The Rights Of Man

THE 53 SEXIST MPS OPPOSING CIVIL LIBERTIES AND JUSTICE

On 26 May an Early Day Motion was introduced into Parliament by Fiona MacTaggart MP opposing the proposal to give anonymity to those accused of rape. Interestingly, the motion was put forward at almost exactly the same time as the case of Olumide Fadayomi, a victim of a serial accuser. Mr Fadayomi almost committed suicide over the issue whereas the previous victim fared even worse and the incident ultimately resulted in his death.

Aside from the insensitive timing, lets examine the content of the motion to show exactly why it is so fundamentally flawed, illogical and offensive:

1. "The Government's proposal to grant anonymity to defendants in rape cases sends a message to juries and rape victims that the victim is not to be believed"

Complete nonsense. The process of naming those accused of rape in the newspapers before their trial actually undermines the concept of innocent until proven guilty. It enables false accusers to effectively gain a conviction in their communities merely by publicising the accusation and through the concept of "no smoke without fire". Naming those accused of rape is a big incentive for making false allegations as it is the best way to ruin the victim's life. By granting anonymity we take away such power from false accusers, thus encouraging less of them to come forward. Therefore any laws discouraging false accusations actually strengthens the cases of genuine rape victims and means they are more likely to be believed, not less.

2. "fears that this could inhibit the effective prosecution of serial rapists"

A very dishonest statement. Anyone guilty of rape is still going to have their name and picture plastered all over the newspapers once they're found guilty. Further victims can come forward at that stage just as easily.

3. "is further concerned that this will reverse the progress made on the prosecution of rape cases noted in the independent Stern Review"

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this statement. If the MPs are honestly suggesting our justice system and all the progress we've made somehow relies on a trial by media and ruining the lives of innocent men is an inevitable byproduct of achieving justice for others then either they're stupid or we've got the most hopeless justice system on the planet. As stated in point one the proposal will reduce the number of false allegations out there, thus meaning a increase conversion rate of allegations into convictions.

4. "is further concerned that the Government has put forward the proposal without any research, evidence or examination of these issues; and calls on the Government to withdraw its proposal."

This last point is the most valid aspect of the motion. There is something of a lack of research on this issues, yet you'll notice that the vast majority of this listed below who signed the motion are member of the Labour Party and have therefore been in power for the last 13 years. These politicians had all that time to conduct this research yet they've refused to even discuss the issue of innocent people having their lives completely ruined by false accusers. In fact it's worse than this, the Labour government created and nurtured a hysterical gender feminist climate in which the issue became almost completely taboo, so it's little wonder we're lacking in decent research on the issue. This is quite clearly a problem of their own making so it's quite pathetic to bring up such a point now.

Although such research would be most welcome here we don't exactly need it to pass such a law anyway. It's blatantly obvious that naming the accused in a criminal case whilst their accusers hides under the blanket of anonymity is totally unfair and unjust. The statistics would be very interesting, but ultimately it really doesn't matter whether the law is going to help to protect 800 or 8,000 innocent people every year. People are dying as a result of false rape allegations and have others have their lives completely ruined or are forced out of the country. Delaying the proposal will inevitably cost innocent people their careers, their marriages, their sanity and even their lives. Further research should surely only be a pre-requisite if a proposal wished to create an unfair one-sided situation where only one party was granted anonymity such as is the case at present?

The only legitimate argument against the law would be that it isn't appropriate to conduct criminal matters in secret and that anonymity shouldn't be granted to anyone in court cases and so the law would be making a bad situation even worse. I don't necessary share such a position and believe both parties should have anonymity but we should perhaps bear this last argument in mind when considering the last of names below as there may well be one or two who subscribe to this more rational position rather than the specific content of the motion itself.

In summary, almost the entire motion is poorly argued, illiberal, dishonest and ultimately quite dangerous. Those who created it talk about how "the victim is not to be believed" but such a position is a fundamental part of our justice system. If we suddenly automatically believe every single word of every defendant then why even bother with what would be a show-trial? it would be cheaper and no different to lock up the "rapist" as soon as  their accuser demanded it if factors such as evidence and giving a believable testimony are no longer of any relevance. People are innocent until proven guilty in this country and any jury should have a healthy scepticism of any testimony in court, regardless of whether given by the accused or the accuser and regardless of race or gender.

