The Rights Of Man

EQUALITIES COMMISSION GUIDANCE DARES NOT ADVOCATE SERVICES FOR MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

In guidance published last month to public authorities about interpreting equalities legislation and local service provision, much of the guidance used the example of domestic violence.

This is clearly based on a decision made by Dorset Council on closing a female refuge so they can pay for a service for men and women. A decision that should not have happened because it isn't right to take services away from female victims but more funding for male victims should be found.

The guidance reiterates throughout that there is no problem in funding services based on gender groups if there is need. It states that far more women suffer from domestic abuse than men, defining the term 'far more' is difficult but the last split based on Home Office figures was 60%/65% female 40%/35% male. Not usure that constitutes far more.

However, the issue raised is that the document throughout talks about the need for services for female victims and that local authorities and public bodies should ensure they have such services but purposely does not utter the words "you must also ensure you provide domestic violence services for male victims."

There is a reference (page 3) that the legislation allows services for female victims "separate from services for male victims".

But what services are there for male victims within local council's - precious little, if any.

And when it says that there is a need for more services for female victims, why doesn't it simply also state "But you must ensure male victims within your community are catered for."

Why are the needs of male victims not mentioned by the Equalities Commission?

STORIES ROUND-UP

As things have been a bit hit and miss on the site for the last few months, please find below a selection of stories and issues that have not been covered in any detail but should have been.

Daily Mail: Paedophile Fears Driving Male Teachers From Primary Schools

Scottish Sun: Domestic Violence Against Men Rises At Time Of Old Firm Matches

Conservative Home: All Women Short-Lists Break All Notions Of Fairness

BBC: Asian Abused Men's Living Hell

BBC: Are Women Paying For Sexism Laws?

BBC: Women Who Abuse Children

Daily Mail: Erin Pizzey - Why I Loathe Feminism

Independent: Prescott Tells Harman To Stop Going On About Women's Rights

Times: Men In Boardrooms Have been A Disaster

Daily Mail: Falsely Accused Victim Wins £25,000 Compensation

Lib Dems: Domestic Violence Convictions Against Women Trebles

Daily Mail: False Accusers Must Go To Jail

Wigan Today: Labour Party All Women Shortlists in Wigan

NO UK ORGANISATION SUPPORTING THIS YEAR'S INTERNATIONAL MEN'S DAY ON 19TH NOVEMBER

The new International Men's Day site is up and running and the site shows that last year the University of Kent supported the vent by running a charity event in aid of male cancer. No news is available on whether this happening again this year.

The Day is supported by the UN, UNESCO and received in principal support from men's groups in USA, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. However, as pointed out before, there does not seem to be anything organised in the UK. Anyone have any views why not?

Surely the Coalition on Men & Boys would support it, wouldn't they?

CONSERVATIVES TO BAN MEN FROM APPLYING TO BE MP'S

The UK Parliament is currently holding what it calls a 'Speakers Conference' a very rarely used tool to debate key issues facing Parliament. The current Speakers Conference has been set up to "Consider, and make recommendations for rectifying, the disparity between the representation of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people in the House of Commons and their representation in the UK population at large".

In laymen terms, Parliament is looking at how to boost the numbers of women in Parliament, which is not necessarily a bad thing, except when it means putting barriers up to stop men from having an equal chance of serving in Parliament and serving a constituency and our country.

Just to recap, the Labour Party has used the blunt instrument of All-women short-lists since the 1997 General Election. They were temporarily stopped because a number of male Labour members who wanted to stand for Parliament took the Labour Party to an industrial tribunal and won. The response by Labour was to introduce the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act in 2002 which meant they could start using All-Women short-lists again because political parties were exempted from the original Sex Discrimination Act.

This site has long highlighted how it continues to be used by Labour, effectively banning man from standing for the Labour Party which means that Labour supporting men who want to be a candidate at the next General Election are politically disenfranchised right across the UK.

