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Dear Equality and Human Rights Commission, What About The Men?

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Last week I was proud to be one of the signatories on a joint letter to the Equalities And Human Rights Commission (EHRC) calling for the commission to address men’s issues in its 2016-2019 strategic plan, writes Glen Poole.

It’s a simple letter flagging up issues like male suicide; men’s health; boys’ education; violence against men and boys; the challenges fathers face and negative portrayals of men, boys and fathers.

There are 38 signatories including academics, charity leaders and journalists and while we all have different views—different gender politics—we all agree that these issues deserve more focus and attention.

So I want to be clear from the start of this exploration of men and gender equality in the UK,  that the views expressed in this article are mine and mine alone and outline why I think the EHRC  will continue to fail to address the many issues that men and boys face in the UK.

In this piece I’ll be covering:

  • My own gender politics
  • Some data demonstrating that more people support gender equality than support feminism
  • Some recent history on coalitions and networks supporting men and boys in the UK
  • My thoughts on the EHRC approach to gender equality

And for the context, the EHRC was set up by government and is an independent body. Only two of its 12 senior positions are occupied by men and in relations to men and boys it has a duty to:

  • Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation of men and boys
  • Advance equality of opportunity between ‘men and boys’ and ‘women and girls’
  • Foster good relations between ‘men and boys’ and ‘women and girls’

The personal is political

In my view, the trouble with that EHRC has with men and boys is that all comes down to gender politics, so let me get my personal gender politics out on the table first.

I’m a non-feminist. I’ve been a card-carrying non-feminist since about 2010. I used to be a card-carrying feminist until about 15 years ago. I steadily moved away from a feminist worldview around the turn of the century after experiencing the discrimination faced by separated dads and observing feminism’s response as too often being sexist, anti-equality and deeply lacking in compassion and empathy for the suffering of separated men (and the men, women and children in their lives also affected by the separation).

I didn’t self-identify as a “non-feminist” until it became apparent that the constant attempts of others to label me as “feminist” or “anti-feminist” warranted a response. And so I “came out” as a loud, proud “non-feminist” man.

I’m not the first pro-feminist man to take the journey away from feminism. In the US, the author Warren Farrell left the feminist National Organization For Women (NOW) about forty years ago for the similar reasons as he revealed in 1997:

“Everything went well until the mid-seventies when NOW came out against the presumption of joint custody [of children following divorces]. I couldn’t believe the people I thought were pioneers in equality were saying that women should have the first option to have children or not to have children—that children should not have equal rights to their dad.”

Warren’s experience forty years ago reflects what an untold number of men and women believe:

  • That feminism, in practice, does not mean equality for all
  • That being non-feminist does NOT make you anti-equality (or anti-woman)

Some will disagree and some would want me to add that being feminist or pro-feminist doesn’t make you anti-equality or anti-men either. Such is the nature of gender politics—just like party politics and religion—we all tend to think that our view is the right view and everyone else is wrong.

So here’s my version of what the right view of gender politics is:

“THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG VIEW!”

That’s my radical view. It’s why I personally describe myself as a non-feminist, it allows me to stand in a space where I don’t have to take sides based on a label but am free to meet each issue, each individual and each viewpoint for the perspective of not what’s right or what’s wrong, but from a perspective of whether something works or not.

I recently criticised plans to give every 16-year-old boy in Sweden a book called “We Should All Be Feminists”, for example, not because I think its bad and wrong or because I’m anti-feminist, but because the idea that when it comes to gender politics we “should” all have the same worldview is simply fundamentalist—it doesn’t work!

Some anti-feminists have responded to this article by saying that I should declare myself an anti-feminist, but that’s just more of the same fundamentalist thinking. If you respond to me critiquing someone saying “we should all be feminists” by saying “you should be anti-feminist”, then you’ve missed the entire point of my argument—which doesn’t work!

By the same token, some feminists have responded by accusing me of ‘playing with labels’, telling me that non-feminsm isn’t really a thing and that I should declare myself a pro-feminist—which again misses the point of the argument—and doesn’t work!

All human beings have a gender political viewpoint, whether we are conscious of it or not—and if we want to raise people’s consciousness when it comes to gender politics then we need more than two boxes in which to place ourselves. If we want to ensure that the gender politics of powerful institutions like the EHRC; the Government Equalities Office; the European Institute of Gender Equality and UN Women (to name but a few) are representative of a broad range of gender political viewpoints—then we need more than two labels to help us navigate that challenge.

Why are gender political labels important?

In 2013, a YouGov survey asked Americans about their gender political viewpoints. This is what they found:

  • 20% said they were feminist (including 23% of women and 16% of men)
  • 9% said they were anti-feminist (including 13% of men and 5% of women)
  • 63% said they were neither feminist nor anti-feminist (64% of men and 62%).

What that tells us is that being “not-a-feminist-but-not-anti-feminist-either”—or a non-feminist if you prefer,  is not only the main gender political viewpoint amongst the general public, it’s also the most gender-equal viewpoint too, with around two thirds of men and women holding that view.

There are more than twice as many non-feminists than there are feminists and anti-feminists put together, but our views are too often drowned out in gender political debates and not present where they really count in the institutions set up to deal directly with gender equality issues.

The figures in the UK are very similar with a narrower (and differently worded) poll revealing that:

  • 19% said they were feminist (including 27% of women and 10% of men)
  • 66% said they were not feminist (including 77% of men and 57% of women)
  • 15% said they were not sure (13% of men and 16% of women).

In the US survey, respondents were also asked if they believe that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals”. It’s an imperfect question because it depends what you think the people surveying actually mean by, for example political equality. Do they mean equal right to vote or quotas so that 50% of MPs are women or something else? But despite its limitations the answers are illuminating:

  • 82% of people said they did think that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals”
  • 9% of people said they didn’t think that.

So when while only 20% of people are feminists a whopping 82% of people think “men and women should be equals”. The UK poll had the same finding with 80% of men and 81% of women agreeing that when it comes to rights and treatment and status, “men and women should be equal in every way”.

This explains why the whole “if you’re against feminism you’re against gender equality argument” has no legs whatsoever—because the majority of people who are FOR gender equality are NOT feminists—they could be better described as non-feminists. And yes “non-feminism” is not a homogenous belief system, there are many different non-feminisms, but that’s why we need to name this group and start to define some of the major strands of gender political that could be described as non-feminist.

There are many different definitions of gender equality

One of the reasons for the disparity (between those supporting feminism and those supporting gender equality) is that there is not a single definition of what gender equality means. There are many different “gender equalities” and so two people can be both FOR gender equality and have diametrically opposed views of what gender equality means.

For one person gender equality can mean banning female circumcision/genital mutilation but allowing male circumcision/genital mutilation, for example. For another person gender equality can men banning both. For another person it can mean banning one but taking action to reduce the harm of the other.

So, which view is right and which view is wrong? Which view works?

I have my own view. Your answer will depend on your own personal gender politics, or maybe just your current state of knowledge about the issue, but all views are valid and deserve to be heard and taken into account. And if we exclude certain views from the public discourse about gender equality then we are in danger of creating fundamentalism, both in terms of allowing those with most power to enforce their own views to the exclusion of others—and in terms of the most marginalised and excluded voices becoming more fundamental and exclusionary in the way they respond.

Coalitions and networks for men and boys in the UK

In the world of gender politics, the people with most power are feminists and pro-feminists. This includes the EHRC which was formed through the merger of several different equalities bodies, including the feminist Equal Opportunities Commission in 2007.

In article at Telegraph Men,  Neil Lyndon states that our joint letter represents “the first time, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission will be called upon to recognise formally that men and boys can be in positions of systemic disadvantage and inequality in British life”. This is not entirely accurate.

The fact is that since its inception in 2007 the EHRC has been engaged in men’s issues, most notably providing financial support to the now defunct Coalition on Men and Boys to produce a report on men, masculinities and public policy.

The Coalition aimed “to put issues of concern to men and boys firmly on the public policy agenda” but was staunchly pro-feminist, terrified of upsetting the women’s lobby and had no framework in place for bringing non-feminist individuals, organisations and issues into the Coalition.

I don’t know the full story of how the Coalition came into being and why it fell apart, but one insider tells me that in retrospect “they spent too much time looking over their shoulder, making sure they weren’t upsetting the Fawcett Society”. So calling on the EHRC to engage in men’s issues is nothing new, but there are lessons to be learnt from the past and the biggest lesson of all is this— we have to address the gender politics of advocating for men and boys.