It's obvious that both men and women lie. Just look at Ms Fiona MacTarggart herself for example. She's known for being rather economical with the truth even on gender issues stating that "something like 80% of women in prostitution are controlled by their drug dealer, their pimp, or their trafficker." When challenged by the BBC on her claim she still insisted it "came from an official Government publication into prostitution and the sex trade". In reality the Home Office themselves state they have "neither made nor cited this calculation." and BBC research into the issue actually came to the conclusion "it is impossible to find that number in any research done on this subject" Should we somehow just believe this nonsense because MacTaggart is female?

Of course there are alternative solutions to reducing the issue of false rape allegations which would reduce any need for anonymity. For example, malicious accusers should serve the same sentence they attempt to inflict not heir victims, should repay the cost of any investigations to the police and should placed on the sex offenders register to ensure the safety of possible future victims. Perhaps some of those listed below are enthusiastic supporters of such proposals though I'm not aware of any of them trying to introduce such legislation or even mentioning such solutions. I certainly can't imagine Ms MacTaggart doing so. Therefore until such evidence comes to light, here are the names of what should be considered the 53 worst MPs in Parliament. People who detest civil liberties to such an extent the believe false accusers should be able to hide behind a blanket of anonymity not afforded to their victims, who couldn't care less about the devastating impact of false accusations and believe in guilty until proven innocent:

Mactaggart, Fiona
Blackman-Woods, Roberta
Griffith, Nia
Phillipson, Bridget
Green, Kate
Blears, Hazel
Hodge, Margaret
Jones, Helen
Lazarowicz, Mark
McDonagh, Siobhain
McKechin, Ann
Miller, Andrew
Osborne, Sandra
Coffey, Ann
Curran, Margaret
Eagle, Angela
Efford, Clive
Flint, Caroline
Abbott, Diane
Begg, Anne
Twigg, Stephen
Walley, Joan
Winterton, Rosie
Hodgson, Sharon
Clark, Katy
Cooper, Rosie
Engel, Natascha
Johnson, Diana R
Keeley, Barbara
McCarthy, Kerry
Seabeck, Alison
Glindon, Mary
Alexander, Heidi
Greenwood, Lilian
Berger, Luciana
Hilling, Julie
Jones, Graham
Creasy, Stella
Onwurah, Chinyelu
Reynolds, Jonathan
Umunna, Chuka
Doyle, Gemma
Dromey, Jack
McKinnell, Catherine
Fovargue, Yvonne
Ali, Rushanara
Skinner, Dennis
Hopkins, Kelvin
Glass, Pat
Vaz, Valerie
Kendall, Liz
Edwards, Jonathan
Mearns, Ian

by John Kimble

THE RELIGION THAT IS THE LONDON FEMINIST NETWORK

Monday night saw the broadcast of an hour long BBC Four documentary on the extreme feminist group the London Feminist Network.

Being a BBC programme the best method they could come up with to tackle such a topic in a fair, balanced and neutral way was to ask Vanessa Engle to make the programme (and the whole series for that matter). Engle is of course a feminist herself, the Daily Telegraph notes she "was involved in the women’s movement while at Oxford studying languages in the 1980s; she protested outside porn shops, joined the Reclaim the Night march against male violence". These exact same protests are featured in the programme so she's effectively making a programme about herself. Presumably this will be followed by an investigation into the BNP presented by Nick Griffin and an IRA expose by Martin McGuiness? When the BBC cover Men's issues we invariably get exactly the opposite situation, with the like of Women's Aid supporter Fiona Bruce interrogating Father 4 Justice in an an incredibly hostile manner in breach of BBC rules.

Although the programme may have been conceived as 60 minutes of free prime time advertising for the London Feminist network, if you can stomach the misandry, constant pro feminist bias not to mention abysmal songs then you'll actually find it was quite enlightening in places.

The first signs of dissent from the militant feminist dogma in the programme came from a male, one of the girl's fathers. Whilst his wife rambles on, equating child pornography with lads mags and pretty much anything sexual, he's brave enough to put forward the entirely reasonable argument that there's actually nothing wrong with prostitution so long as both parties are happy and consenting to the transaction. Strangely, such an argument seems hugely radical, controversial and out of place at that point of the broadcast due to the extreme anti-male atmosphere of the organisation being discussed. I suppose it's a bit like going to church and pointing out the lack of evidence of the existence of God.

