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Making sense of being a 21st Century father

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What will fatherhood look like by the end of the 21st Century? In 2013, insideMAN’s news editor, Glen Poole, was invited to join a panel at the Men’s Health Gathering in Australia to discuss the topic “21st Century Man”. Here he provides a summary of some of the key ideas he covered in this talk.

I remember the 21st Century starting. My daughter was two at the time and my immediate family joined us at our home in London to celebrate. It was the last Christmas I spent in my marital home.

Up until then, I’d had the extraordinary privilege of being a full-time “house husband” spending every day with a little girl, watching her grow day by day. But my wife left and soon after I received a letter from her solicitor, which said:

“You made a valid contribution in the first two years of your daughter’s life but it is no longer in her best interest that you look after her.”

That’s when I began to discover the raw deal that separated dads can get in the UK and that’s when I got interested in “men’s work”— which is ultimately, how I ended up, 14 years later, speaking at the National Men’s Health Gathering in Brisbane about “21st Century Man”.

Women and children first 

I started by looking back over 100 years to the sinking of the Titanic, the greatest single symbol of the historic belief that men as protectors should put women and children first:

  • 100% of children in first and second class survived
  • 75% of all women on board survived
  • Only 20% of men on board survived

I considered the deaths of millions of men in the 1914-1918 war, men with no right to vote, many of whom were collectively shamed into dying for their country.

At the time of speaking my daughter was 16 and had just started Sixth Form college next door to where I live. She was popping in and out on a daily basis and I became aware that it was the first time in 14 years that she’d been in my life on a daily basis in this way.

Everyday fatherhood 

It made me realise that when I was looking forward to the 21st Century back in 1999, my expectation was that I would continue to be with her every day—but things change and sometimes we need to stop and reflect and make sense of that change.

My opportunity to be a stay-at-home-dad arose because my wife was a lawyer and earned considerably more than I did. It was 1922 when the very first woman in the UK became a lawyer. I can’t imagine what it was like being the only woman in a profession dominated by men. Whatever the experience was like, it didn’t open the floodgates. Fifty years later in 1972, just 3% of lawyers were women.

But now, another forty-or-so years later, law is a profession that is evenly split between the sexes and two-thirds of people who attend law school, the next generation of lawyers, are now women. So things can and do change very quickly in the world of gender.

Can men’s roles change too?

I wonder what the world would be like if men could undergo such radical change too? Imagine if men could undergo a similar transition in the areas where we are unequal and/or significantly under-represented.

Forty or fifty years ago, gender roles were very clearly divided: broadly speaking, men were the providers and women were the carers

There’s been a huge diversification of roles since then. Women have a greater diversity of choices. They can provide for themselves and others; they can be a full-time carer who’s provided for; or they can combine providing and caring. When you look at the categories that women fall into, there’s a fairly even spread across these different groups.

When you look at men’s experiences, our roles have diversified too, but to a far lesser extent. There seem to be fewer choices for men, fewer ways to be man. Most men who become fathers will still become the main providers in their families and fit in a bit of caring on the side.

Who cares for men? 

Very few men will have the experience of being provided and cared for in our relationships and that unavoidable fact seems to help create the other category of men—the invisible men, the men who are homeless, excluded, isolated, unemployed, imprisoned, suicidal and lonely. The men who, for whatever reason, are unable to care and provide for themselves, let alone others.

These invisible men are generally boys we have failed, collectively, to nurture; boys our society has failed in some way; boys who we have somehow denied the opportunity to grow up to be either a carer or a provider in life.

How different would our world have to be to stop 90% of homeless people being male; 95% of prisoners being male; 78% of suicides being male? How much more care and concern would we all have to give to men and boys to make this happen?

It would take a radical change that matches the rise of women in the professional world. It will take men, en masse, claiming their right to enter the world of care—for masculinity and femininity to evolve in way that it is natural for men and boys to care and be cared for.

Gender isn’t rigid

As I look to the future, as I look ahead a century, I can see that greater choice is slowly becoming available to the next generation of men and boys. History shows us that gender isn’t rigid.

The way men and women live their lives now, would be unrecognisable to our Edwardian ancestors. And the way our descendants will live their lives by the end of the 21st Century will be unrecognisable to men and women today.

If gender isn’t rigid how will it change over the next 100 years? For me, gender is comprised of a diverse range of quality’s and experiences that we call “masculine” and “feminine”. There’s lots of evidence to show women’s experience of gender has diversified much more than men’s, but that masculinity is also diversifying and evolving in a parallel way.

This isn’t simply about women becoming more like men or men becoming more like women—though there may of course be examples we can point to of women being more “masculine” and men becoming more “feminine”—it’s about men becoming more flexible and adaptable and ultimately having more freedom and choice when it comes to being a man.

And there is probably no better place for us to develop that flexibility and adaptability than in our roles as fathers to our sons and daughters who will be the ones to reshape gender in the 21st Century.

—Photo: flickr/CarbonNYC

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

See Also:

In the run up to the launch of a new film on Fatherhood called DOWN DOG, insideMAN will be publishing a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.  

Down Dog is released in selected cinemas on 14 February 2015. For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

Should dads encourage their sons to play with dolls?

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Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem equalities minister, thinks parents should encourage their sons to play with dolls. Glen Poole shares his on thoughts and experiences on the matter as a father.

I have no experience of raising boys. I only have experience of raising one girl and my intention—as far as gender is concerned—has been to try and ensure that being female in a gendered world isn’t a barrier to her fulfilling her potential.

For me that was never about going against the grain of her unique nature. It was never about preventing her from doing “feminine” things and forcing her to do “masculine” things. It has been more about trying to cultivate and model an attitude of “anything is possible”.

Of course I haven’t always succeeded, but the intention is always there.

Match of the Day

Shortly after my daughter started to walk I proudly taught her to dribble a soft football while humming the Match of the Day theme tune. I allowed her to explore nature, get muddy and play with snails (though not slugs and puppy dogs tails, I’m not that clichéd). I bought her “boys’ toys” like trucks and cars as well as “girls’ toys” like dolls and prams.

A defining moment for me came when she was about two. Through her own preference, the trucks had disappeared into the back of a cupboard through lack of play and I’d all but forgotten them—until a friend with a son came round and discovered them in seconds and started charging around the house with them making engine noises.

