has to be the template going forward.

(5) Turning the equalities and fairness rhetoric against those who abuse it. The last point is to remember often discrimination against men and/or the omission of men, is undertaken in the 'spirit' of fairness and equality. One lesson from this week's announcement has been the way the messaging has been about the unfairness and inequality that children have in not being able to have a relationship with both parents. How could those who believe in those things continue to deny the rights of children in this way.

This (5) has been a powerful tool especially used by some of the groups mentioned in (4) and others in demanding why the women's movement proclaims it is is favour of equality when in practice that equality does not apply to people who happen to be men.

There may be other lessons to be learned but at least this week there is a glimmer of hope for those children wanting to have a meaningful relationship with their fathers and their grandparents who have been denied it so far because of the legal system and their mothers.

Posted by Skimmington 

NEWS UPDATE

Should be back to normal this week so here are a collection of stories and issues:

Fighting Feminism - Open letter to Theresa May MP (Mike Buchanan)

BBC News - Prostate cancer drugs too costly: Men shown again to be the disposable sex

Daily Telegraph - We can't create women to put on Question Time (David Dimbleby): The eminent broadcaster fights back against Tory MP Louise Mensch and her obsessive tub-thumping for quotas on all BBC programmes. Never, not once, does she ever prove that the programmes like Question Time or Today discriminate against women, they pick the most suitable person. Who cares if a programme was all-women as long as all picked on merit. Mensch is the new breed of aggressive anti-male special treatment feminists now sitting on the Conservative benches. 

Daily Mail - Child's right to see an absent father: Law to help millions from broken homes (James Chapman) and Norgrove's fightback:  Rather than celebrate the news that could alleviate the huge damage to children and also to father's because of the bias in the family courts, let's see what the announcement actually says tomorrow (Monday).  

Daily Mail - It was beyond horrific: Wife of RAF pilot cleared of sex assault tells of family's 12-month ordeal (Emily Andrews)

Cambridge News - Women accused man of rape because he could not remember her name (Gareth McPherson)

The Guardian - Spare me from the whining women who are giving feminism a bad name (Julie Burchill): "Sadly, a lot of what passes for feminism these days is just moaning about men, congratulating ourselves on nothing in particular, and mocking them for being big kids while doing everything we can to keep them that way."

Posted by Skimmington

PARISH NOTICE: UPDATE FROM TOM MARTIN

Press Release – January 30^th, 2012.

 

Tom Martin v LSE's Gender Institute: Update

 

Tom Martin's sex discrimination lawsuit against Europe's largest gender studies department at The London School of Economics (LSE) has been delayed, a hearing now rescheduled for March 13^th. Tom has given an interview for a programme on satellite news channel Press TV on 'the future of feminism', which awaits broadcast, and also, has recently been invited to take part in a debate at University College London (UCL), on the prevalence of misandry in academia and society, a date not yet set. Tom invites all other press and media to contact him directly: [email protected].

 Tom thanks all 120 people from 9 countries who have now donated a total of £4013.25 to the legal fighting fund so far, and asks supporters to keep the donations coming in and the momentum going, by subscribing on twitter, facebook and youtube, and spreading the word in any other way they can for what could be a long, difficult, but ultimately game-changing awareness-raising and legal campaign.

 

VERY FEW WOMEN BELIEVE THEY ARE BEING DENIED PROMOTIONS - NEAR PARITY WITH MEN WHICH WON'T LAST LONG

Just before Christmas, one of our regular readers ('Groan') kindly pointed out the findings of the 2009-10 Citizenship Survey which had been sneaked out in the week before Christmas. Produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the 123 page report was entitled "Race, Religion and Equalities."

Paragraph 5.57 states "one per cent of people who had looked for work cited gender as a reason for being discriminated against when refused a job; and two per cent of employees cited gender as a factor in being discriminated against regarding a promotion.

"Males and females were equally likely to cite gender as a reason for discrimination in relation to being refused a job (in both cases 1%), while female employees were slightly more likely than male employees to cite gender as a reason for discrimination regarding promotion (2% of females compared with 1% of males)"

The key statitistics from this show three things.

Promotion - boardroom discrimination

Firstly, the anti-male Marxists feminists who bitterly complain against discrimination against women from the gender pay gap to promotion to boards and such like are out of step with what women actually think. Only 2% of women believe they are denied a promotion (1% men) because of their gender and 1% refused for a job because of their gender. 

Organisations like the 30% Club, Fawcett Society, Lynne Featherstone MP, and all the others are wrong when they say it is a disgrace that women are being discriminated against because women themselves do not believe so.

This organisations live in a fantasy world of male hatred where white fat upper middle class men are keeping the 'sisters' in the kitchen and on the shop floor. Women disagree with the 30% Club, Featherstone and everyone else who says it is a scandal.

These groups do not speak for women, they speak for female privilige for (upper) middle class women at the expense of men.

Equality Act

We know the Conservative Government had initial reservations about sections 158 and 159 of the Equality Act (2010) which allows employers to discriminate against people when it comes to training, filling jobs and promotions, however, they ended up putting it into law on 1 April 2011.

It means that while 1% of men and 2% of women claim they are being denied a promotion because of their gender, I would expect this to be reversed over the next five years and that there be a clear gap emerging and perhaps 5% of men claiming they are being denied a promotion because of their gender.

