Public understanding of the issues impacting adversely on the lives of men and boys, and the roles feminists play in most of them, is growing by the day.
If you wish to learn more about these issues, a good starting point may be our 2015 general election manifesto, which covered 20 areas where the human rights of men and/or boys are assaulted by the actions and inactions of the state, usually to advantage women and/or girls. In the UK, the human rights of women and girls specifically are assaulted by the state in no areas.
A selection from the 20 areas:
Non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors (Male Genital Mutilation) – the procedure is unquestionably illegal in the UK, but Theresa May MP, Home Secretary, declined to answer our FOI request, which asked why the police are not prosecuting the practitioners. MGM also breaches numerous Articles of European Union and United Nations conventions.
Educational attainment – males have been falling behind females throughout the education system for many years. Women are given financial assistance denied to men, e.g. at Brunel University, only women doing one-year-long MSc courses in Engineering are given an additional £22,750.
Employment – anti-male discrimination in recruitment and promotion.
Domestic violence – male victims are denied support. Virtually all refuge places are allocated to women and children.
Children – denied access to their fathers and paternal grandparents following family breakdowns.
Fathers and paternal grandparents – denied access to their children and grandchildren following family breakdowns.
Armed Forces veterans – denied adequate support for dealing with mental health issues, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Homelessness – almost 90% of street homeless are men.
Suicide – the male:female suicide rate ratio has increased from 1.7:1 to 3.5:1 in 30 years.
Prison sentencing – five out of six men in British prisons wouldn’t be there, if men were sentenced as leniently as women for the same crimes.
Paternity fraud – the Crown never prosecutes women committing this crime, even when it has proof of their guilt from paternity tests.
Anonymity for suspected sex offenders – men’s lives are ruined by false rape allegations. The men’s accusers enjoy anonymity, while the men don’t.
Divorce – financially crippling settlements still demanded from men.
Healthcare provision – two national screening programmes for female-specific cancers, none for male-specific cancers, although as many men die from prostate cancer, as women die from breast cancer.
Political representation – all-women shortlists, women preferenced for ministerial positions. Jess Phillips (a Labour MP selected from an all-women shortlist) tried to block the application of Philip Davies (a Conservative MP) to hold the first debate on men’s issues ever to be held in Parliament, on International Men’s Day, November 19, 2015. Happily, the debate went ahead, anyway. Ms Phillips won a ‘Toxic Feminist of the Month’ award in recognition of her attempt to block it.
State intervention in director appointments – the government continues to bully FTSE companies into appointing more female directors, although longitudinal studies show a causal link between increasing female representation on corporate boards, and financial decline. Mike Buchanan presented that evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012.