The next toy he picked up was a pretend broom—“ah they’re going to play house  together I thought”—but no, he used the broom as weapon and he started hitting things with it. I’d never seen my daughter play in this boisterous way, she was more……”girl-sterous”.

My own experience is that my daughter went through many phases and I tried to embrace them all. When she got her first bike she was in a princess phase and wanted the pinkest bike in the world and I had great fun obliging. By the time she was seven and needed a bigger bike she was going through a “tom boy” phase and actively wearing “boys’ clothes” and wanted a “boy bike” which was blue and had a Dennis the Menace bell on it. Again i enjoyed playing along.

Which box do we belong in?

She was navigating a culture that puts boys and girls into boxes, trying out those different boxes for and discovering how it felt to to be her natural self, not the self others though she should and shouldn’t be.

It’s an ongoing process and as a teenager she’s happily studying science and maths through her own choice; dresses in jeans, Converse and t-shirts most days; has a shelf full of “woman’s things” that are alien to me and can glam up like a movie star when she chooses to.

I hope, as a parent, that I have, in some small way, made it easier for her to make the choices that are right for her in life—-but who knows?

Is the male brain different? 

And what I certainly don’t know is how this approach would have worked for a son. Would he have wanted pink bike? Would the doll I bought him ended up gathering dust at the back of the cupboard? Would he have worn skirts to college and tuxedos at the weekend. I’ll never know.

However, as I started writing this article, I was reminded of the book “The Male Brain” by Louann Brizendine and in particular a section about boys and toys, in which she says:

“Researchers have found that boy and girls both prefer the toys of their own sex, but girls will pay with boys’ toys, while boys—by the age of four—reject girl toys and even toys that are “girl colours” like pink.”

Brizendine says she didn’t know this when here son was born and so she set out, with good intention, to give him lots of unisex toys to avoid gender stereotyping.

The shocked feminist 

“I bought him a Barbie doll,” she says. “I though it would be good for him to have some practice playing out nonaggressive, co-operative scenarios. Once he freed her from the packaging, he grabbed her around the torso and thrust her long legs into midair like a sword, shouting, “Eeeehhhg, take that!” toward some imaginary enemy.

“I was taken aback, as I was part of the generation of second-wave feminists who had decided that we were going to raise emotionally sensitive boys who weren’t aggressive or obsessed with weapons and competition. Giving our children toys for both genders was part of our new child-rearing plan. We pride ourselves on how or future daughters-in-law would thank us for the emotionally sensitive men we raised. Until we had our own sons, this sounded perfectly plausible.”

Brizendine goes on to make the case that it is natural for boys to be more interested in competitive games and girls to be more interested in co-operative games; with boys spending nearly twice as much as their free time playing competitive games and girls ”taking turns” in their co-operative play twentiy times more than boys.

Another study she cites found that boys were six times more likely than girls to use domestic objects (like my daughter’s play broom) into weapons. Even Rhesus monkeys, says Brizendine, show sex differences in toy preferences with male monkeys more likely to choose trucks than dolls to play with when compared to female monkeys.

Will boys be boys? 

Brizendine believes that nature is at play here. She cites the condition in girls called CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia) which is cause by exposure to high levels of the masculine hormone testosterone in the womb. Researchers have found that girls with CAH are more likely to choose “boys toys” to play with than other girls.

I strongly believe that boys and girls should be free to explore all sides of their personality, but there is a word of caution here. I am wary of people who think there is something fundamentally wrong with boys, such that their behaviours and beliefs need to be conditioned out of them.

Jo Swinson MP wants to encourage boys to play with “feminine” toys like dolls, others, like Yvette Cooper MP, want boys to be taught to be feminists others, like the Great Men Value Women project that runs workshops for teenage boys in schools want a  a “de-gendered” future where  men and boys have “dropped the concept of masculinity altogether“.

My personal belief is that men and boys, like women and girls, should be free to choose—and yes our choices can be restricted in various ways by the culture and society we grow up in. At a cultural level, I  think dads should encourage and challenge boys to be who they want to be, to think what they want to think and to play with whatever toys they want to play with—whether that’s cuddling dolls or turning Barbies into weapons, either way, let them have their fun and discover for themselves what it means to be a man.

—Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

See Also:

In the run up to the launch of a new film on Fatherhood called DOWN DOG, insideMAN will be publishing a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.  

Down Dog is released in selected cinemas on 14 February 2015. For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

 

What does Lynx gay kiss advert say about the changing nature of masculinity?

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Lynx, one of the world’s most shamelessly heterosexual brands, has shocked consumers in Australia with an advert that includes a gay kiss.

The male grooming brand claims to be be used by “over 8 million blokes across UK and Ireland” every day.

 

It has proudly positioned itself as a brand that “helps guys get the girls” by producing “products that guys love” and  “ads that quickly become part of the British guy’s psyche”.

http://youtu.be/qmdlPBY7c8U

So is this a sign that the male psyche is now a bit more bisexual than it once was? Is modern masculinity more willing to accept that heterosexual sex isn’t the only way to enjoy your lynxed-up body?

Lynx’s previous adverts have shown the incredible power of the “Lynx effect” to turn average men into irresistible sex gods who cause angels to fall from the heavens, mermaids to drag them into the sea and thousands of bikini-clad babes to charge after them.

Celebration of heterosexuality 

The brand  is an unapologetic celebration of young, male hetereosexuality—until now. The latest offering from the laddiest of man brand’s shows a man on a sofa flicking through TV channels, showing clips of all the things he should do to celebrate his masculinity while he’s still got his youth.

The suggestions include “go out, see amazing things, get an amazing job, kiss the hottest girl, or the hottest boy, experiment with your hair and learn from your mistakes.”

The suggestion to “kiss the hottest girl, or the hottest boy” are accompanied by our hero in a film noir scene first pulling a hot girl to his lips and then turning away from her to  kissing a hot boy.

