The Rights Of Man

COALITION POLICY UNCLEAR ON RAPE ANONYMITY BUT SOME MP'S SPEAK UP FOR EQUALITY

As previously flagged up, on Thursday Parliament spent the afternoon discussing the issue of rape anonymity for defendants, a major and important matter.

The debate was five hours long and thorough and is available to read on Hansard, it is well worth it if you have the time.

What was unclear was whether the Government is proposing to give anonymity until charge or until conviction. They are going to undertake some further research but it just seemed unclear.

What was gladdening though that despite all the usual "we don't care about men who are falsely accused" nonsense from both Labour and many Conservative MP's, there at last were some men who stood up to be counted. Aidan Burley MP and Rehman Chishti MP both spoke in favour and Rehman actually used a case from his constituency to explain his position.

YVETTE COOPER'S BUDGET REPORT IS RIDICULOUS AND ANTI-MALE

Unless you are single or gay, society has men and women who live together in partnership or married and often with children. Not according to new Yvette Cooper MP, former Government Minister par excellence.  

This week, she published a report (it cannot be found online not even on her official website so its  veracity cannot be interrogated) which was covered fulsomely and without challenge in the Guardian on Monday. In the report it states that women will bear the brunt of the proposed budget cuts by a ratio of 75% to 25%.

This was based on the freezing of the children's allowance, changing pension allowances, capital gain tax changes and others. The list that is not given by Cooper contends that as 94% of recipients of children's benefit are women, its freezing means the benefits affects women to the tune of £913 million compared to £62 million for men.

Er... wait a minute, just because the women is the main recipient of children's benefit (only one parent can be nominated to receive it) are not men who share the family home with their female partner and children not affected then?

Also she says because of the freezing or lower increases in pension allowances, women will suffer more then men. That's because women live longer and have a far longer post retirement period of life than men. No mention of that.

She also complains that this also does not taken into account any cuts in public sector jobs. Of course, a cut in a public sector job where a woman is employed won't also affect her male partner or husband!

She honestly thinkls that women and men do not share their lives together.

Yvette Cooper of course was a part of the same Government that said women were the biggest losers from the recession and the financial crisis despite all the official figures (here and here) produced by their own Government showed that it was in fact men.

What continues to amaze (but not surprise) is the brass neck of it all. There are so many in Parliament like Cooper, Harman, Flint and Baird (oops sorry just remembered she lost her seat!!) who want to outdo each other in standing up for women by slagging off men and simply just making things up.

Misandry is alive and well in Parliament still.

Posted by Skimmington

   

ANOTHER FALSE RAPE ACCUSATION AND DOUBLE STANDARDS REVEALED IN CLIVE BISHOP CASE

As the campaign continues on whether to deny equality in justice by granting anonymity to defendents in rape cases and the fear that the Colaition Govenment will backslide under the weight of hysteria from their anti-male feminist opponents, this site will publish immediately each time it comes across a story about a false accusation.

Today, the papers reported the story of Temitope Adenugba who was sent to prison for 18 months for falsely accusing a male cleaner of raping her. The poor chap was named. Silence from Caroline Flint.

Then we see the case of Clive Bishop where the weasely Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority appealed against his claim for compensation following being faslely accused of rape (link). Could you imagine the outcry if the genders were reversed?

However, this research by the False Rape Society is significant.

Posted by Skimmington

WILL RADIO 5 LIVE'S MEN'S HOUR SUPPORT OR PATRONISE MEN?

On the face of it, after decades of discrimination by the BBC, they are running a series of six programmes called Men's Hour, having run a Women's Hour on Radio 4 for over 60 years. It will be on BBC Radio 5 from 18th July 2010.

This follows their generally excellent Fatherhood Season (still available here) and also their programmes on the family courts (here). The latest programme on the treatment of fathers as caricatures certainly chimes with the essence of this article by Danuta Kean in the Daily Mail about how society and the media does it all it can to demonise men, a theme pathetically and discriminatory used by Frank Field, the Coalition Government's new Pensions Czar. Field was rightly condemned by the Fatherhood Institute and Jon Davies at Families Need Fathers.

The announcement of Men's Hour does not bode well on the BBC's own web-site as it declares that "BBC Radio 5 plans Women's Hour for Men". Men second already, not equal. On Radio 4 last Friday (41 minutes in) tehre was a short debate and it allowed Lynne Franks, "feminist", free rein to lambast the whole concept. She stated that when she first heard about it she thought someone was having a laugh and that it was a a joke. She also said it was a ridiculous idea.

The interview, instead about talking the issue, just turned into a situationw which allowed Lynne Franks to slag off men.

