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Official thinking on involving men in “gender equality” still getting it wrong

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Last month insideMAN was approached by a representative of Dame Rosemary Butler AM, Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales, who launched a Women in Public Life campaign in 2012, writes Glen Poole, news editor.

The reason for the approach was that to mark International Women’s Day, Women in Public Life, is hosting its first all-male panel discussion on the need to involve men to achieving gender equality and they wanted us to promote the event to our readers.

We asked if one of the all-male panel would share his views with us and a senior figure from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) very kindly offered to write an article on why he thinks it’s important to involve men in gender equality in Wales.

I was personally quite excited by this prospect for two reasons:

Firstly, the ONS has access to the most comprehensive statistics on the lives of men and women in the UK and any objective person who spends time studying these statistics knows there are many, many areas of life when gender inequality impacts men more and boys more than women and girls.

I hoped he would be able to expand on the rough and ready list of 10 Key Equalities Facing Men and Boys in Wales that I produced 15 months ago and provide us with more detail on how men and boys in Wales experience gender inequality—and what we, as men, can do about it. As the Director General of ONS, Glen Watson says: “policy makers at a local and national level need a really good information base on which to base their decision to make sure they’re being fair to everyone in society”.

So the ONS has a major role to play in helping us tackle the issues that affect men and boys, by making sure policy makers up and down the land are aware of the many different gender inequalities men and boys face, and those in charge of addressing these issues know that they need to take action.

Championing diversity of thought

Secondly, the man who approached us, Dr Neil Wooding, is a champion of diversity and not just diversity in terms of the usual suspects of gender, race, sexuality and so on—but a champion of diversity in terms of thoughts, views and beliefs.

I cannot overstate how important this is to men and boys in the UK. We currently have a huge sector of people charged with tackling gender inequality in the UK in different ways and the overwhelming majority seem to think in the same say from top to bottom:

  • They think gender equality is about helping women and girls (but not men and boys)
  • They think that women HAVE problems and men ARE problems
  • They think that the feminist approach to gender issues is the only credible worldview

I wrote about this previously in 2011 when I said:

“The whole gender equality sector from the EHRC to people teaching and enrolled in gender studies courses, to equality officers all over the land, to the many excellent charities working with women is not diverse but dominated by women – and more importantly by a feminist, women’s rights perspective of gender equality. Which is why the Government Equalities Office’s opening remark on its website is “we lead on issues relating to women” and not “we lead on issues relating to gender equality” or “we lead on issues relating to women and men.

“If people – and particularly men – want to approach the issue from a non-feminist viewpoint, then why not encourage and support that? As a survey to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day found 80% of young women aren’t feminist – then it would seem to make sense to engage more non-feminist men AND women in the sector if it is to be representative of the communities it serves”.

So when I discovered Dr Wooding’s views on the importance of diversity of thought, I was brimming with anticipation to hear what he would say about engaging men in gender equality. Here’s what he’s said previously about diversity at the ONS:

“We know that organisations thrive on the basis of their differences and not their similarities. We know that diverse cultures are vibrant cultures are places where people are valued for the difference they bring.

Diversity is about people thinking differently

“We’ve been fortunate in ONS that over the past ten years we’ve recognised the importance of diversity and we’ve worked hard to create a culture where everybody is accepted for their differences and valued for the very things that they bring to the work environment that’s different from each other

“Diversity for ONS means many things it’s about people who think differently, who have different views, faiths and beliefs. It’s about the broad complex mix of humanity that lives inside our communities.”

On that basis, I awaited his article on men’s role in tackling gender equality in Wales with great anticipation. I expected an article packed with a long list of the most up to date statistics on the inequalities that men and boys fact and a call for those working to tackle gender issues in Wales to open their arms and embrace those who think differently.

To say the resulting article from Dr Neil Wooding was a disappointment is an understatement. The thrust of his argument is that men must “lead a personal transformation in our own behaviour and take responsibility for the role we play in helping women to achieve their full potential”.

Don’t mention men!

Forgot the majority of homeless people; suicides; victims of violent crime; imprisoned; excluded from school; functionally illiterate; people who die at work; people who die prematurely; long-term unemployed; parents excluded from their children’s of lives; victims of domestic and sexual violence who don’t get help and lonely old people who are men and boys—they appear to be of no concern to Dr Wooding when it comes to gender equality, even though they have access to the detailed statistics that reveal the gendered nature of these problems.