The advert has run in Australia and has attracted some great comments on the Lynx YouTube channel which include:

“Man, cool advert… I like many of Lynx’s scents, but never normally buy them as I’m normally turned off by Lynx’s desperate-and-horny-teenage-hetero-boy vibe in their adverts, but this advert was pretty cool especially vis-a-vis who you could kiss… may have to rethink my self-imposed ban on buying Lynx!”

“Kiss a girl or a boy! YAY you guys rock! That’s such a positive message, kiss who you want it’s all good. I saw this add on telly and automatically found it on here so I could share it with all my friends.”

“So I saw this feminism advocate comment about pushing away a woman to kiss a man… CALM DOWN WOMAN. CALM YOURSELF. You’re such a sexist freak.”

Can masculinity be a bit gay?

Masculinity has often been conceived as a homophobic construct. In 1976, for example, David & Brannon proposed that there were four standard rules for traditional, American masculinity. These included

Rule 1: No sissy stuff—distance yourself from femininity, avoid emotions, be homophobic

Who would though that masculine Lynx, whose adverts have previously been banned for objectifying women, would present homosexuality as standard expression of masculinity.

Certainly not the gay website Pink News which has described the advert as “a step forward for the men’s deodorant and haircare giant, which normally only depicts straight men, and their quests to attract more women”.

What do you think? Is the inclusion of a gay kiss in a Lynx a positive sign that men are being given more choice in how they express their masculinity or another example of the creeping feminisation of men? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

 

 

Is it time to give men accused of sexual offences anonymity?

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MP Mark Pritchard has called a review of the law on anonymity for people accused of rape after police dropped an inquiry into allegations against him, writes Glen Poole.

“To be falsely accused of anything is an awful thing,” he said. “The law on anonymity does need to be reviewed, and fairness does need to play a far greater role in these cases.”

His calls were backed by Nigel Evans MP, the former deputy speaker who was cleared of rape allegations at trial last year. He said the law needed to be reformed “as a matter of urgency” to spare suspects “the full glare of publicity….there is scant regard given to the innocent person accused”.

False allegations are a uniquely gendered crime. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, 92% of people suspected of false allegations of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence are women and the majority of victims are male.

So how long have men been denied the right to anonymity in rape trials?

According to the website Full Fact, complainants in rape cases have been entitled to anonymity in the media since the Sexual Offences Act 1976. The same Act extended this to defendants, but since the Criminal Justice Act 1988, defendants have had no statutory right to anonymity in rape cases.

In 2003 the House of Lords and the Home Affairs Committee proposed bringing back anonymity for defendants, but the Commons rejected the plans and the law remained unchanged following the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

The Coalition Agreement in 2010 also proposed extending anonymity in rape cases to defendants. But after the Ministry of Justice found a dearth of evidence on the prevalence of false rape accusations, the plans were shelved.

Estimates of the proportion of allegations of rape that are false range from 0.6%, a statistic favoured by some femininsts keen to downplay the problem, to the much higher 50% figure favoured by some anti-feminists keen to grab hold of any statistic that puts women in the worst possible light.

One in ten rape allegations could be false

More moderate observers agree that a figure of around 10% could be feasible. These include Fogg (2%-10%); Full Fact (8%-11%) and Hawkes (8% to 12%).

If one in ten of the 16,000 complaints for rape the police receive each year are false, then more than 30 men a week are being subjected to false allegations.

That’s more than 30 male victims a week who are being publicly named and shamed while their false accusers can hide behind the anonymity of being a “victim”.

There is only one convincing argument I have heard against anonymity for men accused of rape and that is that naming them can help encourage more victims coming forward.

With just a little imagination, it is not beyond the wit of legislators to make allowances were there is a genuine case for lifting reporting restrictions, so long as this is the exception and not the rule. As Ally Fogg argued after the acquittal of  Coronation Street actor Michael Le Vell in 2013:

“I see no reason why there couldn’t be an assumption of anonymity which could be lifted at any time by the presiding judge, if investigators plead that it offers significant prospects of helping the case.”

Now that two MPs have personal experience of being denied a right to anonymity when accused of rape,  maybe we’ll see a renewed political campaign to change the law for the benefit of all men. After all, men of every background are potentially at risk of being falsely accused of  rape and sexual abuse.

 —Photo Credit: Flickr/Ben Sutherland

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

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10 Great British writers on men’s issues you should read keep an eye on in 2015

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As Christmas approaches and 2014 draws to a close, our news editor Glen Poole lists some of his favourite writers on UK men’s issues.

As I drew up this list I was struck at how vibrant the conversation about men’s issues has become in the past year. This is partly because of the growth of online media like the wonderful insideMAN (of course); partly because more people who have been around the men’s movement for years are taking time to publish their thinking and partly because there are (I think), more people than ever before engaged in conversations by, for and about men in the UK and worldwide.

This is good news and I for one would love to see this list of writers growing exponentially in 2015. If we are to tackle the many different issues affecting men and boys  then it is vital that we build a critical mass of people who are informed about men’s issues and engaged in conversations that make a difference.

If you don’t write yourself, you can still play your part by reading, commenting on and sharing what these writers have to say. You could also become a writer yourself in 2015 and share your thinking with the world. If you have an idea for an article then why not get in touch with insideMAN? Make it your resolution for next year.

Also,  if there are people writing about men’s issues that you admire and think we should be aware of do please let us know in the comments section.

Enough of the preamble. Here, in no particular order, is my list of favourite UK men’s issues writers from 2014:

1. Ally Fogg

If you don’t know him yet, Ally Fogg is a left-wing social commentator who has carved a regular slot for himself at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free section where he has become their “go to guy” for men’s issues. While he writes on various subjects, his dedication to the gender conversation is such that he blogs regularly on the subject at Freethought Blogs where a lively debate is guaranteed under each article. I admire Ally for his rigour in digging through research and statistics that others don’t bother with and for  attempting to view each argument on its merits rather that from a position of ideological prejudice—and he’s a lefty so you can generally rely on him to see the world from a “patriarchy hurts men too” perspective.