The programme was full of the usual nonsensical feminist cliches, with the group so keen to "end violence against women" and to "take back the night". Some went further, their only concern being the rather narrow subject of "men's violence against women". Given the rates of recorded domestic violence by lesbian females, never mind the countless male domestic violence victims out here, this is clearly not only sexist but extremely stupid too.

It was particularly ironic to feature a feminist group located in London complaining about violence against women as apparently such a huge issue so much more important than any other. If we look at the epidemic of teen violence in the city, there were 27 teens killed in 2008, with just one of those unfortunate people being female - 96.3% of victims were male. The previous year again again saw 27 victims, and there were a slightly more significant three female victims ton his occasion. However one should remember that feminists only count violence against women if it's perpetrated by a man, therefore under LFN logic a third of such victims are to be ignored do the the killers being of the wrong sex.

It's certainly true that our streets are rather dangerous places, but it's women who are the safest out on them, and men need to reclaim them far, far more than any other group. Yet there's further hypocrisy from LFN. Not only do they ignore all the evidence and pretend that it's only women need to reclaim the night, men are even barred from marching . They are neither allowed to reclaim the night from themselves nor are they even welcome in helping to achieve fundamentally flawed and sexist goal of reclaiming it just for women.

The ridiculousness of such a situation was beautifully illustrated in a bizarre discussion of how the LFN members could identify those awful men in order to prevent them from taking part. It was noted that they do indeed allow men who "identify as women", to participate, though only certain men are allowed to benefit from this loophole and the feminists had to use their judgement as to who qualified for such a privilege. The problem of actual women who looked like men also arose (unsurprising given the androgynous appearance of so many of the participants) with "caution" and "sensitivity" urged. In reality there is of course a very simple and elegant solution to all these complicated "problems", that being to simply stop being so incredibly sexist and discriminatory and let make everyone in society welcome instead! Surely you can't get any more sensitive than that?

Another telling exchange came in an interview with a older member of the group, who discussed her reasons for being an activist. She stated that she had been motivated to join the group as a result of the police' repines to a friend of her daughter being "gang raped".  Watching the piece, alarm bells immediately start to ring as she stumbles through the facts rather uncertainly, eventually informing us the supposed "victim" actually received a caution for falsely alleging rape (albeit one she managed to later overturn using a lawyer). Obviously I don't know the facts of the case other than what this rather biased party tell us. However, given that the accused actually had video evidence of consent (not to mention the feminist's ramblings about a woman's supposed lack of choices when in such a situation), I'd say it sounds absolutely like a case of regretting sex after the event and thus a clear false rape allegation. The police are incredibly reluctant to charge someone with making a false rape claim and insist on massive amounts of proof in most cases. The main travesty that I can see here is that a mere caution is vastly insufficient punishment for such a serious crime. Those falsely alleging rape should either be let off if there isn't sufficient proof, or tried in a court of law and face a jail sentence where their guilt can be proven. A caution really isn't appropriate under any circumstances, and if the police were "vile" to anyone as she alleges, then it was surely to the victims of the false accusations. Further still, to use what appears to be a false rape case (and one with multiple victims at that) to be your sole reason for being an activist really is quite strange at best and certainly isn't going to make any useful contribution to ones "sanity" as she believes.

Such a lack of concern with the facts isn't unique to the older activists either. A younger feminist called Laurie, one of the "leading lights of the organisation", later discusses the despair she feels when reading items in the news, specifically citing the case of a man who branded his wife with an iron who only received a two month jail sentence for the offence. She then informs us that this could be "a made up story" and "even though she might have made it up it's probably true". Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that in a population of 60 million people such a story would almost certainly occur eventually, just as monkeys randomly hitting typewriter keys may eventually produce passages from Shakespeare. However it's rather bizarre to see someone so committed to such a cause have such a lack of concern for knowledge and the facts to such an extent they are reduced to fabricating imaginary abuses of women in order to make their point. I'm sure myself and other readers here could list at least 20 key MRA related injustices that have been in the news (or not in a few cases) which are important to the MRA movement. There wouldn't be any need for exaggeration let alone total fabrication of stories just because they might have happened somewhere or may well do so in the future. The exchange against shows us the unique culture of LFN, where facts really don't matter in the slightest - you just have to be a believer.