The Conservatives under David Cameron have been going down a similar-ish route. Firstly they had an A-List of preferred candidates (that is, chosen by the Party centrally) which had more than 50% women. Only if you were on this list could you apply for a winnable seat. Then they abandoned this after 18 months when most of the winnable seats had selected their candidates from this list and moved to a system where each local Conservative Party had to ensure they interviewed equal numbers of men and women in each selection round. That is, if they wanted to interview 20 people there had to be 10:10 then narrow that down to 2:2 for the final selection round. It was irrelevant how many women or men had applied (there are 7 men for every 3 women on their 'candidates list'.). At the European Elections they also introduced a system for choosing candidates which made it far harder for a man to be elected.

The reason for raising all of this is that this week, the Conservatives have declared that from January 2010, if a MP decided that he/she is standing down from their seat, the seat will only be available to female candidates. That is, they are also introducing all-women short-lists and this was announced by David Cameron this week when he spoke at the aforementioned Speakers Conference.

This announcement has been met with a real backlash from within the Conservative Party (the party of meritocracy supposedly) and has engendered a massive amount of column inches and print ( a list of key articles are below). Part of the reasoning is that they are still not getting enough women in good seats (30% of their candidates are women, thereby matching the make up of their Candidates List so what's wrong?). In addition, they have recently been selecting candidates in winnable seats and all have been men but that has been becuase they are the best candidate at the interview.

John Maples MP, who heads up candidate selection, said this week "All 8 selections have produced male candidates.  The only woman selected has been Sarah Wollaston, in the all postal primary in Totnes.  This trend is not acceptable." Of course, all of the selections were independent of each other and the local parties pick their candidate based on who they think is the best person for the job.

What this all shows though is that the two major parties in the UK have been active in politically disenfranchising men. They have been doing all they can to stop men form being selected to stand for them atn the next General Election to boost the numbers of women. This is anti-democratic and undermine the liberal democrat 'unwritten constitution' which is the founding principle of modern Britain.

While there are more men standing at the next General election for the Conservatives at the next General election than women, this forgets that the issue that each person wanting to stand for Parliament or public office is an individual first and foremost. Their gender or anything else is irrelevant under the liberal democratic constitution.

Instead of trying to get more good women into Parliament by making it more attractive for high calibre women to become candidates (high calibre in terms of meaning they can beat/compete against high calibre male candidates), instead the two main parties have chosen to boost female numbers by sexually discriminating against men.

A travesty and the ultimate act of discrimination, and if the UK political system is meant to be the 'Mother of al Parliament's' then men across the world who want to stand for Parliament in their own country had better watch out.

Key Articles

Conservative Home 1, CH 2, CH 3, CH 4, CH 5, CH 6, CH 7, Iain Martin, Simon Heffer, Amanda Platell, Virginia Blackburn, Daily Mail,  Ann Widdecombe MP and Google News

MEN-ONLY BOARDS ARE A NIGHTMARE EVEN IF THEY ARE THERE ON MERIT

Picture the scenario, some young lads from a mixture of ethnic backgrounds and all in single parent households living on a council estate in Camberwell and Peckham in South London. They work hard at school, excel in Maths, go onto university and after graduating get back together and set up a hedge fund or work their way up through an investment bank and eventually all sit to together on the Board.

Picture another scenario, some young girls from well off backgrounds go to the all-girl public school, St Paul's, in Fulham. Again, all do well, go to university, set up their own finance company in The City or work their way up an investment bank and eventually all sit together on the Board.

According to Harriet Harman and her views on men and the City, the former scenario is a "nightmare", yet, the latter is not.

On Tuesday, as part of Parliament's and Equalities Commission's witch-hunt on the City and men in general, Harman declared to the Treasury Select Committee that men-only boards were a nightmare.

This of course is all part of the current Government's anti-male agenda where anything can be said against men and where there are more men in a position than women that this is due to sexism and there is no need to prove this, because if the politically correct say its true, it has to be true. So few of course, stand up to it (of course, if you do, then according to the Coalition on Men & Boys, you are anti-equality and are ignorant).

In addition, she said that the Government would withhold Government contracts for City or financial organisations if they did not have enough women on the Board and she also did rule out quotas (a scenario in Norway where all Boards must have 40% women - so much for meritocracy in Scandinavia)

This witch-hunt is on top of the Equalities Bill which should finish going through Parliament in the next month which is the most anti-male piece of legislation probably ever entered into Statute.