This will not only affect those men themselves but will also affect their wives/girlfriends, daughters, mothers etc, so this discriminations affects women as much as it does the individual man.

Sample Size

Following on from the above, the numbers of 1% and 2% are very small and could be classed as insignificant. Perhaps a lot of that is down to the fact there still remains broadly a gender split in the work roles that men and women undertake. Without wanting to be too broadbrush about it but it is hard for a male car mechanic to say he is being denied a promotion because he is a man when there are so few female mechanics. Likewise, a female primary school teacher may not be able to say she has been denied a promotion when there are so few male primary school teachers.

It means that while the figure on paper looks small, it's signifcance should not be under-estimated.

In conclusion, this report undermines those anti-male Marxist feminists who with every breath they take say that women are discriminated in the workplace, when women themselves say they are not. Secondly, the Equality Act 2010, will I predict, see a gap created where more men feel discrimated than women in work.

It is shame this report was buried but it is essential research nonetheless (thank you to 'Groan' for highlighting it).

Posted by Skimmington 

PARISH NOTICES

A few important parish notices

(1) Tom Martin's landmark case begins on 14 February 2012 at the Central London County Court. Anyone who can should give Tom support.

(2) New Male Studies: An international journal - first edition now published

(3) Fighting Feminism: A new website from Mike Buchanan

(4) Events listing - courtesy of the Men's Network, showing the growing activity in this sector now.

(5) Men's Network - win funding for cancer campaign

(6) Domestic Abuse conference - from the ManKind Initiative

(7) International Men's Day - new theme announced

Posted by Skimmington

MEN TELL THEIR STORIES - FALSE ALLEGATIONS AND DOMESTIC ABUSE

Sorry everyone, very much on the run this week but Monday saw an appalling story how about the effect on Simon Boswell who was falsely accused of domestic abuse and the appalling treatment at the hands of the police.

Tuesday, saw brave Ian McNicholl update his story (and the supportive help he had from police) and the appalling wait he is having to endure on the NHS to repair the damage inflicted on him. What's the betting that if Ian was called Irene he'd have been treated more quickly. What is so good about Ian is the fact that he wants more to be done to help other men come forward. His is not a story about him, it is about urging more to be done to persuade more male victims to come forward - men who make up one in three of all victims. There was also a follow up on his ex-girlfriend.

Wednesday, saw another story in the Daily Mail under the pseudonym of Paul Roberts.

The comments on all stories are generally very encouraging because they show public opinion is shifting towards all victims of domestic abuse and not just female victims. Pity the authorities are still light years behind.

These stories must make the men-haters cringe because they undermine their view of men=bad, women=good. You never hear them talking about these stories, they would pretend they were never reported.

Posted by Skimmington  

CRISIS IN BOYS' EDUCATION CONTINUES - 54,000 FEWER APPLY FOR UNIVERSITY AND NO-ONE CARES

The crisis in boys education continues apace and the biggest scandal is that no-one in authority seems to give a toss about it. Certainly the government, who talk a lot about driving up standards and free schools, do not seem to be remotely bothered about the fact that far fewer boys do well at school than girls.

This is a subject covered extensively on the site and as we know it feeds through to the fact that young men get paid less than younger women and it is the first stage of the emasculation of men.

The latest UCAS figures show that, while the overall university applicant figures are down (due to £9,000 per year tuition fees!) UCAS received 54,000 less applicants from boys than girls. For 2012, 188,000 girls have applied but only a mere 134,000 boys have: ratio  of 58% - 42%.

What is shameful is the fact that the education system is clearly not working in helping boys make the most of their talent but what is even more shameful is the fact that no one seem to care or talk about it.

Boys are clearly suffering from the discrimination by omission syndrome - where is the coalition government's concern on this  when it can spend so much time and energy on women's issue it cannot be bothered on issues affecting boys. If girls were so far behind you would never hear the end of it.

The long term affect of having fewer boys going to university can not be underestimated not only for the future of boys/men but also the ending of equality in the UK and the fabric of the UK itself.

Posted by Skimmington

NEWS UPDATE

A few recent items and thanks to those who passed many of them on:

Roger Helmer MEP: Resignation update - Discrimination by the Conservative Party against a man 

The Independent: The man who was the target of Britain's worst stalker (Gerard Gilbert) - An old story but one not covered here before but certainly always worth forwarding whenever stalking in spoken in the context of women only.

Hull Daily Mail - Domestic abuse against men up by 30%

BBC News - Where women rule and men are suffragettes (Timothy Allen)

 Daily Mail - Woman's Hour psychologist who made false claim in custody battle is found guilty of misconduct.   (Chris Brooke)

The Guardian - We tell boys not to cry then wonder about male suicide (Ally Fogg) - Great stuff by Ally and his comment is most telling "As I've written before, attempts by men to address their own gender-specific issues are often greeted with hostility and disdain."

Daily mail - Why I'll never let my Ex's new girlfriend meet my son (Kelly Rose Bradford) - A record 1287 comments surely on this rant.

Daily Telegraph - New equality rules could cost companies millions (Louise Peacock) -  Equality is equality so why the moaning from the National Association of Pension Funds - surely not another body that thinks it is OK to discriminate against men.

Posted by Skimmington