Anger and the hatred of men are recurring themes throughout the broadcast. Men are not only banned from the marches, not to mention the organisation itself, but the group even meets at a women only bar! In fact men were notably absent from vast swathes of the programme. Now I do realise that extreme gender feminist groups tend to feature vastly disproportionate numbers of lesbians compared to the population as a whole, but such a figure can't be more than 50%. Where were the male partners of the heterosexual feminists? It's clear that a display of such hatred and contempt for the opposite sex isn't the best technique to use in the search for a partner (unless perhaps one is seeking a self-loathing man). Presumably most of the woman were therefore single as a result of their activities, perhaps the feminist equivalent of a celibate catholic priest.

It wasn't just men who were invisible during the programme either. Almost all the feminists seem rather privileged, educated, middles class and white. I don't necessarily have any major issue with this usually, but remember we're talking about an organisation who subscribe absolutely to the exact sort of nonsense we hear coming out of the EHRC on a daily basis. Further still, given that London is about the most ethnically diverse city on the planet it seems incredible that not a single ethnic minority was to be seen anywhere in the organisation, particularly given that so many feminists issues have a vastly greater impact on such people (with many absolutely exclusive to immigrant communities). Presumably such ethnic minorities are fully aware of the stupidity and tremendous harm caused by excluding members based on their appearance and inherent characteristics and thus find a group practising such discrimination to be wholly unattractive as a result?

The most intersecting segment of the programme involved a discussion with two rather more level headed young feminists who had attended the LFN conference. They concluded the group wasn't for them as they didn't share the same extreme views on banning pornography and outlawing prostitution. One might of thought that such differences shouldn't really matter so much as they're still feminists, right? Well that's not the case at all - you see, as these two women point out, if you want to join the LFN you have to agree with everything they say hook, line and sinker, it's all or nothing as far as they're concerned. It's not just those horrible men that aren't welcome at LFN, other equally contemptible enemies  include actual concepts such as debate, opinion, and dissent.

In conclusion, the programme shows exactly how not to conduct oneself as an activist. It revealed feminism at it's very worst, not as a movement concerned with equality, humanity or compassion, but instead showed us feminism the religion. The London Feminist Network were just as angry, bigoted, emotional, devoid of logic and reason as almost any religious institution or cult. We had women as the chosen ones, with men and sex as the devil. Unbelievers we not welcome whatsoever, with debate limited to how best to exclude men. Just as with so many religions they were keen to interfere with and control the lives of women happily going about their lives, whether it be fashion models happily raking in a fortunes for magazine shoots, or the many women happily reliving gullible men of handfuls of money at strip clubs. Fortunately the only real difference here compared to other religions was the size of the congregation, which I'm pleased to say was tiny in this case. Lets just hope it stays that way for many more years to come for the sake of both men and women and society as a whole.

By John Kimble

WANT TO RUIN A MAN'S LIFE? THAT'LL BE £80 PLEASE

You often hear about false rape allegations in the news these days (unless you only read the Guardian of course). The police are now, quite rightly, starting to take action in the more extreme cases, though perhaps an even more heinous crime is that of making false paedophilia allegations.

Just as with false rape allegations, many in our society unfortunately take the stance that there's "no smoke without fire" and ultimately the false allegations tend to stick, regardless of how ridiculous, unfounded or malicious they happen to be. Therefore, as with false rape allegations, the victims of these crimes at at serious risk of attack, can lose their jobs, and ultimately face financial and psychological ruin. Further still, as we're talking about the awful crime of alleged sexual abuse of children here, the stigma and potential dangers for victims are about as severe as you can get.

Te latest victim of such a crime is Luck Chatfield, who was falsely labelled a paedophile by his neighbour, Sally Pepper, after committing the heinous offence of complaining about her loud music (she has numerous complaints about anti-social behaviour against here so it's unlikely that his action was unjustified). As a result of the false and malicious allegations he's been abused in the street, had items thrown at his house, installed a panic alarm and been forced out of his job! In total Chatfield has lost £1,500 in earnings, yet has two disabled children and a disabled wife to provide for. The stress of the situation must be intolerable.

So what's appropriate punishment for putting this man's life in real danger and causing him and his family so much hardship and distress? Maybe four years in jail? (actually make that two seeing as she gets female sentencing discount). Surely he's at least entitled to reimbursement of the lost monies too? Thirdly, wouldn't it be reasonable to place the perpetrator almost certainly needs to be on a false accusers register or maybe the sex offenders register as this is effectively a sexual offence? People need to be warned about such incredibly dangerous people so they can avoid them as much as possible.