No, the job of the many men and boys who experience inequality in Wales, it seems, is to transform their behaviour in order to benefit women.

I’d like to thank Dr Wooding for taking time to write for insideMAN, we pride ourselves on providing a platform for a diverse range of voices to promote conversations about men, masculinity and manhood. As he has previously said himself when promoting the vital importance of diversity of thought:

“We know that differences can create lots of dissention, but we also know that it creates lots of vibrancy and opportunity at the same time and what we want to do is be truly reflective of the wider society in which we live.”

In the spirit of encouraging a diversity of views on the topic of men and gender equality, we have decided to publish a range of articles on this topic as follows:

—Photo Credit: Flickr/Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon 

Dr Wooding will be speaking at the “Men on our Side” discussion in Wales hosted by Women Making a Difference on Thursday 12th March. For details see the Women Making a Difference website.

Men in Wales face ‘institutional sexism’ from family services, says leading fatherhood advocate

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Paul Apreda is National Manager of  FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru. Here he explains why men in Wales need more help and support than they currently receive from the Welsh Government.

Over the last five years as National Manager for the charity in Wales I’ve seen literally hundreds of cases of parents who’ve turned to us for help. Most just want to see their kids.

We started – like our sister charity in England, Families Need Fathers – by providing, information and support to parents and grandparents who are excluded from the lives of their children. Rapidly we moved into providing advice –joining Advice UK – as well as advocacy, despite the fact that we have almost no resources. We even help parents and grandparents deal with Children’s Services in child protection and Public Law issues.

It’s not just dads we help -but most who need us are men. So what do we do – and why do we do it? Probably the best way to illustrate that is to share some of our stories.

Helping male victims of domestic violence 

Will is a 40 something dad in South Wales. He split up from his ‘ex last year and now she won’t let him see the kids. A family mediator sent him to us as she was worried about his mental state caused by not seeing the children he loves. His ex has ignored two letters from solicitors and an approach from the mediator. Mum’s brother and her cousins have physically assaulted him twice – fortunately on CCTV so they are awaiting trial for that. His GP has diagnosed him as a victim of domestic violence which has seriously impacted on his emotional well-being.

I undertook the CAADA–DASH risk indicator checklist with him and he scored 18 out of 24 – making him very high risk. I referred him to the local MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) only to find that they didn’t want to accept him as a victim because the Mum was already recognised as high risk on their system.

Then HE was arrested for harassment on the grounds that he sent text messages and phone calls to his ‘ex trying to see the children. The Police ‘tactfully’ arrested him away from South Wales when he was visiting his elderly mother in her care home. After keeping in the cells overnight they charged him with the offence. We’ve helped him get Legal Aid for contact and have arranged for a criminal solicitor to defend him against the harassment charge.

Dads excluded from kids’ lives 

Another dad – let’s call him Nathan – has just been ‘evicted’ from the hostel where he was living with his ex partner and young child. They haven’t given him a reason. Our volunteer advocate who has helped him try to find the reasons for his removal has had a complaint against her of harassment by the hostel manager. We’re helping Nathan mount an appeal against the eviction and to bring his case in the Family Court.

A third dad – we’ll call him Evan – had a letter from his daughter’s primary school telling him that they couldn’t communicate with him about his daughter as the mum said he didn’t have Parental Responsibility. Children’s Services put the children on the child protection register and tried to stop them from seeing Evan. We went with him to countless child protection meetings and eventually Children’s Services gave up – but not after the social worker told the three teenage girls that if they said they wanted to see their dad they could be taken into care!

From my perspective we are dealing with a culture of ‘institutionalised sexism’. Men are seen as a danger at worst and an irrelevance at best. I’ve known this was the case for years but have said to many people that if I used the phrase publically it would be an admission of defeat.

We can do better than this

The Fatherhood Institute has produced research in Wales showing that one Council’s children’s services department has improved its engagement with dads from 47% to 82% for those invited to take part in the Core Assessment. We have proposed to Welsh Government that ALL local authorities should be monitored on their father engagement with Children’s Services. They have declined.

We produced our own research about the engagement of parenting support services with men. This found that across 33 services and 169,000 service users the average participation level for men was between 3 and 11% of all parents. We proposed that services should be asked to report on the extent to which they engage with men. The Welsh Government refused – telling me in a face to face meeting that ‘it would be too difficult to do’.