Classic Ally Fogg article: The five little words that betrayed Emma Watson 

2. Neil Lyndon

2014 has seen the welcome return of Neil Lyndon to the “men’s issues” debate with regular contributions at Telegraph Men. Neil was one of the first men to dare to put forward the radical idea that men and boys, as a gender, experience sexism, discrimination and inequality. This simple idea is still as radical today as it was over 20 years ago when he first published his seminal work on men women, No More Sex War. He is older, perhaps more socially conservative than Fogg and while he is more connected to men’s issues on a personal level seems to have less understanding of how social policy on gender is practically delivered. However, he is no ranting, irrational misogynist; he is a rigorous and intellectual commentator whose writings provide a vital, counter-cultural viewpoint from the frontline of gender politics.

Classic Neil Lyndon article: Abortion: why aren’t men allowed a say? 

3. Duncan Fisher

I’ve know Duncan longer than anyone on this list as he commissioned my first ever article about “men’s issues” nearly 15 years ago, for  a website called Fathers Direct (a project that became the Fatherhood Institute). Duncan is the most pro-feminist man on this list. He believes that men’s equal participation in parenting is key to delivering equality for women, but rather than taking the finger wagging “why don’t men pull their weight” approach, he proudly advocates for the benefits of involved parenthood and highlights the barriers that prevent men from having an equal opportunity to be an involved parent. I find Duncan’s “Mums and Dads Net” facebook page a useful source of articles I wouldn’t otherwise find and have to commend him for producing the most popular insideMAN article of 2014—four reasons feminism is alienating teenage boys.

Classic Duncan Fisher article: “Do men do their fare share of housework?” This is a sexist statement.

4. Chris  Good 

In contrast to the old hands like Fisher, Fogg and Lyndon; Chris Good is a newcomer who’s made his mark in the past few months. At the risk of sounding like Louis Walsh on the X-Factor—he reminds me of a young Neil Lyndon. He seems raw from  personal experience and driven to make sense of the debate around gender and find a way to make it work for both men and women (as demonstrated by the name of his blog is All For Equality). Chris has taken a stand against the feminist narrative around gender and writes in an open, vulnerable and honest way as a man who seems to be evolving and defining his own gender politics as he writes. He gained some notoriety this year by having his articles removed from the newly formed Huffington Post Men, but more interesting than this incident is the intelligent way he responded to it (see classic Good below):

Classic Chris Good vlog: Feminism has the power to silence opposition in the media

5. Martin Daubney 

Just like Chris Good, Martin Daubney has the sense of a writer who’s developing his gender politics and working out his perspective with each new article. Like Chris, he’s critical of feminism, but not coming from an entrenched anti-feminist perspective, rather questioning feminist perspectives on gender and inviting discussion and debate. Daubney has the additional advantage of a having an existing track record as a journalist and editor as the longest serving editor of Loaded magazine. He has been writing on men’s issues at Telegraph Men throughout 2014.

Classic Martin Daubney article: Why men have a problem with the word feminism 

6. Dan Bell

Dan’s my partner in crime at insideMAN and has been pushing mainstream media outlets to talk about men’s issues as a journalist for several years now, having worked for both BBC and ITN online (amongst others). Dan’s writing is rooted in journalistic integrity and you can rely on him to bring rigour and balance to his writing about men’s issues as his investigative work into funding for men’s health initiatives revealed in 2012. However, the writing I most enjoy from Dan happens when he puts himself into the story whether that’s visiting a military rehabilitation centre, recalling a fight between two women or reflecting on a conversation about boys between mothers on  a London bus.

Classic Dan Bell article: Why Kitchener’s finger gives me the arsehole

7. Karen Woodall 

The only woman on this list and deservedly so. Karen works on the frontline with men and women who are alienated from their children after separation is groundbreaking. She’s had her mind on the challenges of gender inequality for years and after decades of approaching life as a proud feminist, she is now a born again anti feminist. I don’t listen too carefully to her passionate anti-feminist tirades—like a scorned lover I know she only has bad things to say about feminism—but her writing about the reality of working with men and women and children on the frontline of family breakdown is peerless. The world needs more Karen Woodalls! If you want to take an in depth journey into gender politics of social policy in 2015, start reading Karen’s blog on a regular basis.

Classic Karen Woodall article: Gas-lighting masculinity: the dimming of post-separation fatherhood

8. John Adams

It’s great to see the growing number of UK daddy bloggers who are taking time to record their experiences of fatherhood—many of whom you can see featured at Love All Dads. My personal favourites are those who can step back and see their experience within the context of broader gender politics. A great example is John Adams who can go from writing articles about baby changing facilities and men’s fashion ranges to interviewing Nick Clegg or an SNP representative on Scotland’s Equal Opportunities Committee. You can follow John on at Dad Blog UK.

Classic John Adams article: Discussing family friendly, flexible working with Nick Clegg 

9. Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos is a controversial journalist and entrepreneur who appears to have been drawn into the gender debate via his interest in technology. He is writing a book on GamerGate which in his words “represents a brutal clash of worlds: put-upon, basement-dwelling nerds and the bloggers and feminists who have for years been claiming that video games are hateful, misogynistic and should be censored”. As a highly intelligent, provocative and influential writer (currently writing at Breitbart and Business Insider) he has recently positioned himself as a fearsome defender of men who feel unfairly attacked by feminism. Whether he continues to write on “men’s issues” in 2015 remains to be seen.

Classic Milo Yiannopoulos article: What is ‘manspreading’ and why are people angry about it?

10. Glen Poole

I know, I know it’s highly self-congratulatory to list yourself as one of your own favourite writers (and definitely weird to refer to yourself in the third person) but I love writing about men’s issues and I do enjoy looking back on my articles from time to time, so stuff it, I’m including myself in this list. If you want to take a look at what I’ve been up to this year, you’ll find much of it here at insideMAN; my Guardian and Telegraph articles are bookmarked over at Journalisted and then there’s one article at Huffington Post Men that I may add to in the coming year.

Classic Glen Poole article: It’s International Men’s Day so let’s give men a break 

A FEW OTHER WRITERS AND WEBSITES WORTH KEEPING AN EYE ON

—Photo Credit: flickr/Jimmy Brown

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

 

 

Should you buy your kids gender neutral Christmas presents?

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The Equalities Minister, Jo Swinson, has said that gender-specific toys marketed at boys and girls are limiting children’s aspirations and will damage the economy in the long term.