Unfortunately none of the above occurred. Not even a token jail sentence, not a penny reimbursed, and no system to warn others of the dangers. The only consequence for the perpetrator was an £80 fixed penalty notice. That's right, we value this man's career, safety and general well-being as the same price of a train ticket. False paedophilia allegations are no more serious than dropping a cigarette butt, writing a graffiti tag, dog fouling, failing to pay your road tax on time, or fly posting. Further still, the Home Office rather ironically cite "playing loud music" as their example of a crime likely to result in the £80 fixed penalty notice.

In other words, her alleged offence of playing loud music is no different to that of attempting to ruin a man's life by spreading false allegations that he enjoys raping young children. Neither offence is any different to the other!

So, what's the perpetrator's view on all this? Is Ms Pepper at least full of remorse and regret? Does she realise just how much damage she's caused to this man life and that of his vulnerable family? Has the punishment acted at least as a deterrent? Well, perhaps not according to the BBC who state "she say she did not regret what she did".

I wonder why?

DOES THE MOON REALLY EXIST?

"Does the moon really exist?" That's the question the quite brilliant Ali G put to Buzz Aldrin during this comedy interview. Now I'm all for challenging conventions and asking unfashionable questions, but clearly questioning the existence of the moon is ridiculous. People holding such a view would either be stupid, or immature and would not be taken at all seriously.

However, questioning such obvious and demonstrably true phenomena is actually a far from alien concept to many gender feminists too. For example, when discussing the possibility of setting up a false rape claim register in 1999, our female namesake group "Rights of Women" told the BBC: "given that the law is already so weighted against women, we should be looking at protecting them rather than targeting the few, if any, women who make false allegations". In other words, false rape claims are incredibly rare and there's a very good chance that they quite simply do not exist at all!

Think about that for a second. False rape claims are the perfect weapon for any women looking to gain revenge on a male and ruin his life. Yet despite this weapon being in every single woman's hands, somehow they're all so saintly that not a single one would ever be tempted to use it. Women are good, men are bad, and no exceptions either! False allegations happily exist for other crimes, how can any sane person possibly suggest they don't exist for rape, a crime which is a classic case of one person's word against another. As so many cases have shown, no evidence is even required, and we've got a government so friendly towards false rape accusers they want to make their activities even easier by lowering the burden of proof.

Spreading such falsehoods is bad enough given all of the above, but the flip-side of her statement regarding the saintliness of woman is to deny the existence of any victims of false rape accusations too. False rape claims are such a disgusting and serious crime in term of the impact they have. They ruin the victims' careers, relationships, self-esteem and reputations, even resulting in fleeing the country or committing suicide. In other words they're just as heinous an offence as rape itself. What then, if someone had instead being sick enough deny the existence of victims of rape instead of those of false rape? Such views wouldn't be tolerated if they came form a random individual, yet here we have a government funded charity happily belittling all these false rape victims with any consequences or comment whatsoever.

There is of course an alternative possibility; perhaps Rights of Women do indeed accept that these victims exist, they just don't believe their side of the story. I.e. all supposed victims of false rape accusations are in fact liars and they are guilty as hell of rape regardless of what the evidence shows. Whichever is the position, it's equally abhorrent.

These tactics of denying the most basic of facts are very popular with gender feminists, perhaps even an intrinsic part of their movement. In order to stifle debate and draw attention away from their agenda and the damage they've caused, they attempt to refute the most fundamental of truths and attempt to turn reality on its head. For example, those such as Catherine Comins willing to admit that false rapes do in indeed occur, instead take the position that the falsely accused somehow gain from the experience. She helpfully lists describes how they can go through "a process of self-exploration" and lists hypothetical questions they might end up asking themselves about their relationships with women and whether they could have committed the crime had the circumstance been different. No matter the realities of the situation of course - I suppose it's something to pass the time whilst rotting in prison if nothing else.

For the benefit of those at Rights of Women, false rape accusers do indeed exist (and the moon does too for that matter). Further still, they're not just used in stereotypical high-stakes situations such as gaining revenge over an slightly unpleasant ex-partner or getting the upper hand in a custody dispute or divorce, they're actually used for increasingly trivial reasons these days.