Putting that to one side, having listened to the interview and also seeing coverage where the presenter Tim Samuels described the show as the cheeky little brother to Women's Hour, where men can "emote" and a show which has Louie Spence as a weekly guest, there is a concern that the programme won't take the issues facing men seriously. Women's Hour takes women's issues seriously.

If subjects such as the rape anonymity, pension age, unemployment, domestic violence, suicide, men's health and the family courts are not tackled and discussed seriously then the programme will have failed and will never be commissioned again. 

The jury is of course out until the programmes are broadcast but this opportunity cannot be missed but to be taken seriously, it must take men seriously.

Posted by Skimmington

Note: story was also covered in the Daily Mail, The Independent, Telegraph, Telegraph 2

Note 2: The latest Men's Matters show by James Williams on Express FM is here (third way down).

Hattip - Jon 

SWIMMING DISCRIMINATION AT SALE LEISURE CENTRE

Just over a year ago the site highlighted how Leicester Council banned men from using a library one afternoon a week as it was women-only and Bristol Council did the same at a swimming baths.

Well one regular reader was barred from going to Sale Leisure Centre in Trafford Borough recently. On a Thursday morning, there is an hour set aside for women only as can be seen here. 

The reader has asked for the site to publish a request for help and of course we are happy to oblige (see end).  Help offered to be posted in the comments section please.

As well as helping the reader, what would be useful is if someone has the time (I know, who has?) could someone volunteer to undertake some Google research to find out how many other councils have these sorts of policies. If anyone wishes to undertake this project, can they contact me at [email protected] just so there is no duplication etc.

Posted by Skimmington

Update - See new post

Letter

I live in Trafford Borough in Cheshire and I really want to take my council to court over what I consider is either Sexist or Discriminatory practice against men.

 I was astonished and angered to discover that, when I turned up for my swim the other day at Sale Leisure Centre, that I was not allowed in because I was a man. The staff told me it was ladies only swimming. I protested to the manager and was subtly told that it was really meant to cater for Muslim woman because of their religious requirements. He said he sympathised with me but these decisions were made higher up the food chain by a committee.

I feel very passionately about discrimination towards men (and woman for that matter) and I would like to challenge my council in court over this issue. The problem is I don’t really know how to go about this challenge. Can you give me some information and advice or point me in another direction to seek advice and/or a very good solicitor/barrister who specialises in this area?

 Thanks for taking the time to read this,

 Mr C (white, lower to middle class, and yes, you’ve guessed it, MALE  L!)

 

GOVERNMENT WILL PAY £25,000 IF YOU CUT OFF YOUR PENIS

Despite years of campaigning by groups such as Parity it's still very much the case that men in the UK are discriminated against when wanting to retire, having to wait five years longer than women to receive their state pensions. The present coalition government even proposes widening this disparity and believe men should wait until they are 66, despite the fact that men contribute far more in National Insurance and die much sooner than women too.

Fortunately there is now a way to avoid such discrimination and for men to receive the money that is rightfully theirs. Quite simply, if men who've worked hard all their lives wish to retire five years early and receive the extra £25,000 afforded to women all they need to do is to cut off their penis before their 60th birthday.

Such a fact was illustrated this week with the case of Christopher Timbrell who had a sex change operation at the age of 59 though still remains married to his/her wife.   Due to the couple remaining married, Timbrell, along with millions of men had been denied a state pension between the age of 60 to 65. However the Civil Appeal Court order that the decision had breached European equality laws and thus those such as Timbrell were entailed to up to £25,000 in backdated payments.

The court case itself featured all manner of discussion about whether or not two women can be married with the government's defence being the Timbrells would received "preferential treatment" over any other couple. It doesn't' appear to dawn on any of those involved that millions of women receive the very same "preferential treatment" over their male counterparts every single day. If we actually had equality in retirement ages all these ridiculous debates and layers fees could be done away with as we'd simply just treat everyone the same, regardless of what genitalia they have, or what gender they happen to identify themselves as.

I don't wish this piece to be construed as insensitive to the now Mrs Timbrell or people who decide to have a sex change and I realise that their cases involved a lot of anguish and more than a simple operation. In contrast to your average transphobic gender feminist I really don't care what people do with their bodies or what gender they wish to be and I'd actually like to congratulate Christine on defeating the government's sexism, albeit using a method that might not have mass appeal. In fact as an alternative to surgery men could surely just identify as a woman for five years order to receive their pension, with this case setting the precedent that they can even remain married. 