The other coalition for men and boys

In 2010 I produced a three-year strategy for addressing issues facing men and boys in my city, Brighton & Hove. It achieved a great deal as well as falling far short of its ambitions by trying to achieve too much, too quickly with too little resource, infrastructure and support. Yet the process of researching, developing and attempting to implement this strategy taught me a great deal about what works and what doesn’t work when trying to address men’s issues:

The strategy had local, national and international objectives, the most successful of which was the national ambition to:

“Develop a networking strategy to empower men and men’s groups to engage with each other and key local and national decision makers [and] host a National Conference For Men And Boys and help expand participation in International Men’s Day.”

The impact of this particular work is still felt and still evolving today (the joint letter to the EHRC being one example). As one of the signatories, the journalist Ally Fogg recently said in a recent Reddit interview:

“There is something in the UK which I refer to as the men’s sector – a reasonably large number of charities and non-profit orgs (plus a few individual activists, writers, bloggers etc) that work with primarily or exclusively men and boys.

“What I find really interesting is that lots of these orgs now know each other and support each other. In this I have to pay enormous tribute to my friend Glen Poole. What Glen’s work has done really well, IMO, is to highlight how closely connected all the issues are, so you can get a dozen charities working with men in fields of mental health and suicide, alcoholism and drugs, youth exclusion, violence victimisation and perpetration, mentoring, abuse recovery etc etc etc – all those issues that are flagged up as different “men’s issues” – put those people in the same room and THEY ARE ALL SAYING EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS!”

I don’t share this to blow my own trumpet, though is great to get a public slap on the back every now and then, but I share this to highlight what works and what doesn’t work.

What type of men’s alliances make a difference?

The men’s sector in the UK has evolved and matured since 2010 (though it’s still a poor relation of the women’s sector and a fraction of its size) and  it survives and thrives through the hard work and commitment of the many individuals and organisations connected to its complex web.

It’s not an easy sector to engage with. I’ve lost some friends and allies in the past five years; have uncomfortable interactions with many more but have built many more great friendships and resourceful working relationships along the way. More importantly, I have seen new projects supporting men and boys emerge and evolve and go from strength and strength and seen new relationships and alliances being built across the sector.

This is what I’ve learnt about men’s networks/coalitions/movements in the process. There are basically three types of alliance worth being aware of (and they sometimes overlap):

  • There are alliances built around a common gender political viewpoint
  • There are alliances built around a common goal or concern
  • There are formal or informal alliances

And if you don’t define which type of alliance you are part of, it will limit your ability to make any long-term difference. The Coalition for Men and Boys, for example was a formal coalition, it did identify some common areas of concern, but was terrified of being associated with people who’s gender political worldview strayed from the pro-feminist mindset.

The alliances that I have been involved with building in the UK since 2010 still manifest through initiatives such as International Men’s Day and insideMAN’s #100Voices4Men project—and through these alliances I have also been invited to take part in initiatives like Year Of The Male; the joint letter to the CPS and the Male Psychology Conference.

The men’s issues networks I am part of are mostly informal (with some formal initiatives), built on the common interest we could call “men’s issues” and inclusive of a broad range of gender political viewpoints, but often with their own unique gender political bias.

For example, International Men’s Day is platform which is inclusive of all and welcomes anyone who wants to mark the day, whereas insideMAN has a narrower bias towards non-feminist perspectives highlighting “the problems men and boys have” (though we include feminist viewpoints and articles on “the problems men cause” from time to time).

How do you know what your gender politics are?

Anyone who wants to influence institutions like the EHRC needs an understanding of gender politics that takes us beyond the binary viewpoint of ‘women’s rights/feminism’ versus ‘men’s rights/anti-feminism’.

There are lots of different ways of categorising people’s genders politics some of which are used by researchers employed to advise governments on men’s issues. I have several ways of categorising different groups my self, but by the far the simplest is this.

To find out what someone’s gender politics are, ask them three questions:

  • What are the main gender issues you personally are concerned with?
  • What do you think are the main causes of those issues?
  • What do you think are the main solutions to those issues?

Even if you don’t ask these specific questions, if you listen to anyone talking about gender issues for long enough, with an open and curious mind, the answers will begin to reveal themselves.

The strength (and weakness) of the informal ‘men’s movement’ I belong to in the UK is that it is built around a common concern for the issues men and boys have, but not a common view of what causes those issues or what the solutions are. Though I guess we’d agree that if the country was putting more time, money and resource into addressing those issues then that would move us towards solutions.

My own view is that the issues men face are a product of the way gender has evolves throughout time (shaped by biology, psychology, systems and cultures) and the solutions are ultimately to be found in mainstreaming men’s issues and integrating gender politics, at every level of culture and society.

Mainstreaming and integrating men’s issues

By mainstreaming I mean making men’s issues a mainstream concern in all areas of our culture and society (politics, media, culture, religion, public sector, private sector, third sector and so on).

By integrating I mean ensuring that a broad range of gender political viewpoints that are representative of the whole population are integrated into work on gender equality and men’s issues in particular.

Returning to the EHRC, this is why I think it will continue to fail to address the many issues that men and boys face in the UK:

  • Because men’s issues haven’t been mainstreamed in the commission’s work on gender equality
  • Because EHRC has no mechanism for integrating a range of gender political views into its work (or identifying AND addressing its own, unconscious gender political bias)

The willingness to name one’s own unconscious, gender political bias is a habit rarely seen in the world of gender politics (while “calling out” others for their perceived bias is commonplace). In practice, the vast majority of us are unaware of our own unconscious bias when it comes to gender politics, tending to believe that our gender political view is simply the truth and everyone else is just plain wrong.

It never ceases to amaze me, for example, how many well-educated and high profile individuals hold the belief that feminism is synonymous with gender equality. It isn’t and most of the public know it isn’t as the YouGov polls demonstrate.

There are many different feminisms and many different views about what gender equality is (just as there are many different religions and many different views about what God is), so the fallacy that “feminism=gender equality” is a myth that needs to be busted if we are ever going to mainstream and integrate men’s issues.

I am very open and unapologetic about my own gender political bias which can best be described as follows:

  • I focus on men and boys issues, particularly the problems men have
  • I focus on promoting men’s lived experiences and men’s voices
  • I aim to do this in addition to (not in opposition to) the issues women and girls face
  • Where there is conflict and work to help women and girls conflicts with work to support men and boys, I seek to highlight and help address that conflict
  • I am non-feminist (and I’m interested in what feminists, anti-feminists and other non-feminists have to say)

As I wrote in 2010:

“True diversity recognises that people have different values and beliefs and that those differences need to be respected and promoted. All too often in the world of gender work, strategic partners refuse to work with people with different values and beliefs and so end up excluding others in the name of Equality and Diversity.”

Five years on I’d probably say “understood” rather than “promoted” but this observation is still as relevant as ever.

Can the EHRC make a difference for men?

For The EHRC to make progress on men’s issues over the lifetime of its new strategic plan (2016-2019) it will need to address the following:

  • There are many different ways to define and measure gender equality which show us there are many areas of life where men and boys experience inequality—and they all need to be taken into account
  • There are a diverse range of gender political viewpoints which shape how we view the inequalities that men and boys face
  • The EHRC has its own gender political bias, which needs to be named, acknowledged and understood
  • The EHRC will need to integrate a broad range of gender political viewpoints to understand the inequalities that men and boys face and not just rely on a pro-feminist approach with its tendency to exclude other gender political viewpoints

Right now, I am not overly confident that the EHRC will grasp the nettle and address these issues over the next three years. What I am confident about is that the informal networks of individuals and organisations concerned about men’s issues in the UK will continue to grow.

In 2011 around 100 individuals and organisations (including one member of the Coalition on Men and Boys) signed up to the following statement:

“There are now many areas where men and boys are showing up unequally such as health, fatherhood, education, criminal justice and community safety – and we believe that any effort to ensure equality for all in the UK needs to consider the specific needs of men and boys and how to address them. There is now a growing network of individuals and organisations in the UK which is concerned with addressing these issues. We all have our own specific areas of interest and many different ideas about how best we can improve men and boys’ access to and outcomes from public services. What unites us is a commitment to help every boy to reach his full potential as a man and to improve the way the world works for every man, woman, girl and boy in the UK in the process.”

