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Guardian newspaper tries to silence victims of genital mutilation, because they are men

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The Guardian newspaper has publicly confirmed its policy of banning discussions about genital mutilation in the comment section under articles about genital mutilation.

To be more precise it is trying to ban commentators from sharing views about male genital mutilation that contradict its left-wing, pro-feminist, editorial views on female genital mutilation (FGM).

Many of the people impacted by the ban are committed campaigners against all forms of genital mutilation and men who were victims of genital mutilation themselves.

Campaigners told insideMAN last night that the practice of “moderating” male victims of genital mutilation (and their supporters) who call for all forms on non-consensual, medically unnecessary genital cutting to be banned has been going on for several years at The Guardian.

This week, apparently for the first time, the media group decided to openly “pre-moderate” comments on an article about FGM warning readers that “to keep circumcision of boys out of this particular conversation… comments specifically about male circumcision will be removed by mods as ‘Off Topic’.”

Debating the ban is banned! 

The reason The Guardian gave for banning discussion of male circumcision was that “the effects and cultural practices/significance are very, very different, and essentially they’re two separate debates”.

One campaigner accused the newspaper of issuing a “fiat” that censored fair and reasoned debate and banned commentators from even discussing whether the two practices are linked or not.

To prove the point, another campaigner from New Zealand posted a comment explaining the historical links between FGM and male circumcision in the US and the UK and his comment was removed.

Boys have human rights too! 

The same campaigner, who claimed on a separate forum that The Guardian allows posts supporting male circumcision, told insideMAN:

“It is legitimate for a site like the Guardian to not want every thread on FGC (female genital cutting) to be dominated by MGC (male genital cutting). What is less legitimate is to suppress every mention of MGC, and what is completely disgustingly illegitimate is to allow praise of MGC but not refutation of that praise, which seems to be what they are doing.”

“You could argue that to discuss FGC in isolation from other GC allows you to conflate harm with human rights violation…all GC is a human rights violation regardless of the degree of physical damage.”

Marilyn Milos, a US campaigner who began advocating for genital autonomy after observing the circumcision of baby boys as a nurse, agreed that the focus should be on human rights for everyone. She said:

“I’ve said many times before, genital cutting is not an issue of competitive suffering. The screams of infants and children undergoing genital cutting are genderless and both genders die from these harmful traditional practices. Both are human rights violations and should be dealt with as such.”

Men Do Complain

One man who has been making the case to the UK government that both practices violate human rights, Richard Duncker of Men Do Complain, explained his thinking to us. He said:

“It is difficult to see how a child’s human rights are not breached by non-therapeutic genital modification. The European Court of Human Rights has set a very low threshold for a breach of article 3 – that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment  – for example the application to the court No. 9078/06 Tarhan v Turkey (17/07/2012) found that the applicant’s Article 3 right had been breached by the forced shaving of his head and beard.”

“Children are equally entitled to the protection of their human rights. There is a misuse of Article 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998 when adults state that it is their right to manifest their beliefs by modifying their children’s genitals. Article 9 is a qualified right in that a person cannot infringe the rights of another, even if that other is his or her child.”

Sadly, such considered comments from committed campaigners like Richard Duncker are not welcome at The Guardian.

What debate is allowed? 

To its credit, The Guardian probably generates more debate about male circumcision AND female circumcision than any other mainstream media operation. The coverage is heavily weighted towards FGM, which has been the subject of five articles this month alone, compared with male circumcision, which has generated 5 articles all year.

Furthermore, while The Guardian’s coverage of FGM is unequivocally opposed to the practice and strongly rooted in discussion about the UK’s role in ending the practice at home and abroad; The Guardian’s articles about male circumcision offer a mix of pro-circumcision; anti-circumcision and neutral viewpoints and are often presented as “world news” and not connected to the need for the UK to end the practice at home and abroad.

The Guardian claims that while “the two issues are superficially related, the … cultural practices/significance are very, very different, and essentially they’re two separate debates”.

What appears to be happening is that The Guardian has mistaken its editorial, gender political, worldview of genital with the absolute truth and is now insisting that any victims of genital mutilation (and their supporters) who think differently are quite simply wrong.

We can only solve this problem together 

I’ll give the final word to Georganne Chapin of Intact America, who told insideMAN:

“I think it’s rather curious. The Guardian is preaching to the choir if it does a piece deploring the evils of FGM. I do not minimize the problem of FGM in the cultures where it is still practiced, and we cannot deny that western countries with large Muslim populations will have to address the practice from a legal standpoint.

“However, as journalism, the topic isn’t even all that interesting on its own; the party’s over. The Guardian’s readership is universally going to condemn FGM.  What IS interesting is that The Guardian and the mainstream western press, in general, are not willing to even entertain the possibility that in order to solve the FGM problem, we might need to address MGM.”