With Christmas fast approaching, we’d love hear from dads of all backgrounds about their experience of raising sons and daughters:

  • What toys did your sons and daughters love playing with?
  • Do you encourage your children to play with toys associated with the “other gender”?
  • Do you think you children face pressure to conform to gender stereotypes?
  • Do you think you face pressure as a parent to nurture boys and girls differently?
  • Is your experience that boys are from Mars and girls are from Venus and that this is just natural?

According to an in depth article by Sally Peck, lead writer at The Telegraph’s new digital parenting hub Mother Tongue (note the sexism against fathers in the title?), Jess Day of the campaign group Let Toys Be Toys, believes that:

“The stereotypes we see in toy marketing connect with the inequalities we see in adult life. By late primary age, research by the Welsh organisation Chwarae Teg shows that children already have very clear ideas about the jobs that are suitable for boys and girls – ideas that are very hard to shake later on.”

According to Peck:

“A growing number of parents, educators and governments want to redress this by making the world “gender-neutral”. The idea is to make all things available to all children. Pink isn’t banned. Rather, it’s up for grabs. More subtly, and onerously, it means being careful about language and behaviour so, for example, boys are given the same amount of attention as girls when they are upset, to counteract the assumption that girls are more emotional and boys are naturally braver.”

Peck says that experts claim that such interventions in childhood will enable girls to grow up able to assert an equal role in the workplace, while boys will be less likely to become stoical adults who are three-to-four times more likely to die from suicide.

Not everyone agrees with the drive towards gender neutral parenting. Peck’s article quotes two women with dissenting views. Siobhan Freegard, founder of the parenting website Netmums says:

“Most ordinary mums will say: ‘Yeah, but boys and girls are different. Parents don’t really get what the point is of campaigns like Pink Stinks,” which fights gender stereotypes.

Angela Spencer, who has owned and operated nurseries for the past 21 years, agrees with Freegard saying:

“Boys and girls develop differently, socially and emotionally. The anatomy of boys and girls is different and their subsequent developmental needs are different. In this ‘gender-neutral’ trend, we are running the risk of losing gender identity completely.”

—Photo Credit: flickr/JDHancock

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

Tell us what you think? Will boys be boys (and girls be girls) or are the toys we give our children helping to condition them to be masculine or feminine?

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Why British Medical Journal’s “men are idiots” research joke isn’t funny

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There’s a very British Christmas cracker joke that goes: “What do you call a train full of professors?” The answer is tube of Smarties. Having a laugh with friends and family is all part of the festive fun, but when academics think its funny to label men as idiots, the joke has gone too far says Glen Poole.

 

It’s official. Men are idiots. If you don’t believe me check out the following headlines:

The news has been generated by a “joke” research paper published in the British Medical Journal which has a tradition of publishing humorous research in the run up to Christmas. Previous subjects have included:

Applying serious academic language and research methodology to trivial topics and publishing the results in an esteemed journal is wonderfully eccentric—like an upmarket Christmas cracker joke. But proving that “men are idiots” in the name of humour to mark the season of good will to all men! Seriously?

Women are from Venus, men are idiots

The joke paper, which references the real book “women are from Venus, men are idiots”, uses the Darwin Awards as the basis for its research.

If you don’t know the Darwin Awards, they are an extreme version of “You’ve Been Framed” that highlight examples of people dying of their own stupidity.

The running “joke” that the Darwin Awards sells the public is that these people are doing us all a favour by removing themselves from the gene pool.

These are real people, with real friends and families, whose tragic deaths are presented for our collective entertainment and amusement—people like Scott McKimmie who was crushed to death by his own camper van in Corby, earlier this year. He was nominated for a Darwin Award because he was under the bonnet trying to start his  van when the van lurched forward (as a result of modifications he’d made) and crushed him to death.

Those close to Scott will be approaching their first Christmas without him and the British Medical Journal has seen fit to publish research labeling men like Scott “idiots”—as a jolly Christmas joke.

The basis of this conclusion is that researchers at Newcastle University “discovered” that nine out of ten people named in the Darwin Awards are male. “This finding,” they quip, “is entirely consistent with male idiot theory (MIT) and supports the hypothesis that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things”

Let me pause a moment to take in those three supposedly hilarious words:

“MEN ARE IDIOTS”.

Yes the joke’s on us—us men—all of us, because we’re all too stupid to have feelings. Why is that? Because “real men” are tough and manly and any man who doesn’t think this “joke” is funny needs to “man up”, get a sense of humour and “take it like a man”.

But can you imagine the outcry if such “humour” was applied to any other group in society? Would it be acceptable for scientists to “prove”  that:

  • Women are idiots?
  • Blacks are idiots?
  • Gays are idiots?
  • People with disabilities are idiots?
  • Working class people are idiots?

Of course not, so why is labelling half the population “idiots” for a “joke” ok? For one reason and one reason only—because the joke’s on men.

In writing this article I’ve had to ask myself whether I’m suffering from a sense of humour bypass? This is an important question because I do love to laugh and I’m not a fan of finger-wagging censorship. But when we make jokes about men that would cause outrage if they were directed at women—I feel I have duty to speak out.

More men die of avoidable deaths

It’s true that men account for a high proportion of avoidable deaths and consistently make up the majority of workplace fatalities; accidental deaths and suicides.

There may be many factors that account for this that are psychological, biological and social—and it is the cultural causes that interest me in this case. Why? Because it is clear to me that we are collectively more tolerant of harm that happens to men and boys and that this tolerance could be contributing to both the high rate of avoidable deaths amongst men and our greater tolerance of sexist humour targeted at men.

In writing their “men are idiots” research paper for comic effect, the Newcastle University team are both reflecting and perpetuating a culture of misandry that at best tolerates and at worst contributes to hatred of men and boys as a group.

Sadly the “joke” has been created by three adult men (in partnership with a young male student) who are highly intelligent academically, but apparently lacking in the ability to empathise with their fellow man.