Just this week a man was falsely accused of rape for to despicable act of bumping into a woman's car. Another was similarly accused as a result of being stabbed in the leg! Financial gain is often a motive too - some women see them as a method of gaining taxpayer payouts via the victims compensation scheme. Alternatively, some many false accuser are rather less ambitious, willing to use the weapon in lieu of paying a taxi fare.

it's worth remembering that these are only the cases we know about - they just the ones that actually made it all the way to court. Is your average taxi driver honestly going to stand up to a false accuser and risk a lengthy court case, possible violence and even their career? Surely in the vast majority of cases where women threaten them with false rape they simply take in on the chin and move onto the next fare?

It's pretty obvious that from being absolutely non existent, the problem false rape claims is more akin to an epidemic not incomparable to the problem of rape itself. Luckily public opinion is slowly changing and today's news show even many women now recognise the extent of the problem of false rape claims despite the government and police constantly sweeping them under the carpet. Lets hope hope more judges are brave enough to speak out so we can finally establish a register of false accusers so men can be afforded the same protection offered to women against sex offences.

FALSE RAPE ACCUSATIONS IN SCOTLAND

I know the theme of the site has recently had a Scottish flavour but news is news wherever the source.

One of the key trends in 2009 has been what I can say is an epidemic of false rape accusations.

In Scotland, this poor poor chap spent 2 and a half years behind bars for the crime but has now been freed and then in Moray this lady gets community service.

THE POWER OF THE FALSE ACCUSATION AGAIN

The Daily Mail reported recently this sad tale of Lancastrian Bryan Davies who had a heart attack because he was falsely accused of paedophilia. Even the police went to the trouble of sending leaflets to neighbours to say it was not true.

Once again, the power of the false allegation has reared its ugly head and during 2009 it is one trendthat is clearly increasing. These claims are made whether paedophilia and rape, damaging those falsely accused and also damaging those who are genuine victims.

There needs to be tougher sentences and someone such as the Fawcett Society (if they wanted to make a real difference to those poor women who are raped) and others should be speaking out publicly about it. Silence is all we hear.

INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY EXPOSE FEMALE PAEDOPHILIA SITES

This article from a few weeks is startling and proves once again that the stereotype of a child abuser should not be one where just a man is portrayed.

RECENT PAEDOPHILE CASES SHOW WHY IT IS NOT JUST MEN

As ever when dealing with the usual stereotype that only men can be paedophiles, this week's news has already been dominated by the Vanessa George case and yesterday's Carole Clarkecase in Grimsby.

This and the figures outlined and highlighted here before from Childline. The BBC has a thought piece on the subject.

With these stories gradually there may be a change in the way that only men can be portrayed as paedophile's. However, considering the fact that the portrayal of a domestic violence victim is still based on only female as a victims and not the other way round or both, I think this will be some way off.

ONE RULE FOR FEMALE TEACHERS, ANOTHER RULE FOR MALE TEACHERS

I still cannot believe what I have just read in The Guardian's Comment is Free section by Barbara Ellen.

You really do wonder how those who belive in equality can say that a female teacher sleeping with a male pupil is not as bad as the other way around. As George Orwell once wrote, "Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others."

Hattip: Groan

MEDIA RAISE THE ISSUE OF WHO IS THE SECOND SEX AND CHALLENGE STEREOTYPES ON ABUSE

The media blow hot and cold on male issues but whenever they are raised they are most welcome. It is always a pity that no politicians, beyond Iain Duncan Smith MP who has raised the issue of boys education, fatherlessness and gangs, seem to care about the plight of men and boys in society.

Two articles have appeared in the past few days raising some fundamental questions and also challenging stereotypes.

The first was written by Eleanor Mills in The Times which in a wide ranging and thorough article which looks at whether men have become the Second Sex, a term used on this site to describe the situation men now face (here). Of course, there should be no first or second when it comes to gender as we are human first, last and always, but it is a useful term to show how far men are discriminated against in the UK.

The second is really shocking and was in yesterday's Daily Mail, written by Barbara Davies. It tells the story of a man who as a boy was abused by his foster mother. It is based around the Childline figures which showed that boys were more likely to be abused by a woman than a man, which goes against all known stereotypes and societal knee-jerk thinking.

These two articles both highlight the plight of men, an issue which has been hidden away for too long. It is welcome that the British media in some quarters publish them. If only politicians, members of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the Fawcett Society and others would take notice of them.