The issue is simply that no longer will be people be judged on their merits or talents but on their gender. The latter is all that counts. It is sexist by its very nature as gender becomes the dominant factor rather than the individual. It is the end of liberalism in the UK.

Furthermore, there will be sexism at the individual level because if one single man who is more talented, adds more value and has more to offer than a woman both in competition for a place on the Board and she is chosen. That man, and his wife/girlfriend/male partner/sister/daughter and mother have been sexually discriminated against.

Harman and her acolytes forget, men and women do not live in isolation. If you discriminate against a man then you discriminate against the female members of his family.

  

Google News Coverage plus excellent Daily Mail article

MALE GRADUATES SUFFERING IN RECESSION

Imagine a scenario where fewer female graduates were finding jobs in this recession than men or that fewer females were entering the professions than men. Imagine, the acres of newsprint, airtime and gnashing of teeth from Harman Towers, the Fawcett Society, the Equalities Commission and anyone else wanting to moan about discrimination.

Of course, the reality is that the opposite is happening in Britain in 2009 but the silence is deafening.

The  Higher Education Statistics Agency produced research this week that showed that one in ten men (10.3%) who graduated with a degree last year is unemployed, compared with 6.3% women. With fewer boys now going into university in the first place, this is a worrying trend partly I believe because of the collapse of the private sector (men predominate) as opposed to the continuing expansion of the public sector (female predominate). Certainly, it nails again the myth that Harman put about that women would suffer more in the recession than men.

The gender balance has been changing for years now as the education gap between boys and girls continues as now more women are entering the professions than boys (I swear there was more up-to-date research on this last week but cannot find it). No mention of this profession issue in the gender pay gap debates.

BANK HOLIDAY FOR WORKERS MEMORIAL DAY - 95% OF UK FATALITIES ARE MEN

When Yvette Cooper MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions produced, out of the blue,  a consultation suggesting that there should be a bank holiday for people who died at work on the internationally recognised Workers Memorial Day, there was a crucial issue missing.

Having examined the Health and Safety Executive's latest figures for fatalities at work (180 in 07/08) and discounting the fact that 66 were members of the public (that is, they died at a workplace but not whilst they were working at their workplace) its calculated that 110 fatalities were male and 4 female. Without going through figures again (may go boss-eyed), that makes the figures 95-96% male or in laymen's terms for every 20 workplace fatalities, 19 are men and 1 is a women.

Without wanting to be paranoid, why did the Secretary of State not mention the gender breakdown. I ma sure she would have done if it was the other way around.

Also it brings into question again all the nonsense about the gender pay gap. Part of the reason why men earn more money (not more when doing the same jobs as a woman) is because they carry out more dangerous work. Nearly all of the deaths are related to work in agriculture, manufacturing or construction where men predominate. Because of the dangerous work these men do, there is a premium vis a vis their salaries which needs to be taken into account on any debate on the gender pay gap. You never hear the Equalities Commission, Harriet Harman and the Fawcett Society talk about that or putting that into context.

Media Coverage - Google News (the general consensus was negative especially as if there was another bank holiday, it should rightly be on Armistice Day)

HARRIET HARMAN HAS DAMAGED ANTI-MALE FEMINISM THIS WEEK BUT MUCH MORE NEEDED

Like so many things in life, the best laid plans of mice and (wo)men can often go seriously awry and this week may be a turning point in turning the tide back of anti-male feminism.

It will take a lot but now the cat is out of the bag, people, especially those supine male politicians who just sit there and take it like a a bunch of hen-pecked husbands, should have the confidence to challenge it. No man or woman taking on the legion of  - diversity officers, council officials, the Fawcett Society, the Equalities Commission and all those how actively support extra help for women over men -  should be scared no longer.

Just to recap, Harriet Harman was in charge of the Government this week as Gordon Brown is on holiday, and rubbing her hands with glee and after months of planning with her "sista's", she would use the window to plunge the knife in the backs of men. Who would stop her, such is male-bashing such an accepted part of modern Britain.

Firstly, she attacked men in the boardroom and said that men could not be trusted to run things by themselves and that Labour should always have a woman in one of the top the two roles. This was met by a tirade from John Prescott (former Deputy Leader) who can be quite effective when let off the leash, said she should shut up. The redoubtable Ann Widdecombe (Tory MP) also joined in. Infamously Harman then said if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, it would not have caused so much trouble. 