—Photo Credit: flickr/erix

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Stop choosing to be offended by “sexist” stuff!

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Tony Jackson is a champion of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace who is concerned by a growing tendency for people to choose to be offended by things that really aren’t that offensive—particularly when it comes to “sexism”.

I think my track record on diversity and inclusion qualifies me to comment on this. I hope so.

I have strong personal, professional and commercial reasons for believing in and fighting for inclusion in workplaces and in society. That said, I’ve spotted a trend which does a disservice to the cause.

Artificial offence. People choosing to take offence. Opting in, deliberately, to a contagious reaction. “Ooh yes – I’m offended too”. Switching on a programme deliberately to be offended. Watching the Twitter feed and joining in. “Me too. Me too. Outrageous”.

In case you are wondering – no I am not joining the crowd who say “it’s just banter”. In my experience that is usually a cover for downright odious thinking and behaviour. Behaviour which excludes others in the workplace and in social gatherings.

And I am alert to the fact that there can be specific things which might be offensive to only a small number of people and that even the law says it is for the person impacted to decide whether something is unacceptable to them. Quite right too – otherwise, for example, the white majority in an office can over-rule the black minority in deciding whether something is out of order.

Man flu is not funny but….

A personal one: I have always hated the expression “man flu”. It is bandied about by unthinking men and women when a male colleague has been off work. Demeaning, disrespectful and potentially very hurtful (I once heard it used relating to someone who turned out to have a life-threatening disease). But others don’t see it that way so I choose to temper my response whilst making my point about it. Maybe I’m even emotionally intelligent with my response? Gosh.

But with every right comes responsibilities and one of these is a sense of perspective.

So I ask you – are you guilty of choosing to be offended? Of getting something so out of proportion, electing not to see the bigger picture, deliberately stirring up trouble where there is no need.

I cite two recent examples:

A man is part of a team which has succeeded in landing a robot onto a comet. Imagine. Just think of the enormity of that task. My brain hurts thinking about the calculations involved. The patience. The commitment.

He shows poor taste in the shirt he wears for a press conference. Pretty bad. Ill-advised. But the guy was overwhelmed by the situation and clearly needed better advice or just a friend to prod him in the right direction.

Reduced to tears by groupthink

The “groupthink” reaction. Outrageous. Let’s call for his head. Reduce the guy to tears. Make him prostrate himself. Ignore his achievement.

I ask you: where is the same clamour, the same volume of tweets over the real outrages on this planet right now?

Secondly: a marvellous charity which punches above its weight in its sheer drive and passion towards helping people affected by bowel cancer. It is running a fundraising initiative to raise a quantity of cash which is huge for them but would be tiny for, say, a tax-dodging multinational.

The hashtag for their campaign is #realmengrowbeards . I read this as ironic, self-deprecating, a challenge to the one where you “just” grow a moustache. It’s inclusive – I’m having a go but already have beard-envy compared to those fine examples you see around these days. The campaign offers opportunities for women to get involved (wear a false one) or for men to decide what their response is to the challenge. All with very positive intent. This is about helping any man or woman who develops the second-biggest killer on the cancer spectrum. It is not suggesting for a second that you are less of a man if your beard growth is less good than the next person’s.

Do real men get offended by normative constructions of masculinity? 

And what happens? A chap on Twitter, an academic, launches into a social media campaign against the charity for “amplifying the daily compulsion to ‘normativity’”, being ‘essentialist’, sexist and so on. He screamed how offended he was from his pulpit. How this is “a blinkered approach to constructions of masculinity”.

To be fair to the guy, I don’t doubt his intentions either and he has since tempered his initial comments in a more reflective blog. But he would not let go. When I asked him if he might be looking or choosing to be offended, without any sense of irony he told me my question had offended him. It’s a whirlwind of offence. How exhausting. With all the real battles we have to fight, surely we have to choose the ones that matter?

And look what it’s done – it’s made me use up half an hour writing a(nother) blog. So what is the learning point?

It’s a classic element of a coaching relationship: helping people understand that they have a choice in how they react to what is going on around them. They can choose to be offended if they want. But, by definition, they can also choose not to be. They can save their energy for the time when something really offensive happens.

—Photo: Jeepers Media

You can support Tony’s fundraising attempt to grow a beard (like a real man) by making a donating to Beating Bowel Cancer via his fundraising page now.

Tony Jackson is founder of Chelsham, “the home of action-oriented, impactful, values-based executive coaching & consulting”. Chelsham works with leaders, business-owners and rising stars to help them realise their potential. You can follow them @ChelshamConsult and find out more at the Chelsham website. 

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‘Men don’t have problems, they cause them’ is now the only politically correct thing you can say about men

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There is now a pervasive drive to limit the discussion of men and masculinity to a single, poisonous, narrative: Men don’t have problems, they cause them. This is how it’s happening in schools, universities, across the media and even in the UN itself.