The men listed in the Darwin Awards that they have deemed to be idiots include:

  • A mentally ill Indian teenager who climbed into a zoo cage with a tiger and was mauled to death. Oh how they must have sniggered at the death of that “stupid” mentally ill young man, proof, if ever we needed it, that all men are idiots.
  • A man who died at work while installing reinforcement bars to a communication tower in Texas. Two colleagues watched in horror as he fell 225 feet to his death after mistakenly loosening the bolts on the bar he was attached to.    “Oh my, that’s so funny,” the researchers must have squealed. “Over a hundred men a year in the UK alone die in workplace fatalities, oh my, men are such stupid idiots, men dying tragically is soooooooooooo funny!”
  • And most disturbingly of all, the list of men the Newcastle University researchers drew upon to conclude that “men are stupid” included a young man who died in tragic circumstances in their own city.

Last year, 26-year-old film-maker, Lee Halpin, set out to sleep rough on the streets of his native Newcastle for a week to investigate the rise of homelessness in the city. Three days later he was found dead. An inquest found he had died of sudden adult death syndrome.

Four men a week die homeless and men account for 90% of all homeless deaths in the UK.

Lee Halpin was temporarily homeless through choice. He died trying to highlight a serious social issue that predominantly affects men. He may well have been foolhardy, but to label him “stupid” and cite him as evidence that “men are idiots” is heartless.

The fact that intelligent, educated men working in the same city where Halpin lived and died have made this “joke” is deeply saddening to me.

The most insightful sentence in the “joke” research paper is this:

“There may be some kind of reporting bias. Idiotic male candidates may be more newsworthy than idiotic female Darwin Award candidates”,

This certainly rings true and the flipside of this statement is that the higher proportion of avoidable deaths that impact men and boys—the accidents, the suicides, the murders, the war deaths and the workplace fatalities—are also less newsworthy.

As men we have a choice—we can ignore this issue, we can challenge the status quo or we can make a joke about it and dismiss all men as idiots. I’ve made my choice, what’s yours?

You can post a response to the BMJ article at their website.

—Photo Credit: flickr/JDHancock

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Is this homeless charity appeal perpetuating the objectification of women and the invisibility of male victims?

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A Christmas campaign for a youth homeless charity ignores male rough sleepers and glamourises homeless women writes Glen Poole.

A strange thing happened to me this week. The charity Centrepoint started pushing what I can only describe as “rough sleeper porn” at me via facebook.

It began quite abruptly with this image of a dead woman bearing her sole, presumably designed to attract any necrophiliacs who also happen to have a foot fetish.

Next up was the lovely Gemma with her big Disney-esque eyes and luscious lips, looking more like a grunge glamour shoot than a realistic portrayal of a young homeless woman.

All that was missing a Sun-style caption saying “how’d you like to take this tramp home for a spot of rough sleeping fellas?”

http://youtu.be/WCT47ZUQMIQ?t=21s

Next up was the very sexy Sally who spent last Christmas without a roof over her head and to prove that a girl can look both hot AND homeless, Centrepoint shared a sultry picture showing Sally begging for it on the streets of London:

This year Centrepoint is pleased to show us that Sally scrubs up well and will be spending Christmas at their place. You can almost hear them gloating “I bet you’d love to pull this cracker wouldn’t you lads”?

And just when I was about to complain about the lack of men in the Christmas campaign, up  popped a new image to prove me wrong. First there was Emma rolling her “come and give me a bed for the night” eyes at me:

Secondly there was a man hanging out with Emma. This shouldn’t be surprising as around nine out of ten rough sleepers are male. But this wasn’t a homeless man, no this was a graffiti version of a man who seemed to personify pure evil—everything that horny homeless girls like Emma, Gemma, Lucy and Sally need protecing from.

Next up in this sidewalk cat walk was the teenager Lianne whose step dad made her do things she didn’t want to do.

Her step dad appeared to be the same evil figure who was haunting Emma—why are men such bastards? Why can’t we leave sexy homeless girls alone?

Poor Lianne told me that she was homeless at 17 and there were lots of scary people about.

Look closely at the images on the video and you’ll be left in no doubt that all of these scary people were men:

http://youtu.be/97mf2-5olMo

If you look in more detail at the Centrepoint website you’ll find they do actually help young homeless people who are both female AND male—and no doubt they do some great work for their clients.

But why are they using such sexy, sexist advertising to try and get people to give them money at Christmas—does pushing rough sleeper porn raise more pounds than telling the truth?

The truth is nine out of ten rough sleepers are male and men are nine times more likely to die homeless than women. So why are homeless men so invisible in Centrepoint’s Christmas campaign?

It seems like a ruthless way to treat the roofless.

Is it because we’re collectively more tolerant of men being harmed?

Is it because we’re all more likely to help and protect women?

Is the reason Centrepoint are raising money by objectifying homeless women and making homeless men invisible, the same reason more men are homeless in the first place?

Men are invisible, disposable, unworthy of our help. There’s no point putting men at the front of your fundraising appeal because men make terrible victims.

Much better to use female victims to promote your cause, even if they represent a tiny minority of the problem you’re trying to solve. And if your female victims look fit, well that’s great news because you can pimp them in your advertising campaign and watch the charitable donations roll in like tips at a Vegas titty bar.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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10 Reasons why men still feel pressure to be the main breadwinner

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Men are three times more likely to feel pressured to be the main breadwinner in their relationship, according to the first national audit of masculinity published by the male suicide prevention charity CALM last month.

 

So why do men feel pressure to be the main breadwinner? Here we explore 10 possible reasons and we’d like to hear your theories in the comments section below.

1. You can’t beat biology

The ability to earn money used to be defined almost entirely by biology. However the world of work is no longer so divided. It is a little known fact that single women earn more than single men in the UK—so the pay gap is not simply caused by biology or sex discrimination.

The pay gap is mostly a parenting gap but it’s also a relationship gap. While single women earn more than single men, the moment men and women enter into a relationship with each other a relationship pay gap emerges.

So even in couples where there are no children, men earn more than women on average. Why does this happen? Do men lean in to the provider role? Do women settle in to being provided for? We don’t really know, but we do know it happens

When kids arrive, the parenting pay gap gets bigger with each extra child. This is where biology is definitely playing a part. Men can’t gestate or lactate so having kids means mums spend less time in the workplace and dads take on more responsibility for bringing home the bacon.

There is some sex discrimination at play here. On mum’s side, campaigners claim that 60,000 mums are pushed out of work every year; on dad’s side, unequal parental rights prevent dads having an equal opportunity to be the primary carer (and mum’s having a equal opportunity to be the main breadwinner).