Then there was battle over shelved new rape laws, the national curriculum issue and then feistely says she is no shrinking violet as she tours the TV studios.

The whole incident has led to acres (literally) of newsprint but generally speaking she has been met with ridicule (only The Guardian and the pathetically laughable Times - must have had an anti-male feminist running the Leader Columns this week) especially from female commentators (Some anonymous female Labour politicians said her rampant feminism was like the Taliban!). Those men have written about her have tended to mock her but the implications of what she says and does are too serious for mockery.

So in terms of what has happened, clearly the power went to her head and bearing in mind the likely Labour defeat at the next General Election, she knew it was her last chance to make a stand with the burning flag of anti-male feminism. This week, with other politicians on holiday, she had the place to herself and she did more harm than good to her cause. Great.

Her anti-male extremism (too many people did not take her seriously last summer when she said if he she was PM, every man would rush to the airport) and the extremism of others has been exposed publicly but the policies in practice remain unchanged. So much much more needs to be done on the policy front where armies of diversity officers and others are putting the pieces of her anti-male policies in actual place on a minute by minute basis.

Editors Note - There have been so many articles on the issue this week (see Google News), so I have chosen the ones I like:-

Sun 1, Daily Mail - Steve Richards, BBC 1, Spectator - Rod Liddle, Daily Mash satire, Telegraph, Telegraph 2, Telegraph - Liz Hunt.

NEW ATTACK ON MEN IN THE CITY

The UK Parliament's Treasury Select Committee announced yesterday that it is calling for evidence about sexism in the City. Just like the recent report by the Equalities Commission on the supposed Gender Pay Gap which was used as a public flogging exercise against men, this is just the same.

Again, supine men in the City will stand back and take (only Sir Stuart Rose has complained about it) he fall because they scared of the equalities industry.

Media Coverage

CRUCIAL EQUALITY BILL CLAUSE 153 WIDE OPEN TO ANTI-MALE JOB RECRUITMENT

As previously commented upon, the Equality Bill will allow companies and public authorities to discriminate against candidates of equal merit when considering offering people a job base on whether they are 'under-represented'. We all know what that means in the real world - discrimination against men.

A crucial part of the debate took place on 30th June 2009 when there was a debate in the House of Commons' Committee Stage on the crucial clauses - 152 and 153 (clauses near the bottom).

Mark Harper MP (Cons) put down an amendment on clause 153 because it was too vague and too open to 'interpretation'.

The crucial point is that the clause says  

(a) A is as qualified as B to be recruited or promoted.

What Harper said was that the wording should be ‘equally qualified to’ because the current clause in the Bill meant it narrow the remit where positive action could take place. Leading businesses and also the Law Society said it would this would provide a narrower meaning.

He also wanted clause 191 amended which will stop a Minister from making provisions and amendments based on what he/she thinks but on a basis where they can demonstrate.

The crucial part of the debate centred on an example (column 605) where Harper gives an example between people being 'as equally qualified' to do a job which is different to their ability to be 'qualified to' do a job (hard to follow I know). The difference is that two candidates could have an equal degree but there could be a difference in their aptitude.

His amendment would have narrowed the remit in law. He has particular experience in this as a number of his constituents were involved in one of the UK's most scandalous examples of anti-male discrimination ever perpetrated in the UK (Gloucestershire Police 2006).

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the amendment did not gain support from either the Labour Government or the Liberal Democrats. Harper withdrew the amendment.

What it means though now is that even though organisation have raised their concern about the interpretation of 'as qualified as', it leaves it wide open for abuse and wide open for the systematic discrimination of men in employment. Just at a time when more and more men are losing their jobs.

 

Note 1

Look at the attendance list for evidence gathering at this meeting - any group missing?

Note 2

Look at the debate (column 604) where it is mentioned that Equalities and Human Rights Commission use the fact that primary schools could take positive action to recruit a male teacher because they have so few. The thinnest of fig-leafs and blatantly used as a smokescreen for the Bill's real intention. 

Note 3

Not sure why the text layout changed but it still readable (I hope)