But there is some light at the end of the tunnel! Following a successful challenge we made to a Welsh Government Equalities Impact Assessment I started a dialogue with the officials in their Equalities division. It appears that the Welsh Government have been labouring under the misapprehension that there are no bodies or organisations that represent men in Wales. I was abe to share the good news with them. We are here – and we’re not giving up.

—Photo: Flickr/[Duncan]

 

 

Welsh gender politics putting male and female victims at risk says men’s charity

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The Welsh government is putting male and female victims of domestic violence at risk by failing to manage a gender political row that has broken out in the principality over proposed legislation designed to tackle violence in Wales, campaigners have claimed.

Legislators in Wales initially planned to introduce a Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill to tackle domestic violence and other forms of abuse against women and girls. Advocates for male victims claimed the legislation excluded men and boys and the Welsh government responded to these concerns by changing the title to the Gender Based Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill.

The move has angered advocates on both sides of the gender political debate with Welsh Women’s Aid, which plays a key role in the Wales Violence Against Women Action Group, leading the call for the Bill to revert to its original name, the Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill.

According to Paul Apreda, National Manager of FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru (a charity with links to Families Need Fathers  in England), the name of the bill is somewhat irrelevant as The Welsh Government’s plans are clearly focussed towards a Violence against Women agenda, but run the risk of failure because of an ill-conceived attempt to make them appear gender inclusive.

Women’s groups downplay problems facing men

According to a press release issued by Apreda last week,  pressure to recognise male victims within existing women’s services has resulted in a zero-sum game of men’s groups calling for equality of approach which have been countered by women’s groups downplaying the extent of the problem facing men.

Apreda took the unexpected move of backing Women’s Aid’s request for the Bill to focus on women and girls and called for the Welsh government to develop an additional strategy for helping men and boys.

“Having read through the consultation responses received from a variety of Women’s support groups we understand their concerns about commissioners ‘coercing’ women-only DV services to open their doors to men,” said Apreda. “We share their worry about the dilution of the focus on protecting women and girls – and have come to the conclusion that the Welsh Government has completely miscalculated with this proposal.”

‘We believe that if the Welsh Government fails to put forward a credible, realistic, appropriately funded and timely response for male victims they will be in breach of UK legislation on Gender Equality,” said Apreda. “We stand ready to work with Welsh Government on this separate agenda and we hope we can count on the support of Welsh Women’s Aid to return the support we’re giving them now”.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

However, any hopes that Women’s Aid would support the development of a separate strategy to help male victims were deflated when it was revealed that the charity had made a new submission to the consultation on the bill that stated:

“WWA believes that the term ‘violence against women’ does not exclude men and boys as it refers to a crime type rather than a particular class of victim. As women and girls are the overwhelming majority of victims of these types of violence and abuse and 95% of perpetrators have been found to be men, the benefit of retaining the term within the Bill far outweighs any initial confusion that may be cause in regards to coverage.”

This statistic was angrily challenged by the campaigner Mike Buchanan of Justice for Men and Boys who said in an open letter that this “lie” was a misrepresentation of data contained in a 2008 report by the Crown Prosecution Service. According to Buchanan:

“That report does not state that ‘95% of perpetrators have been found to be men. It states that 95% of those charged (over April – September 2006) were men – a very different matter. There are a number of reasons for this high proportion. Over many years British Crime Surveys have consistently reported that male victims are far more reluctant than women to report their abusers to the police and others. The justice system is institutionally biased against men, and treats women far more leniently.”

We must keep trying to find a solution

While not everyone on the men’s side of this gender political debate agrees with Paul Apreda’s approach, he does appear to have the good will and support of many advocates for male victims. Tony Stott of Healing Men who has campaigned tirelessly for the legislation in Wales to be gender inclusive told insideMAN:

“All those involved in domestic abuse should be treated equally and as individuals whether they are instigators or victims or both.  Support, resources and justice should be made equally available to all regardless of gender.  That is not to say that men and women should be treated the same – clearly men and women are of equal importance but each may well have different needs.

“Unfortunately, “different” has all too often meant denying the importance of men’s experiences of domestic abuse and the approach taken by FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru will help bring the inequalities in importance that men face into sharp focus.  This is a hugely difficult struggle but I feel it is so important that we keep trying to face and resolve this discrimination and inequality.  I hope this approach works!”

The challenge for the Welsh Government is to navigate the turbulent world of gender politics and come up with an approach to tackling violence in Wales that doesn’t favour either side of the debate and is equally capable of helping all victims irrespective of  gender.

—Photo credit: Flickr/Peter Harrison 

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