That “growing network” includes people who are feminist/pro-feminist; non-feminist and anti-feminist. In my opinion, it is our inclusivity and diversity that is our strength because we can only create a fairer and more gender equal world by involving a diverse range of gender political perspectives.

If the YouGov poll is right, at least 80% of people support gender equality but only 10% of men and 27% of women say they are feminists. This means that:

  • 81% of women  support gender equality and two out of every three of them are NOT feminist
  • 80% of men support gender equality and nine out of ten them are NOT feminist

So if we want to make a huge leap forward in tackling gender equality in the UK, it’s time for a gender political revolution that is designed to be inclusive of the concerns of non-feminists; feminists/pro-feminists and anti-feminists alike.

That’s my view, you may or may not share it, but at least when it comes to:

a) being a non-feminist

b) being concerned about gender equality

I know that on those two measures at least, I am in step with the vast majority of people in the UK. The question then, is can we persuade the EHRC and other equalities bodies to start taking men’s issues seriously and to become inclusive of a range of gender political viewpoints beyond the narrow confines of feminist/pro-feminist thinking (and its anti-feminist shadow).

—Image:Erik Charlton

Glen Poole is the news editor of online magazine insideMAN, author of the book Equality For Men and UK coordinator for International Men’s Day.

The three reasons I don’t support feminist equality campaigns

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This week I was challenged by the university lecturer Martin Robb to stop “touting” myself as a non-feminist and give my backing to feminist campaigns for gender equality instead, writes Glen Poole.

Martin’s challenge was a response to my article in the Daily Telegraph asserting that boys should have a right to choose whether to be feminist or not. So for the benefit of Martin and anyone else who is interested, I thought I’d outline the main three reasons I don’t support feminist campaigns for gender equality. Here they are:

  • I’m not a feminist
  • My definition of “gender equality” is different from most feminists
  • Many feminist initiatives designed to “engage men in gender equality” actively exclude non-feminists

That being the case, then why would I support feminist campaigns for gender equality when they don’t align with my own principles?

I’ll expand on these three points in this article but  before I do I’d like to address some of Martin’s comments about me. Firstly, Martin describes me as someone who is “simply playing games with labels” by “touting (myself) as a ‘non’ feminist.”

“Tout” is an interesting word to use. To me it means to sell things, often illicitly, for personal gain and a great cost to others! Wikipedia describes a tout as “a person who solicits…in a persistent and annoying manner”! It is neither a neutral nor a complimentary word.

Why is this important?

This is important to note because there is a subtle game of “othering” people who think differently here which reflects the feminist movement’s discomfort with intellectual diversity. Martin presents “feminism” and “male pro-feminism” as the only legitimate gender political views for a man to hold and describes people, like me, who hold other views as “touts”.

What does it mean to “stand outside” feminism he asks as if those who are NOT feminist or pro-feminist belong to a mysterious “other” tribe with strange beliefs and superstitions. There is a clearly an intellectual hierarchy in gender politics as far as Martin is concerned and feminists/pro-feminists sit on top of it and the “others” like me, are the unwelcome outliers at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Martin then accuses me of “tarring all feminists as intolerant” on the basis of an article in which I described the feminist whose work I was critiquing as being intelligent, compassionate and self aware. I used these words because I look for the greatness in all human beings and in the case of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I didn’t have to look far—she is an extraordinary human being. Martin dismisses my acknowledgment as softening my criticsm, it was no such thing—it was a heartfelt, acknowledgement from one human being to another.

At the same time the title of her book—“we should all be feminists”—is a fundamentalist statement that has been embraced by feminists who hold that viewpoint. And my extensive lived experience of gender politics is that when feminists adopt a fundamentalist belief that everyone else should be feminist too, there is a very real risk that they will become intolerant of “others” who don’t share their worldview.

In describing the act of holding a non-feminist worldview as “touting”, Martin demonstrates both his intolerance of, and his difficulty having empathy for, men who don’t share his pro-feminist worldview. Martin says that “in many years of working as a man alongside feminists, I’ve never been made to apologise for anything”.

I don’t doubt that what Martin says about his lived experience of feminists is true, but why does he use his experience to invalidate my lived experience of feminism? Why does his lived experience have validity, but mine doesn’t?

This is a very common ploy used by pro-feminist men to dismiss the experiences of “other” non-feminist men.

When a non-feminist man points out that feminism has a problem with intellectual diversity, for example, and is intolerant of those with different worldviews, for a pro-feminist man to respond by saying  “I’ve never had a problem” misses the point. Rather like a straight man saying to a gay man “well I’ve never experienced any homophobic bullying from straight guys”!

The point is, that the movement Martin is part of has a problem with the way it treats “others”—and for a movement that prides itself in promoting “equality AND diversity” that is a core issue.

So even though Martin says he agrees with my assertion that we should “teach our boys to become free-thinkers who can choose for themselves whether they want to be feminist or not”—he still concludes by saying  that if you’re a man you should “get stuck in” and “lend your support” to feminist campaigns for gender equality, even if:

  1. You’re not a feminist
  2. Your definition of “gender equality” is different from most feminists
  3. Many feminist initiatives designed to “engage men in gender equality” actively exclude non-feminists

What does a non-feminist believe?

Martin provides three examples of campaigns that non-feminist men should support, which provides me with a useful opportunity to demonstrate how my view of gender equality is different from most feminists as the table below shows.

What I believe as a non-feminist What feminist equality campaigns believe
  • There are lots of areas in life where women and girls are unequal to men and boys (and vice versa)
  • There are lots of areas in life where women and girls are unequal to men and boys
  • When men and women experience inequality (and where it is appropriate) we should take collective action to address those inequalities
  • When women experience inequality we should take collective action to address those inequalities
  • Men’s primary job in the drive for gender equality is to address the issues faced by men and boys (and support initiatives focused on women and girls if they want to)
  • Men’s primary role in the drive for gender equality is to support feminist initiatives focused on women and girls and oppose non-feminist gender equality initiatives.
  • Equality of autonomy is a far more important measure of gender equality than equality of outcome (though equality of outcome is still an important measure)
  • Equality of outcome is by the far the most important measure of gender equality but only when it relates to women and girls.

To prove this point, here’s what the three organisations that Martin says “ensure equal chances for all”, have to say about gender equality.

#HeForShe

This is a UN Women campaign that asks men to take the following pledge:

“I commit to take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.”

Note there’s no commitment to take action against violence and discrimination faced by men and boys, even though around 80% of victims of violent death in the world every year are male.

MenEngage

MenEngage says: “We believe that men should be engaged in advancing the rights, health and well-being of women and girls. We are committed to working as allies with women and women’s rights organisations to achieve equality for women and girls.”

Note there’s no concern for the rights, health and well-being of men and boys and no commitment to work with men’s organisations to achieve equality for men and boys.

White Ribbon

White Ribbon asks men to make the following pledge: “I promise never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence towards women”.

Not only does this pledge ignore violence against men, this is also a deeply misleading pledge. In reality, the White Ribbon campaign only wants men to say feminist-approved things about violence towards women, as the Psychiatrist Dr Tanveer Ahmed found out earlier this year when White Ribbon took action to silence him for daring to voice a “non-feminist” view.

Why would someone who is committed to promoting gender equality for all, support initiatives that are about promoting gender equality for women and girls, but not men and boys?

Why would I make the White Ribbon pledge to “never remain silent” about violence against women when I know that if I speak out about this issue, that White Ribbon will want to silence me because I don’t hold a feminist view on the subject?

Feminists who are fundamentalists don’t welcome the simple idea that a diversity of worldviews is needed if we are to tackle major world problems like violence. As such, fundamentalist feminists are actively (and at times abusively) intolerant of people who hold different worldviews. Here’s the feminist CEO of domestic violence charity, Karen Ingala Smith, responding to my article in The Telegraph on twitter :

“Hahaha, bollocks of the highest order”

This response is not, in my experience, untypical of the level of contempt that high profile feminists in positions of power have for non-feminist thinkers like me.

As a younger man I used to call myself a feminist because I was concerned with the issues that affected women and girls. As I became aware of the issues that men and boys also face, I consistently found feminists and feminism to be not only dismissive of these concerns, but also actively hostile towards men and women who were working to address these issues.

I’ve been experiencing this feminist hostility for nearly 20 years now. It comes in many forms and needs to be addressed if we are to make sustainable progress in the global drive for gender equality.

To highlight just one strand of my work, for the past six years I’ve been promoting and co-ordinating the celebration of International Men’s Day in the UK. It’s an inclusive platform that invites anyone and everyone to put on an event, no matter what their gender politics.

Supporters of the day included charities that help male victims of rape and sexual abuse and campaigners working to address the fact that in the UK, 13 men die from suicide every day. Over the years a small number of feminist groups have also got behind the day, but some high profile feminists like the founders of MenEngage and White Ribbon advise their global networks to “stay away from the day“.

The reason? My view is they stay away from International Men’s Day because it isn’t controlled by feminists—and fundamentalist feminists can’t cope with inclusive approaches that require them to share a gender political platform with non-feminists.

“Fuck off and leave us the fuck alone!”

Then there’s Kate Smurthwaite, a feminist campaigner named by the BBC as one of their “100 women” who responded to an International Men’s Day press release in 2014, by sending me a foul-mouthed email saying:

“Would you please tell whoever wrote this utter shit to go fuck themselves? Feminism is the same thing as gender equality. Those who say it is not are lying assholes trying to divide and destroy the movement. Please let them know they are misogynist dickwads and that feminism doesn’t want their help. Feminism wants them to fuck off and leave us the fuck alone”.

Then there’s the Labour MP and former domestic violence charity worker, Jess Phillips, who tied herself in gender political knots over International Men’s Day this year, first sniggering at it; then offering an apology of sorts for her reaction to it; then saying she was for men’s issues; then deriding International Men’s Day’s track record; then comparing International Men’s Day (with it’s focus on helping male victims of rape and preventing male suicide, amongst other things) to “white history month or able body action day”.

More pertinently, she also publicly declared her hatred for people with a different gender political view to her saying: “I hate fools who think men don’t have equality”.

I’m one of those fools that Jess hates. My non-feminist view of gender equality is that there are clearly areas where women and girls experience inequality and there are areas when men and boys face inequality too. Both of these things are true and both need addressing—it’s not a zero sum game, helping men AND women does not require us to choose between men OR women.

This simple viewpoint is one that feminists and feminism struggles to contend with and this is  deeply problematic for a movement that too often claims to be synonymous with “gender equality”. How can any movement claim to be all about gender equality and struggle so profoundly to respond to the many gender inequalities that men and boys face?

Take the case of the University of York, where the Equality and Diversity Committee decided to support International Men’s Day. The response by feminists within the institution was not “Great how can we help?” but “Shit, how can we close this down?”

In total, 200 academics, students and alumni signed an open letter opposing the day and the institution responded by abandoning its plans. This episode was covered in several places including The Telegraph, insideMAN and The Independent. The silver lining on this story was provided by a wonderful York student, Ruth Morris,  starting a petition FOR International Men’s Day that garnered over 4,000 signatures.

Contrary to what Martin claims, I am not in the business “tarring all feminists as intolerant”. When I see tolerant and inclusive feminism, I celebrate it and so here’s Ruth demonstrating what tolerant, inclusive feminism looks like:

“True feminists should be fighting for gender equality for both men and women. To cancel men’s day is simply hypocritical. Equality is not just for women and should concern all genders. All feminists are being wrongly portrayed here which is simply unfair. We are not man-haters and the university should go ahead with plans to celebrate all diversity, not just one gender.”

These incidents demonstrate the vital importance of creating non-feminist and non-feminist-inclusive spaces to discuss gender issues—particularly those affecting men and boys. One reason is simply that such initiatives bring to light the fundamentalist opposition to intellectual diversity that seems to be endemic in the feminist movement.

Another reason is that if feminism really is about gender equality and yet struggles to address the gender equality issues that men and boys face (which it clearly does), then embracing and supporting “others” who are committed to and focused on addressing the equality issues facing men and boys is surely something to be welcomed?

If feminism is really about gender equality for all, then why is it so hostile to those who are concerned with highlighting and addressing the equality issues that men and boys face?

These fundamentalist tendencies within feminism go to the very top. In 2014 I was privileged to be invited by UN Women to attend a workshop about the #HeForShe campaign with Emma Watson and a select gathering of experts. There was a magical moment before the event started when I asked one of the organisers why they’d invited me to speak. He told me there were lots of female academics talking about men and gender but not many men and they wanted a male academic to contribute—albeit a pro-feminist one.

Then I dropped the bombshell “but I’m not an academic and I’m not a feminist”!

The look of absolute horror on the guy’s face was priceless, like a caterer at a Bar Mitzvah suddenly discovering the chef has put ham in the soup that has just been served to all the guests.

You see, had they realised I was a non-feminist in advance, they would never have invited me, because #HeForShe and UN Women are feminist campaigns for gender equality for women—-not non-feminist-inclusive campaigns for gender equality for all.

Then there’s the European Union.

In the 2012 the EU agency EIGE (European Institute for Gender Equality) created a network of approved NGOs that work with men on gender equality issues. The feminist team behind the project went through an extensive process of defining how men should (or shouldn’t) be allowed to engage in gender equality work across Europe (including the UK).

The report promotes pro-feminist work involving men and gender equality policies across Europe and rejects non-feminist approaches and theories that highlight discrimination against men—which includes anti-feminist, men’s rights and fathers’ rights approaches.

At the same time, the European Institute of Gender Equality (EIGE) compiled a database of approved men’s organisations across Europe who were considered to be suitable for inclusion in gender equality work.

Any organisation or individual considered “to have rejected the study’s understanding of gender equality” was excluded. And therein lies the fundamentalism of feminism writ large across publicly funded gender political thinking in Europe.

The team behind this project identified five types of gender politics that men engage in:

  • Men’s liberation
  • Anti-sexist or pro-feminist
  • Spiritual and mythopoetic
  • Christian
  • Men’s rights and fathers’ rights.

The hierarchy of gender politics 

What this list represents is a hierarchy of approved gender political viewpoints. The top groups are considered to be superior and are included in an approved list of stakeholders working for gender equality. The bottom three groups are considered to be inferior and excluded from the list (though may be let in if vetted and approved).

I don’t fit neatly into any of those boxes and there are groups that are completely overlooked—for example charities and campaigns working to end male circumcision don’t fit into any of those categories (though men from each category may support their aims).

What this incomplete list confirms is that there are many forms of “non-feminism”. My own personal version of non-feminism includes aspects of all five groups and more besides (though I am neither Christian nor pro-feminist). More broadly, beyond my own specific viewpoints, I believe that approaches to addressing gender equality should include ALL of those groups and more besides.

And this is where I find myself at odds with the fundamentalist approach to gender equality that feminists and pro-feminists promote.

Essentially, what feminism does is to create a closed club that excludes people with particular worldviews—like myself—and then when we criticise feminism for attempting to exclude us from the world of gender equality, we are attacked for not supporting feminism.

It’s like not inviting people to a party, putting bouncers on the door to prevent us from getting in and then when we complain, attacking us for being rude and not showing up at to the party.

We need diversity in gender politics 

The fact is that gender politics is a diverse field and I happen to believe that we should work to embrace that diversity, rather than seek to create hierarchies of gender political thought that actively exclude particular worldviews.

In this respect I tend to find myself at odds with both feminists AND anti-feminists because while anti-feminism is one form of non-feminism (and while I agree that many of the issues highlighted by anti-feminists are not being addressed by feminism), my experience of anti-feminists is that they also find inclusivity and diversity in gender politics confronting.

However as anti-feminists tend to have very little (if any) power in the world of gender equality, this is mere trivia when compared to the damage that feminists and feminism is doing with its fundamentalist resistance to intellectual diversity in gender politics.

Nor do I think that the report’s analysis of anti-feminists “seeking to undermine gender equality” is a fair or reasonable analysis. Most (though not all) anti-feminists that I have encountered simply see themselves as having a different view of what gender equality is to most feminists.

From my own perspective, the reason I am a non-feminist is that I care deeply and passionately about every girl and boy on this planet being given every opportunity to flourish and thrive and fulfil their potential.

I believe that deepening our understanding of men, masculinity and manhood is central to that. But unlike the feminists and pro-feminists I don’t view “men and masculinities as socially constructed and produced, rather than ‘natural’“.

As an integral non-feminist thinker, I believe that gender is a product of both nature (i.e. biology and evolved  psychology) and nurture (social and cultural conditioning).

There are lots of different ways to define people’s gender politics (and we all have gender politics) and one way is to consider if you think being a man is a product of nature; a product of nurture; or a combination of nature and nurture.

As the majority of feminist thinking emanates from the social sciences, other valuable perspectives from disciplines such as biology, psychology and neuro-science are often excluded from our approach to gender equality. This is another manifestation of the fundamentalist tendency within feminism to exclude worldviews that are not readily aligned to feminist thinking.

When feminists are absolutely brilliant 

But if we want to live in a world that works for everyone—and I do—we can’t do this by trying to force everyone to think the same, we can only do it by learning to integrate the very best of the many different worldviews that are found around the globe.

The feminist approach to gender equality does not do this. It excludes people like me—and many wonderful men and women around the world who don’t tick the “feminist” or “pro-feminist” box. The reason I don’t support feminism is that I support equality and diversity and I support the inclusion of worldviews that I don’t agree with, in the world of gender politics.

Feminists are absolutely brilliant at trying to promote all manner of sexual diversity and gender diversity in the world and while I don’t always agree with the methods, I do 100% support the intention—-and all I ask of feminists and feminism is that you extend that brilliant thinking to embrace intellectual diversity, which means welcoming and including those who hold views that are non-feminist into the worlds of gender politics, gender issues and gender equality.

I know that this is a big ask. It’s difficult for people in power to let go.

But while as an individual it is perfectly acceptable to think “we should all be feminists”, once you become a collective force that holds power, authority and influence, you have a responsibility to be inclusive of a diverse range of gender political viewpoints—and feminism is shirking that responsibility big time.

And that for now is why I don’t support feminist campaigns for gender equality, because:

  • I’m not a feminist
  • My definition of “gender equality” is different from most feminists
  • Too many feminist initiatives designed to “engage men in gender equality” actively exclude non-feminists

And most importantly of all I believe the way to resolve the world’s problems is not to enforce a singular worldview on any issue, but to develop our ability to integrate and include a diversity of ways of thinking about problems, rather than excluding people who dare to think differently.

As the freethinker Claire Lehmann argues: “almost every advance in human history first came from a person willing to look at the world, or the status quo, from a different angle”.

—Photo courtesy of Flickr

Glen Poole is the news editor of online magazine insideMAN, author of the book Equality For Men and UK coordinator for International Men’s Day.

 

International Men’s Day: who won the debate?

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Last month saw the annual celebration of InternationalMen’s Day put men’s issues and male suicide on the political agenda for a few hours writes Glen Poole.

It was an historic occasion, according to the Conservative MP, David Nuttall, who highlighted the fact that this was “the first time ever that International Men’s Day has been marked by a debate in this Parliament”.

The right to hold a debate on men’s issues was hard fought for in the run up to the day, with the Labour MP, Jess Phillips, wearing her visceral opposition to International Men’s Day, both on her sleeve and all over her face. Phillips, who sits on the Backbench Business Committee that eventually endorsed the debate, sniggered and snorted and declared her hatred for “fools who think men don’t have equality” when the issue was first raised.

Rather than graciously admit defeat and retire to lick her wounds, Phillips decided to use her position of political power and privilege to trash International Men’s Day, firstly telling Andrew Marr that the day did nothing to tackle male suicide and secondly writing in The Independent that the day was equivalent to having a “White History Month”.

Then, on International Men’s Day, Phillips publicly stated that “you hit the jackpot when you are born a boy child”, demonstrating her continued lack of compassion and concern for the 13 men a day whose response to the apparent “jackpot” of being a man is to kill themselves.

Fortunately, not everyone in the Labour Party is as cynical and unsympathetic towards men and boys as Jess Phillips. Her colleague, the Shadow Mental Health Minister, Lucian Berger, turned up for the debate and said:

“The rate of male suicide in this country is a national scandal [that] demands our urgent attention. Every time a person is lost to suicide, it is a tragedy. We need a revolution in suicide prevention to address the fact that many more men than women take their own lives.”

Berger was one of several female MPs who outshone their male colleagues in this debate. For the Conservatives, Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, recognised the value of the day saying:

“International Men’s Day is not about pitching men against women; it is about the health of men and boys, the promotion of gender equality, positive male role models and men’s contribution to family life and their children’s lives. It is an opportunity to challenge all gender stereotypes, which are not good for any of us, and to support men to speak out, as women often speak out, on behalf not only of women but of men.

One of Miller’s male colleagues who did speak out,  was the Conservative Andrew Percy, who decided to step into the role of White Knight by ignoring the problems men have and highlighting the problem that other men cause instead, saying:

“International Men’s Day is the perfect opportunity for men to stand up as part of the White Ribbon campaign, for which I am pleased to be an ambassador, and say that we will never remain silent when other men commit violence against women?”

The White Ribbon campaign has an uncomfortable relationship with International Men’s Day. In 2013, one of its Canadian founders, Michael Kaufmann, advised supporters of gender equality to ”stay away” form the day. Though in the UK, some White Ribbon supporters like the Men AgainstViolence project in Preston have, held International Men’s Day events in the past.

For me, the star of the debate was the Conservative MP for Telford, Lucy Allan, who took Percy to task.

“Equality is not about forcing men to wear a white ribbon,” she said. “Men do not need to be shamed about the violence of other men towards women, and to demonstrate their shame with a badge.”

Allan also criticised her local council for failing to talk about the area’s high male suicide rate and instead using International Men’s Day for “an elaborate social media campaign parading photographs of men on Facebook holding up signs saying ‘I support the white ribbon campaign’.”

“The poor men can hardly refuse,” she said, “for fear of being labelled anti-women.”

The tension here is gender political, while White Ribbon claims it wants to men to speak out about domestic violence, in reality it only wants to work with men who are prepared stick to a hardline, feminist-approved narrative about domestic violence, as the case of Dr Tanveer Ahmed revealed earlier this year.

I spent International Men’s Day this year with Ahmed at a debate about masculinity in Sydney. He is a warm, intelligent and passionate man, who was banned form supporting White Ribbon for daring to express his own views on the problem of domestic views. 

Meanwhile, back in the UK, the SNP’s Dr Paul Monaghan was quoting me in the debate as saying: “when 13 a men a day in the UK are dying from suicide, it is essential that everyone in positions of power, trust and influence does everything they can to help men talk about the issues that affect them.”

This is what White Ribbon and other feminist initiatives on men fail to do because of their narrow view of gender politics. International Men’s Day, on the other had, is a broad, inclusive platform that welcomes intellectual diversity. Anyone, no matter what their gender politics, can use the day as a platform to talk about the issues that affect men and boys.

As Lucy Allan said: “too often we polarise the gender debate to depict men as aggressors and women as victims. Many women who, like me, have a passion for gender equality and who identify as feminists feel deeply uncomfortable about the increasingly negative caricatures and gender stereotyping of men. My son said to me, ‘I don’t like feminists, mum.’ I said, ‘Oh, why’s that? ’Well, they don’t like men, do they?’

And that contribution to the debate captured the essence of the first ever international Men’s Day debate in Parliament. It was about men and women, feminists and non-feminists, taking time to discuss the the way the world currently works for men and boys—or not.

As Philip Davies, the MP who made the debate happen said in summary: “lots of people throughout the country are delighted that some of those issues have finally been raised, as they have been campaigning on them for years and years, and not really getting the recognition they deserve. We have done the country and the House a great service by debating these things.”

And he is right, for we cannot continue to complain that men don’t talk about the issues they face if our MPs don’t lead by example and make talking about men’s issues on International Men’s Day a regular feature of the political calendar. If we did nothing more than win the argument that International Men’s Day should be a platform for debating men’s issues in parliament, then that was a debate worth wining and building on next year.

—Picture: Flickr/Jason Wilson 

Glen Poole is the news editor of online magazine insideMAN, author of the book Equality For Men and UK coordinator for International Men’s Day.

Dozens of charities, campaigners and academics sign joint letter calling on all parties to support International Men’s Day

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InsideMAN joins dozens of charities, campaigners and academics in signing a joint letter to cross-party equalities representatives calling on ministers to make a public statement in support of International Men’s Day and to consider what action they can take to address issues that affect the well being of men and boys.

Addressed to: Government Ministers, Shadow Ministers and Equalities Spokespeople

  1. Caroline Dinenage MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women, Equalities and Family Justice
  2. The Rt. Hon Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities
  3. Kate Green OBE MP, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
  4. Angela Crawley MP, Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Equalities, Women and Children)
  5. Baroness Hussein-Ece OBE, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson forWomen and Equalities
  6. Liz Saville Roberts MP , Spokesperson (Women and Equalities), Plaid Cymru
  7. Jim Shannon MP, Spokesperson (Equality), Democratic Unionist Party
  8. Mr Benali Hamdache, Equalities Spokesperson, The Green Party
  9. Louise Bours MEP, Health Spokesman, UKIP

Subject: Recognition of International Men’s Day (19 November 2015)

As supporters of International Men’s Day in the UK, we invite politicians of all parties to join us in celebrating men and boys in all their diversity each year on 19 November. Many organisations led by men and women across the country are already doing so.

International Men’s Day is a day for highlighting the positive contribution that men and boys make to their families, their communities and the world.

At a time when the role of men in our society is changing and evolving, it is also an opportunity to consider whether the way we talk about men and masculinity in politics, the media and elsewhere is helping or hindering boys to make a healthy transition into manhood.

International Men’s Day provides a platform for politicians to consider what action we can take to address the many social issues that impact men and boys in our country. These include:

  • The high male suicide rate
  • Men’s health and shorter life expectancy
  • The challenges faced by men who are fathers
  • The challenges faced by boys at all stages of education
  • All forms of crime, violence and abuse involving men and boys
  • The challenges faced by the most marginalised men and boys in society (for instance, those sleeping rough and boys in care)
  • The issues of concern to all men and boys with a “protected characteristic” under the Equality Act 2010

We acknowledge that the majority of politicians in the UK are men, but there are very few politicians, male or female, who take time to discuss the men’s issues listed above and put forward political solutions to these problems.

We invite men and women of all political parties to join us in making a public statement of their support for International Men’s Day on 19th November in 2015 and each year thereafter.

Thank you for your consideration and we look forward to receiving a positive reply.

Yours sincerely,

 

Glen Poole, UK Coordinator of International Men’s Day

Mark Brooks, Chair, The ManKind Initiative

Duncan Craig, CEO, Survivors Manchester

Martin Daubney, Journalist, broadcaster and committee member, Being A Man Festival

Ally Fogg, Writer and journalist

Martin Seager, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Jack Broadley, Founder/Chairman, Baggy Trousers charity

Nick Smithers, National Development Officer, Abused Men in Scotland

Bob Balfour, Founder, Survivors West Yorkshire

Duncan Fisher, former CEO of the Fatherhood Institute

John Adams, Author, Dadbloguk.com

Paul Apreda, National Manager, FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru

Duncan Alldridge, Founder, Deep Diving Men

Kenny D’Cruz, Personal Development Consultant, The Man Whisperer

Dan Bell, Features Editor, insideMan magazine

Dr Nicola Graham-Kevan, Reader in the Psychology of Aggression at UCLAN

Belinda Brown, Research Director at Men for Tomorrow

Gijsbert Stoet, Reader in Psychology, University of Glasgow

Dr Elizabeth A. Bates, Senior Lecturer in Applied Psychology, University of Cumbria

Dr Jessica McCarrick, Chartered Psychologist, Teesside University

Richard Duncker, Founder, Men Do Complain

Peter Morris, Chairman, Men’s Aid (Northern Ireland)

John Barry, Chartered Psychologist and Research Associate at UCL Medical School

Sara Westle, Honorary Patron, The ManKind Initiative

Ian Young, domestic abuse survivor

Paul Chivers, domestic abuse survivor

Gerald Cash, Founder and Chairman, Men Have Rights Too

Kathy Jones joint CEO, The Fatherhood Institute

Adrienne Burgess, joint CEO, The Fatherhood Institute

We all need to help men talk about men’s issues

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I was deeply saddened to hear that the University of York has cancelled its plans to mark International Men’s Day and raise awareness of important men’s issues like male suicide, writes Glen Poole, co-ordinator for International Men’s Day in the UK.

I understand the university had planned to follow up the day by highlighting the availability of mental health and welfare support that is available to men.

When 13 a men a day in the UK are dying from suicide, it is essential that everyone in positions of power, trust and influence does everything they can to help men talk about the issues that affect them.

And that includes the academic community and student representatives.

One way we can all do this is to make it easier for people of all backgrounds and political perspectives to talk about men’s issues.

It seems that on this occasions, those academics, student representatives and alumni who have campaigned against the university’s plans to mark International Men’s Day, have put their personal gender politics ahead of their compassion for men and boys in crisis and distress.

I’d invite these campaigners to reflect on their actions and ask themselves this question: “whose voice is it more important to listen to on International Men’s Day, yours or the voices of suicidal men and those bereaved by male suicide?”

I wonder if you’d have compassion for men like Robert, who wrote to me last week and told me he’d sat on the railway tracks on many occasions in recent years, waiting for the Carlisle to Newcastle train to put him out of his misery.

With the help of supportive family and “an amazing GP” he managed to pull through. “You don’t know me,” he wrote, “but I just want to say how much I admire what you’re doing. I myself am a ‘survivor’, my story isn’t over thankfully. I will do whatever I can to help.”

I wonder if you have any compassion for men like Dave who wrote to me and said: “Your hard work on these issues warms my heart. My best mate from the age of four committed suicide four years ago as he couldn’t go on and no-one really got it or him. I still think of him everyday”.

I wonder if you have compassion for the young man called Sam who wrote to me last week about hisexperiences of having suicidal thoughts. He said:

“As a man who is recovering from mental problems and who has struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past, I have had to face up to shame and discuss it in detail. It has been a painful and at times frightening process but one that has been key to my recovery. When we look at the problem of male suicide, we need to look at how our society sets up young men to experience potentially unmanageable levels of shame and need to work together to build a society where this in no longer the case.”

I wonder if you would take a moment to consider, with compassion in your hearts, whether your actions in campaigning against International Men’s Day are helping or hindering men like these to come forward and share their stories of male suicide?

When you campaign against initiatives to highlight men’s issues, are you helping suicidal men to talk about their issues, or making it harder for suicidal men to talk about their issues?

International Men’s Day in the UK has a proud record when it comes to promoting the need for male suicide prevention initiatives.

This year our theme for International Men’s Day is “Making a Difference for Men and Boys”.

I’d like to invite all those who have found time to campaign against an initiative that is designed to make a difference, to invest that time in supporting the day instead.

It takes great courage, compassion and creativity to take on difficult issues like preventing male suicide.

One creative way people are raising awareness of male suicide on International Men’s Day is by supporting a new social media campaign led by the charity CALM UK.

You can sign up for free to support this campaign at www.biggerissues.co.uk.

I don’t know if this campaign will help men talk about their issues or not, but I do know it will do more good than campaigning against the good people supporting International Men’s Day who are trying to make a difference for men and boys.

If you haven’t the compassion to join us, then my request is that you kindly leave us in peace do our work to help men talk about men’s issues like male suicide on International Men’s Day.

To get involved with this year’s International Men’s Day in the UK on 19 November and find out what’s happening to mark the date near you, visit the UK Men’s Day site here

‘I would like for professionals and society to look beyond black and white stereotypes about domestic violence’

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On Wednesday insideMAN published an article detailing the findings of a new study into male victims of domestic violence that found the male victims who contributed to it were often arrested under false accusations and their disclosures of victimisation initially dismissed by police.

Following a surge of interest in the findings and more than 5,000 views of our article, insideMAN contacted the study’s author, Dr Jessica McCarrick, a Senior Lecturer in Counselling Psychology and Chartered Psychologist at Teesside University, to find out more about what motivated her to undertake her research.

Here are her responses to our questions.

Why did you choose this area of study?

The reason I chose this area of research stemmed from both a need within myself to conduct research which would have meaning and application to people’s lives, and experiences I’d had as a Trainee Counselling Psychologist in my early placements.

Following a six week training course in domestic violence, which was heavily influenced by the feminist model, I began to question some of the assumptions underpinning this philosophy. Through my doctoral training as a Counselling Psychologist I was encouraged to think reflectively about issues which affect people, and to focus on people as individuals, rather than broadly categorising people.

It was these thought processes, coupled with my doctoral training that began to nourish the initial idea for my research. This idea was then developed further when I began my first placement, which was in a local charity which provided therapeutic support to both male and female survivors of domestic violence.

It was on this placement that I really began to learn about the violence, trauma and psychological distress that men and women experience within abusive relationships. Later in my doctoral training, whilst in the midst of writing up my research, this charity, which was the only service in the local area providing support to male survivors of domestic violence, sadly lost its funding and was forced to close.

Knowing that there was now even less support in the local area for men affected by domestic violence motivated me to complete my research and publish it, with a view to spreading the word and making changes on a societal level.

Why do you think there is resistance to acknowledging male victims of domestic violence?

I believe this resistance is stemming from a number of complex factors, rather than one cause. It’s likely that people are resistant to believing that domestic violence towards men occurs due to the belief within society that men are strong and tough.

Recent research has displayed that stereotypes around gender and domestic violence are still apparent within society, and there is still a way to go before we move towards a more gender-balanced view of domestic violence. I believe society needs to work towards recognising the complex and multi-faceted psychological impact of domestic violence.

The research and policies that have supported female survivors of domestic violence have been invaluable to service provision and the local services for women in my area are excellent sources of support. I would like to see the same happen for men and this change needs to be supported in a ‘bottom-up’ way through research and campaigning, but ultimately from a ‘top-down’ way, in order for services to be provided with funding and support on a national level.

How many men did you speak to?

I had six men participate in my study. However since the beginning of the research process back in 2012 I have received many e-mails from male survivors detailing their own personal experiences.

Can you tell us about any further experiences the men you spoke to told you about that are not detailed in the article?

“I can now fully understand how Afro-Caribbean people felt in the 50s and 60s when they first arrived in the UK. They were treat like pariahs, they were segregated and that’s how it feels.”

“I was basically walking on eggshells… you know it’s going to happen you just don’t quite know when.”

“If a police car was driving up my street, I was wary about where they were going, whether they were following me.”

The men in my study described a negative psychological impact which was likened to ‘a pressure cooker’ and this was connected to feelings of rage, loss and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

I would like to call for professionals and people in society to look beyond black and white stereotypes and to listen carefully to the calls of both men and women and respond appropriately to the people involved in this hidden crime.

You can find out more about Dr McCarrick’s study Men’s Experiences of the Criminal Justice System Following Female Perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence here

 

 

Male domestic violence victims ‘often arrested due to false accusations by their abusers’, study finds

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Dr Jessica McCarrick, a Senior Lecturer in Counselling Psychology and Chartered Psychologist, says that men are often arrested under false accusations and their disclosures of victimisation are initially dismissed.

She is calling for more to be done to support male victims of intimate partner violence – encouraging men to report abuse and feel assured they will be taken seriously.

Dr McCarrick has carried out interviews with male victims who say that, as well as the trauma of domestic abuse, their negative experiences are perpetuated within the criminal justice system by being treated like the guilty party or feeling dismissed by the police.

The number of women convicted of perpetrating domestic abuse has more than quadrupled in the past ten years from 806 in 2004/05, to 3,735 in 2013/14, according to Tesside University, where Dr McCarrick is based.

‘They showed little concern’

Statistics show that an average of one third of domestic abuse victims are male.

One man, who did not want to be named, said he was arrested on three separate occasions following false counter allegations from his wife.

He said: ‘In the latest incident I made the initial complaint to police as my wife assaulted me. But when they arrived, they showed little concern and instead arrested me because my wife made a counter allegation. I certainly feel that more compassion and empathy needs to be shown towards male victims of domestic violence.’

Dr McCarrick, who works within Teesside University’s School of Social Sciences, Business & Law, says that this type of account is not at all uncommon.

Shame and emasculation


‘Within my research, the predominant experience is of men being arrested under false charges and their disclosures of being the victim are not taken seriously, despite having evidence.

‘Men find it incredibly difficult to talk about their experiences of domestic violence because of the shame and emasculation they feel is associated with it. To find the courage to speak out, only to be accused of violence themselves, is incredibly disheartening and ultimately prevents countless men from reporting intimate partner violence.’

Dr McCarrick is calling for more understanding of the emotional experiences of men and encouraging a more balanced, gender-informed perspective of domestic violence.

‘A human issue, not a gender issue’


‘When there was a positive experience of a police member, one who offered advice about support services for example, this appeared to reduce the negative psychological impact of being arrested under false charges.’

Intimate partner violence should be viewed as a human issue rather than a gender issue, argues Dr McCarrick and there should be more services and support to enable men to seek the help and sanctuary they desperately require.

She added: ‘Campaigners and researchers made waves in the 1970’s, which had a positive impact and improved service provision for women – it is time to do the same for men.

‘Promoting awareness of the plight of male survivors may encourage men to report abuse and feel assured that they will be taken seriously.

‘Intimate partner violence is an issue which affects men and women within both heterosexual and homosexual relationships and I would like to see increased funding to improve service provision and development in order to support all people affected by this issue.’

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“40 times more pictures of successful female than male students on results day”

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There were 40 times more pictures of female students than male students receiving their A Level results on the morning of results day, according to the Guardian’s picture desk.

Writing on the Guardian’s live results day blog, Guardian picture editor Matt Fidler wrote:

“It’s 11.30 on the Guardian picture desk and so far we have only one photograph on our agency feeds of a male student receiving his results, from Wigan in Lancashire, v 40+ photographs of female students getting theirs.

“Luckily the Guardian has its own photographer out in Bristol to correct the balance later. In the meantime, here’s a group picture of taking in both sexes.”

The BBC’s education story featured three pictures of successful female students, with no male students.

Journalist Martin Daubney reported that there were no young men on the morning’s Sky News results day coverage.

The disproportionate number of images of successful female students were accompanied by headlines in The Times and The Independent that appeared to celebrate the widening gap between female and male university admissions.

The Independent ran the headline: “A-Level results 2015: Women outperform men again as record numbers secure university places.”

The front page headline of this morning’s Times was: “Women take record lead in university admissions.”

The Independent reported that in excess of 27,000 more females are due to start degree courses this autumn than males.

Nine out of ten victims of police-related deaths are male. Who cares?

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Why does nobody care that it’s mostly men and boys who die during or after contact with the police, asks insideMAN news editor, Glen Poole?

How do we make sexism against men and boys visible? 

One of the challenges we face is that men are the invisible gender—and the problem with invisibility is you can’t see it. Even when you know that the sexism, discrimination and inequality that affects the male of the species exists, it can be fiercely difficult to uncover and present it to others in a way that they can see the sexism with their own eyes.

Being an advocate for men and boys takes constant vigilance and a willingness to chase passing shadows in pursuit of actual evidence that we live in a world that is sexist towards men as well as women.

I caught sight of one such shadow last night. It was cast briefly from my radio by a BBC newsreader who casually announced that more “people” died in police custody in the past year, before moving on to the next news item.

I instinctively knew I’d been exposed to a typical example of everyday sexism against men and boys, but I had to go digging for it. It’s the word “people” that’s the giveaway.

Generally, there are two reasons the media refer to “people” when telling us stories:

  1. Because the “people” they are referring to are a fairly even mix of men and women
  2. Because the majority of the “people” they are talking about are men

In contrast, you will very rarely (if ever) hear of a group of women referred to as “people”.  You can guarantee, for example, that if the majority of “people” who died in police custody were women, the story would no longer be about “people”, it would become a gendered story about women or “women and girls”.

And yet when the majority of people in a story are men, their gender becomes invisible, they aren’t identified as men, they are disguised as “people”. There’s an exception to this rule. If the “people” in question have perpetrated some heinous crime, then they are no longer “people”, they are male actors in a gendered story, and the fact they are “men” is pushed to the fore.

This is the binary, sexist nature of gendered news stories. If the story fits into the accepted gendered narrative of women good, men bad; men are perpetrators, women are victims; women HAVE problems and men ARE problems, then the gender is identified loud and clear.

If, however, it’s a story about a problem that most affects men, then their gender is made invisible. This is pure, unadulterated sexism against men and it is rife in the media, in the public sector and in our general discourse about gender.

So what are the facts of the matter?

This is what the sexist (against men) media didn’t tell us today about the latest annual report from the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission. These are the facts I had to go digging for because they weren’t revealed in any of the news reports:

  • 142 people died during or following police contact in 2014/2015:
  • 123 of these people were men and boys (that’s 87%)
  • 17 died while in police custody and 13 of those people were male (82%)
  • 14 died in road accidents involving the police and 13 of those were male (93%)
  • 41 died during or after contact with the police and 34 (83%) were male
  • 69 people killed themselves following police custody and 61 (88%) were male
  • 1 person was shot by the police and he was male (100%)

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, acknowledged that police custody is “a place where all too often vulnerable people, often those with mental health problems, are taken because there is no other place to go.”

There’s that word again—“people”. If nine out of 10 “people” who died during or following police custody were women, we wouldn’t be talking about “vulnerable people”, we’d be talking about “vulnerable women”.

But no politician or newsreader or public servant in his or her right mind would refer to these vulnerable people who die in tragic circumstances as “vulnerable men”.

Firstly, the “what about teh womenz” brigade would be incensed that female victims have been overlooked, and would argue that female victims have it harder than male victims, because death during and after contact with the police is a patriarchal construct designed to meet the needs of men, not women (or some such dogma). You can’t challenge the monopoly that feminism has on gendered issues by pointing at the many inequalities that impact men and boys and expect to get away with it.

Secondly, the “silent”, socially-conservative majority would never approve of labeling big, strong men as “vulnerable”, lest the whole fabric of society came tumbling down around our ears!

And so to spare the upset of liberal “progressives” and “small ‘c’ conservatives”, we must keep men’s gender invisible when shit stuff happens to us.

And our inability to see the gendered nature of this shit stuff that mostly happens to men—like suicide, rough sleeping, murder, workplace death, imprisonment and death following contact with the police—is ultimately what stops us from tackling these issues.

We are all—men and women—collectively more tolerant of the harm that happens to men and boys. We have a “gender empathy gap”.

The traditional view of “women and children” first and the feminist focus on “women and girls” first combine to cast a perfect shadow that make the vulnerabilities of men and boys invisible. It’s how we unconsciously conspire to repeatedly tell all men and boys to “man up” without ever actually having to say the words.

It’s why, when men and boys account for 8 out 10 violent deaths worldwide, we have global campaigns to end violence against women and girls, but no campaigns to end violence against men and boys.

It’s why, when around 95% of the UK prison population is male, we have gendered initiatives to reduce the impact of prison on women, but no gendered initiatives to reduce the impact of prison on men.

It’s why, when ten men every month in the UK are dying during or after contact with the police, we don’t name it as a gendered issue.

Let’s be absolutely clear, if ten women a month in the UK were dying during or after contact with the police, we would name it as a gendered issue.

And there’s the sexism against men. It’s born out of our collective tolerance of the harm that happens against men and boys. It’s born out of the different value men and women place on men’s lives and women’s lives.

We believe women and girls are precious and sensitive and vulnerable and need protecting and men and boys are disposable, strong and don’t need protecting.

So what if vulnerable males are dying during or after contact with the police? They’re just “people”, statistics, they’re not women and girls. They’re only men and boys. Who cares?

I do. I care. It matters to me that our society takes the death of our sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, nephews, grandfathers and male friends less seriously because of our collective sexism against men. I care. Do you?

—Photo Credit: flickr/ms.akr

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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The letters continue: Erasure, misrepresentation and Orwellian doublespeak

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Last week insideMAN joined 30 other equalities advocates in a joint open letter criticising the Crown Prosecution Service for a report that deliberately erased thousands of male victims of crimes such as rape and domestic violence.

Our letter called on “the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders and all public bodies to affirm their commitment to addressing and eliminating intimate violence against human beings of any gender”. A reasonable enough request, you would think.

Just days later, however, a collection of leading women’s organisations, including the influential Fawcett Society, published their own joint letter condemning ours for veering from the narrative that when it comes to sexual violence, men must first and foremost be seen as privileged abusers.

Here we have re-published the response to their letter written by one of our own signatories Ally Fogg, which first appeared on his Freethought blog here.

*****

To the signatories of the letter Gender is all too relevant in violence statistics.

First let me thank you for the opportunity to continue this important conversation. It is clear your letter in the Guardian today is a reaction to the one signed by myself and 30 others last week, however it would be wrong to call it a response, as you do not appear to have addressed or even understood any of the issues our letter raised, preferring to criticise us on a variety of points which our letter simply did not make.

Allow me to be more specific:

‘Your correspondents call on the director of public prosecutions to “affirm [her] commitment to eliminating intimate violence against human beings of any gender” and criticise the Crown Prosecution Service’s presentation of statistics in its annual violence against women and girls report for being so explicitly gendered (Letters, 2 July).’

We did not criticise the CPS report for being so explicitly gendered. We would expect a report entitled “Violence Against Women and Girls, crime report” to be explicitly gendered. Nor did we condemn the CPS for producing a report with that subject and title.

We criticised the CPS report for being dishonest and misleading in including crimes against at least 13,154 (known) boys and men in a report entitled ‘Violence Against Women and Girls’ while going to some lengths to entirely obscure the experiences of male victims.

‘It is established fact that these crimes are massively disproportionately committed against women and girls (female genital mutilation exclusively so) and that they are related to women’s broader inequality with men. Your correspondents claim without citation that “one in six of all victims” are male. This is disputed, and certainly does not apply equally to all the forms of abuse in the CPS report.’

The figure of 1 in 6 did not require citation as it comes from the CPS report itself and the accompanying data tables. Where gender was recorded, 16% of victims of the crimes described in the report were men and boys. This is most certainly not disputed, the statistics are in Table 8 of the performance information here.

‘Furthermore, it is also critical that we retain gender in our naming and analysis of these crimes because of the gender of the perpetrators, whom your correspondents do not mention at all.’

We did not mention it because we had no dispute with how the CPS report covered the gender of the perpetrators. The report explained quite clearly that around 94% of offenders of these crimes within the criminal justice system were male and 6% female. We accept this, and had no reason to raise it in our letter.

‘In searching for recognition and then for justice and support for male survivors of abuse, it is a grave mistake to suggest taking gender out of the naming and analysis, and neutralising these crimes into Orwellian “intimate abuse”. A failure to name and call out the abuse of power in these crimes is what kept them invisible for so long.’

At no point in our letter did we suggest taking gender out of the analysis. On the contrary, we clearly expressed that male victims have their own gender-specific issues, such as those relating to social expectations of a ‘real man.’ Nor are gender issues neutralised by the phrase ‘intimate abuse’ or ‘intimate violence’ – this term has always been used by many public bodies including the Office of National Statistics, to describe crimes such as domestic violence and abuse – for example, see here, the chapter “Intimate Personal Violence and Serious Sexual Assault.”

You describe this phrase as “Orwellian.” I would suggest what is truly Orwellian is for the experiences of many thousands of violated men and boys to be described with the phrase ‘violence against women and girls.’ War is peace; freedom is slavery; boys are girls. What is truly Orwellian is for the CPS to highlight the conviction of Fr Francis Paul Cullen as an example of their success in prosecuting crimes against women and girls, when the large majority of his victims were boys, and for the gender of those victims to be entirely “taken out of the analysis” by descriptions of his victims only in gender-neutral terms as “young people.”

I would add that it is this type of erasure of male victims – even when the statistics and facts are right before our eyes – which has done so much to keep those crimes invisible for so long, a tragedy which your letter appears to strive to continue.

I do not speak today on behalf of the other signatories to our letter, only for myself, but I for one do not believe in taking gender out of the analysis of sexual and intimate offences. I believe gender issues are crucial to understanding why so many such crimes occur, and what kind of support is needed by victims. What I cannot accept is a cruel and misleading approach which focusses entirely on the gender of victims when they are women and girls and entirely ignores and erases gender when the victims are men and boys, or worse, when the experiences of those men and boys are subsumed into descriptions of violence against women and girls.

I finish on a note of genuine sadness. In our own letter we were very careful to honestly declare our full commitment to supporting all efforts to end violence against women and girls. Many of the signatories to our letter work with female survivors alongside men and boys, and are only too aware of the issues. But even though your response begins by noting our call for the CPS and other bodies to affirm their commitment to recognising and supporting male victims of intimate violence and abuse, in your response you could not even bring yourselves to offer a single equivalent word of support or compassion for the countless thousands of men and boys who are raped, abused, beaten and molested every year. I would add that, despite contacting them directly, we have as yet had no contact from the CPS or any other body that so much as acknowledges the existence of male victims, far less affirming support for their needs.

The male victims I know and support, and those engaged professionally by many of my co-signatories, often report feeling worthless and ignored, as if no one cares about what happened to them in the past or what will happen to them now and in the future. How tragic that your letter may well serve to confirm their darkest suspicions.

To read more of Ally Fogg’s powerful writing on gender issues visit his blog here