In a wider context it's important to note that the benefits of changing one's gender  in the UK aren't limited gaining tens of thousands of pounds or having five years extra off work, that's just the tip of the iceberg. On top of such incentives there's the prospect of getting into Parliament much more easily, significant help with your business, a promotion at work, exclusive leisure and educational facilities and even perhaps even a get out of jail free card too (and certainly a reduction on any sentence). The Timbrell case is a stark reminder of the discrimination faced by men today, despite many welcome signs and making some of the right noises in some areas, the fact is that the present government wishes to increase the pension gap rather than introducing equality.

In conclusion, I'd say it's fantastic that equality laws are used to help transsexuals, but how about actually using legislation to stop discrimination against those who are happy to remain as men too?

by John Kimble

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

CONSERVATIVE MP SAYS DENYING MEN NINE BILLION IN PENSIONS NOT DISCRIMINATION

Although the media have been painfully silent in examining the Conservative policy of increasing the pension's gap, they haven't failed completely. Credit for tackling key election issues goes to 5 Live's Stephen Nolan, who as well as looking making a certain deputy leader look rather foolish, also raised the problem of pension's discrimination with Jeremy Hunt of the Conservatives.

Strangely, Hunt had little knowledge of his own party's  policy to raise the state pension age for men to 66 whilst still letting women retire at 60. Despite this, Hunt still defended the policy, informing Nolan he was "absolutely sure we’re not discriminating against men but I don’t know the details".

Fortunately we do know the details of the Conservative policy on this site and we've even conducted the relevant financial calculations. In all, the Conservatives are going to take nine billion pounds away from men aged 65-66 and use the money to fund women's pensions. This will enable women to continue to retire far earlier men, despite the fact women also enjoy significantly longer life expectancies and have generally paid less into national insurance. Quite frankly about the only person who you'd expect to deny claims of sexism here is Harriet Harman herself.

In all fairness I suppose such discrimination isn't likely to have too much impact on men such as Mr Hunt given his £4.1 million wealth, though I'm sure even he'd appreciate he could buy nine hundred billion 1p phone calls with the money he's happy to deny men.

CONSERVATIVES ANNOUNCE EVEN MORE DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MEN

Last week we discussed how the Conservatives planned to deny nine billion pounds in pensions to men, instead giving the money to women six years younger. Many may have dismissed such plans to increase the state pensions gap as an oversight and not in keeping with the party's attitudes to men, despite previous warnings such a proposal to use all women short-lists. Today, the party launches it's "equalities" manifesto which brings such debate to an end, confirming the party fully supports sex discrimination against men.

The manifesto pushes so called "positive" discrimination on long lists for directorships, requiring half the candidates to be women. Clearly there is a a lack of females on the boards of bigger companies, but you can't just magic quality professionals out of thin air by introducing quotas.

Exactly the same issue occurs in politics, but the lack of female MPs mostly reflects the lack of suitable  candidates rather than any sort of discrimination. Just as in the workplace women put in less hours and less years into politics and so don't have the experience to make it to the top. As a result, when a party such as Labour introduces all women short-lists, the candidates are of often of low quality and we just tend to see the same faces applying for seat after seat.

The Conservatives top down approach to equality in business is similarly doomed to failure and it's incredibly unfair that half the candidates considered for such key roles will not have be there on merit. Similarly, any females recruited using such methods will be stigmatised for the rest of their careers if they've benefited from such sexism and the economic consequences of reducing the quality of staff running our most important companies doesn't' bare thinking about.

To some, the above policy may not appear too offensive when viewed in isolation, but it's the broader context of the Tory proposals and their other ideas which are worrying. Particularly objectionable is the insistence that any company who's board is less than 30% female will have to describe in their annual report how they will be rectifying the situation. The Conservatives are effectively deeming predominantly male run companies to be sexist automatically, regardless of the evidence. The policy isn't just misguided either - there's a lack of balance too. If the objective is equal outcomes for both sexes the legislation should also surely cover female dominated institutions who are hostile to men and set a 30% minimum of either sex?

Ultimately the only way to create more balance in boardrooms is to change attitudes in society. Unfairness in family law and parental leave forces men to spend more time in the workplace than women, until men have the option of having a family life then they're bound to dominate in the workplace. Similarly, the way for women to gain respect and be able to compete successfully is for them to be treated as equals in all aspects of life, be it in the workplace, the home or in the justice system.

I'm sure you've often heard people complain about how little there is to choose between some of the polices and the antics of Labour and the Conservatives. Today's announcement gives such a sentiment even more credence. Lets at least be thankful the party has had the decency to admit to their position before polling day.

John Kimble

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.