— This is article #99 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

On Monday, The Times reported on the Raising Awareness and Prevention initiative – a project in which a former New York sex-crime prosecutor goes into London schools to lecture boys on how porn is generating a rise in misogyny. The article starts with this sentence: “Mission impossible: one hour to re-programme teenage boys’ sexual manners so they are fit for a feminist world”.

It ends with this: “These are boys any parent would be proud of and they are also now scarred for life. Any time they imagine doing something furtive online, it will trigger the thought that adults of influence – maybe even some formidable American women – are seeing into their souls via their search history. Mission accomplished.”

This isn’t sex education. It’s indoctrination, bordering on abuse. It’s also just one example of what is now a pervasive drive to limit the discussion of men and masculinity to a single narrative: Men don’t have problems, they cause them.

‘Good Lad’ workshop

The boundaries of what some people would like to see as permissible speech about men was summed up earlier this month, when rugby players at Oxford University took part in a ‘Good Lad’ workshop, aimed at combatting what the organisers say is a crisis of sexual assault and harassment on campus.

In 2009, another men’s group was set up at Oxford University, this time not aimed at teaching men how to stop harassing women, but as a space for young men to explore what it means to be a man in contemporary UK society. The group was vociferously condemned as “reactionary and ridiculous” by the very same campaigners who say that male students should take part in forums such as the ‘Good Lad’ workshop.

At the time, Olivia Bailey, then NUS national women’s officer, said: “What exactly will a men’s society do? To suggest that men need a specific space to be ‘men’ is ludicrous, when everywhere you turn you will find male-dominated spaces.”

You can speak up as a man, as long as it’s to apologise

So, just to be clear, the only time men are permitted to come together to talk about their experiences of being men, is when they hold themselves in contrition in an attempt prevent themselves from abusing women? Right. OK then.

But student campaigners aren’t the only ones committed to controlling the conversation about what it means to be a man. In January of this year, the Southbank Centre held the Being A Man festival, the first of its kind in the UK and organised by the same people who run the well-established, feminist-orientated, Women of the World Festival.

I was genuinely excited at the prospect of such a high-profile event that would put a vibrant discussion of men and masculinity at the heart of the UK’s cultural establishment. Except that isn’t what happened. What actually took place was a series of ideological set pieces, in which prominent feminists and their allies told us what they think men are and how we need to change.

Over the course of two days, we were told that men should be feminists, but offered no view on why they shouldn’t be; that male violence against women is a problem, but given no views on the problem of female perpetrators and male victims; that porn is bad for you, but offered no perspectives on how men can explore, express and celebrate their sexuality. And so on.

HeForShe

In the run-up to the festival, the organisers arranged a series of panel discussions among men to explore what the big issues for men are that the festival should address. From the line-up of speakers at the event, it’s hard not to conclude they didn’t simply exclude any voices that weren’t in line with their own feminist worldview.

It’s one thing if student campaigners and metropolitan pundits try to limit what you can say about men, but it’s quite another when the UN gets in on the act. The UN’s recently-launched HeForShe campaign, championed by Emma Watson, calls on men to help end violence against women – and who wouldn’t want to help do that? But the glaring, frankly bizarre, elephant in the room is that the campaign deliberately, explicitly omits concern for male victims of violence.

This is the pledge the UN is asking men to sign up to: “I commit to take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls.” Discrimination can be a very subjective topic, but the UN’s data on violence is unequivocal, globally men and boys are almost four times more likely to be murdered than women and girls.

These messages are being targeted at boys and young men at ages when they are most vulnerable and insecure about their place in the world. The narrative itself excludes discussion of the impact this is having on young men, or of the problems they face due to their own gender.

Young men ‘shouted at and publicly humiliated’

insideMAN recently took the unusual step of actually asking young men how they feel about the conversation that is being had about them, rather than with them. The responses of these teenagers, who are relentlessly subjected to social media propaganda about the failures of their sex – from EveryDaySexism, to Hollaback, to the FCKH8 video – should stand as a wakeup call.

They said that if they make any attempt to contradict these prevailing messages, they “will draw fire… so the only option is to shut up”. Asked what conditions would make them feel able speak their minds, they said “they would need a safe space where they could feel confident they would not be shouted at and publicly humiliated; where their motives were not under immediate suspicion simply on account of their gender. They want protecting against fundamentalism by prominent and leading figures in the campaign for gender equality – people who can defend the sincerity of their interest and allow real discussion”.

But the concluding line of the article is most damning of all. “As the boys left our house they said how great it was to be able to have a sensible conversation about these things. I was struck that this was the first opportunity they had ever had to discuss gender equality without having to self-censor.”

Not to worry though, soon they’ll be at university and there’ll be Good Lad workshop they can go to.

By A Man

 

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.