2. Work is a man’s world

Is the world of work still a “man’s world” that favours male breadwinners?

According to the “dissident feminist”, Camille Paglia, “the modern economy, with its vast production and distribution network, is a male epic, in which women have found a productive role — but women were not its author”.

Paglia was speaking int a debate about The End of Men, Hanna Rosin’s celebrated book in which she claimed that the emerging postindustrial society is better suited to women. This isn’t simply a lef-wing, feminist fantasy. Trevor Nelson, editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine has made a similar observation saying:

“The economy is changing shape, in a way that is to men’s collective disadvantage. Occupations requiring physical strength are rapidly disappearing; a quarter of manufacturing jobs have vanished in the past 10 years. In their place come posts where “work” means grabbing a coffee, heading to the office and getting along with people. The qualities of social intelligence, communication skills and multi-tasking are not ones where men have any innate advantage. The recession has simply accelerated the emasculation of the economy.”

For now, it seems, the economy still favours male breadwinners, making it the obvious choice for most couples to rely on dad to earn most money, but for how much longer?

3. Fathers don’t have equal rights to care for their children

Fathers still don’t have equal rights or opportunities to be involved parents and this pushes men into the breadwinner role. According to the best-selling author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernier—who is a patron of the charity Families Need Fathers—there is a “general mythologising of fathers as irrelevant and feckless abusers” and the family courts treat “fathers heartlessly as mere sperm donors and bankers”.

At the other end of the fatherhood experience, new dads also face discrimination. As the former Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) commissioner Duncan Fisher said, when a Welsh dad whose partner died in childbirth was legally prevented from leaving hospital with his new born child:

“In UK law, a father can only be a father if the mother approves him. She can do this in two ways – marry him or invite him to sign the birth certificate. If neither of these happens, he is not the father until the family court approves him. A man has to be vetted by the mother or the state before he is allowed to be a father.”

When fathers don’t equal rights to take on the role of involved parent, they are inevitably pushed into the role of being the primary breadwinner.

4. Men have narrower choices

The latest British Social Attitudes survey also tells us that:

  • Only 28% of people think mums should work full time once the kids start school
  • 73% of us think dads should work full time

Put another way, nearly three quarters of the British population—men and women—think men should be the main breadwinners.

What’s happened in the past 50-60 years is that women’s choices have diversified and they have been able to do so because men’s choices have remained relatively stable. Men, for the most part, have continued to provide the economic security that has enabled most modern mums to make one of three life choices:

  • To stay at home until the children start school (which 33% of people support)
  • To work part time until the children start school (which 43% support)
  • To work full time once the kids start school (which 28% support)

When it comes to work-home balance, men simply don’t have the same range of choices:

  • 73% of us think dads should work full time
  • 5% of us think dads should work part time
  • ZERO percent of us think dads should stay at home full time

 5. Parental leave benefits don’t give dads equal support

Until very recently, the UK has had one of the most unequal parenting leave entitlement regimes in the world which was described by the Fatherhood Institute as a major driver of gendered responsibility in earning and caring.

This sexist legislation was introduced by the New Labour government in 2006 and attempts to reform it were opposed by an unholy alliance of big business and women’s groups including the feminist Fawcett Society.

In 2011, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg promised to reform this system saying the laws on parental leave marginalise dads and deny them the chance to play a hands-on role. The new laws on shared parental leave are a big step forward but still discriminate against fathers. According to Ben Moxham at the TUC “the incentives in place for fathers are so poor that even the government estimates that only 2 to 8 per cent of dads are likely to take this leave” and there is still a huge gap between the parental leave pay mums and dads can expect. In the higher education sector, for example, some of the UK’s most generous universities are paying mums over 60 times more than some dads get paid when they take parental leave.

When such huge gender gaps in parental leave pay exist, it is little wonder than men are pushed into the breadwinner role when children enter the equation.

6. Female workers don’t have the same financial ambitions

According to the job website, Adzuna, male job seekers are more ambitious when it comes to earnings, with men being twice as likely as their female counterparts to aspire to top jobs, paying over £100,000.

Adzuna’s survey showed that nearly a third of women would be content with salaries between £20-30k, while only half that number of men claim they would be happy to receive the same level of pay.

A recent survey of graduates made a similar discovery, revealing that while a third (34pc) of male graduates were aiming to earn over £25,000 when they leave university onlya fifth (20pc) of female graduates have the same ambition.

If even the most qualified young women in the country are aiming to earn less than their male counterparts it is inevitable that more men will end up in relationships where they feel pressured to be the main breadwinner.

7. Women don’t want put the same hours in as men

While there are more women in the workplace than ever before, men are still responsible for nearly two-thirds (61%) of the one billion hours people in the UK spend working every week and are three times more likely than women to put in more than 45 hours of paid work each week.

This pattern is set to be repeated by the next generation of workers with male graduates being 50% more likely to say they are prepared to work more than 45 hours a week, than female graduates.

As more men are prepared to work longer hours than women, they are more likely to earn more than their partners and feel pressure to take on the role of main breadwinner.

8. Gentleman prefer work

According to preference theory, there are three key choices facing men and women and these are:

  • To prioritise careers, espouse achievement values and lead a work-centred lifestyle
  • To prioritise family life and sharing values and lead a home-centred lifestyle
  • To combine paid jobs and family work without giving absolute priority to either activity or the accompanying values and lead an adaptive lifestyle

Proponents of preference theory claim that the majority of women are more family orientated while the majority of men are more work orientated and these preferences lead to more men taking on the breadwinner role.

9. Women prefer high achievers

This may seem like an outdated concept, but research suggests that women all over the world still look for breadwinner qualities in their mate and are more likely than men to favour traits related to resources, like ambition, industriousness and earning capacity.

10. The rules of masculinity/femininity

According to the psychologist Martin Seager, there are three ancient rules of masculinity that still inform our experience of being a man today. They are:

  • A real man is a fighter and a winner
  • A real man is a provider and a protector (of women, children and others)
  • A real man retains mastery and control

According to CALM’s audit of masculinity, the majority of men and women (76%) say they believe that men and women in relationships should share equal responsibility for financial matters. The figure is higher for women (83% ) than it is for men (68%).

But what does “equal responsibility” mean? Most of the research in this area suggests that it doesn’t mean bringing home equal amounts of money as nearly three quarters of people think fathers should work full time, while just over a quarter think mothers should work full time.

In CALM’s survey 31% of male respondents said the thought men should be mostly responsible for financial matters. This is lower than the percentage of men who actually end up being the main breadwinner in their family.

Perhaps men are three times more likely to feel pressured to be the main breadwinner because although most men think financial responsibility should be equally shared, in reality, the majority of men still end up doing an unequal share of the breadwinning in their relationship.

And despite the fact that the majority of women say that financial responsibility should be shared equally; the cold, hard reality is that the majority of women, don’t make a equal financial contribution in their relationships (for a variety of reasons)—leaving men more pressure to be the main breadwinner.

WHY DO YOU THINK MEN FEEL PRESSURE TO TAKE ON THE BREADWINNER ROLE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIPS? TELL US WHAT YOU THINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION. 

—Photo Credit: flickr/Annie Mole

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Do men blame themselves and women blame others?

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This isn’t a sexist question. I don’t buy into the notion that “all women are x” and “all men are y”.

I do accept there are male and female tendencies that mean that “women are more likely to be x and men are more likely to be y”.

So when I ask, in the headline of this article, “do men blame themselves and women blame others?”, what I’m really asking is “are men more likely to blame themselves and women more likely to blame others?”

I’m talking generally.

I’m not talking about all men and women and I’m certainly not pointing the finger at any individual man or woman. And I’m really not talking about you. I don’t know you and I don’t pretend to know whether you personally are more likely to blame yourself or to blame others.

Who do we blame for gender inequality?

I do believe there may be some truth in the statement “men are more likely to blame themselves and women are more likely to blame others”. Let me explain why.

Over the years of studying gender inequalities I’ve noticed a distinct pattern:

  • When women experience inequality we tend to blame men
  • When men experience inequality we also blame men

Violence against women; the “gender pay gap”; the under-representation of women in positions of power—men’s fault.

Boys lower educational outcomes; the high male suicide rate and men’s poor life expectancy—men’s fault.

Our collective view of gender problems is that men CAUSE them and women SUFFER them, that women HAVE problems and men ARE problems—as one video on the matter says “we’re psychologically inclined to separate people into two categories, actors and acted upon”.

Men are actors and women are acted upon

The actor is generally seen as being a masculine role, while the “acted upon” is considered to be feminine. This can be good and bad news for both men and women.

As men, we expect (and are expected) to be strong, assertive actors who are 100% at the cause of our lives—fully responsible and totally to blame for whatever happens to us.

Women in this scenario may expect (and be expected) to be weak, submissive, acted-upon victims who are 100% at the effect of their lives—-never responsible and never to blame.

The downside of these gender binary constructions of femininity and masculinity is that men are denied the opportunity to be vulnerable and get support and women are denied the opportunity to be strong and take full responsibility for fulfilling their dreams.

Where’s the evidence for this?

Of course it isn’t quite so simple. There are men who are able to get help and support and there are women who take responsibility for their lives, but this arises against a cultural narrative that shapes men as the actors and women as the acted upon.

If this is all a bit too conceptual for you, let’s take a look at some data from two recent surveys that inspired this article.

The first was a survey of career aspirations which asked men and women to name the main reasons for falling short of their career goals.

Men pointed to internal factors like laziness and lack of motivation—they blamed themselves.

Women pointed to external factors like family commitments and competition for jobs. They also cite lack of confidence, a problem that is significant enough for there to be a book called the “confidence gap” aimed at women.

Who’s to blame when your confidence is low?

The premise of the book is that lack of confidence holds women back and addressing this can expand a woman’s opportunities and outcomes. The feminist Jessica Valenti does not like the idea that women can be the actors in life and made it clear in her review of the book that when it comes to self confidence, women are being acted upon saying:

“The ‘confidence gap’ is not a personal defect as much as it is a reflection of a culture that gives women no reason to feel self-assured.”

Of course the authors of the book never said that lack of confidence is a “personal defect”; what they say is that unlike the economy and the number of people competing for the same job (external concerns that you as an individual cannot change), your personal confidence is something you have some control over, because it’s something you can develop in such a way that it will improve your job prospects.

This is what psychologists refer to as having an internal or external locus of control. So “actors” are empowered because they have an internal locus of control, while the “acted upon” are disempowered because they have an external locus of control.

Being the master of your life is empowering

A second example of this at play can be found in CALM’s recent audit of masculinity, which found that men are three times more likely too feel pressure to be the breadwinner.

When asked where this pressure comes from, 81% of men looked inwards and said it comes from myself, compared with 67% of women.

More significantly, the same survey found that 47% of men with depression don’t talk about it compared with 26% of women. When asked why, more men (69%) than women (54%), say its because they prefer to deal with problems themselves.

This is where being the actor (or the acted upon) can work against us. Believing you have mastery and control over your life is empowering, up until the point where you’re faced with challenges that are outside of your control.

Why do men kill themselves?

How does a man beat depression if he believes the answer to his problems is always inside himself? Is the high male suicide the ultimate act of men blaming themselves when life doesn’t work out?

In contrast, believing you are “acted upon” and that the cause of any problem you face lies outside of you, can make it easier to reach out and get help. But does there come a point where always thinking you need the help of others, makes you helpless?

In my experience, there does seem to be a tendency for men to expect (and be expected) to be the actors in life, the problem solvers, the people with power who have no-one but themselves to blame if life doesn’t work out.

There is a similar and opposite tendency for women to expect (and be expected) to be acted upon in life, to have their problems solved, to be the people without power who can blame others when life goes wrong.

What can we learn from this? 

These are tendencies, not absolutes, they don’t apply to all men and women, but all of us can learn from these tendencies as they both have potential benefits.

The ability to look inwards and hold yourself responsible for your own life is deeply empowering—as is the ability to know when you need to get help and reach out for support. As the serenity prayer wisely says:

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference”.

—Photo Credit: flickr/Cyberslayer

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook