Yesterday Harriet Harman invited me and women from all over the country in key positions to 11 Downing Street for a session on ‘Women and the Recession’. My table, led by Tessa Jowell, were just fantastic – and we examined and tested and trailed ideas on what and how to help women as the recession bears down on their lives. So many good and wise voices contributing to the body of knowledge on what might be the differential impact on women; what support and information might they need and where and what the future would look like.
Tomorrow to mark International Women’s Day we have a debate on women and the recession in the House – and I will lead for the Lib Dems.
Problem is – that all the need, angst and wringing of hands which Harriet wants to be heard by the G20 (and full marks to her for that) will be as nothing if all the measures in the Equalities Bill are watered down as I fear they may be. Battle will commence in April finally – when I hope and hear that the Bill for which there has been no White Paper or Green Paper and is shrouded in secrecy (except from the media) will come forth.
Lynne Featherstone 
Would this be those same “women and the recession” who have lost far less jobs during the recession then men have?Would this be the same women who start receiving their state pension FIVE YEARS earlier than any man?One final question for you Lynne – as the Lib Dem’s “Equalities spokesperson” what will you be doing to make international men’s day?
Is every day not International Men’s Day?
No actually if you must know the UK government is so anti-male it refuses to even acknowledge the occasion.
Sorry I forgot the link:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160028/New-Harman-blunder-claims-women-suffer-recession–Government-figures-men-hardest-hit.htmlIs it really appropriate Lynne for you to but putting so much effort helping those least affected by the recession whilst ignoring the genuine victims?
Without succumbing to reductionism how many women MPs are there or government ministers? Where is the source of this anti-male ethos at the heart of the UK government? What are the forms it takes? It is insufficient to generalise from a smattering of individual cases. International Women’s Day is simply a cultural expression of some form of positive discrimination. There is no male equivalent because the dice is so heavily loaded in their favour to begin with.
There is no such thing as “positive discrimination” – just discrimination.
Never hear of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA or the North of Ireland. No such thing as positive discrimination? Try typing it into google. Wish being father to the thought here? Might as well say there is no such thing as Mars.
If every day were international men’s day we would already have been successful at drawing attentioon to the epidemic of male suicide, lack of funding for severe health issues such as cancer and depression, and we would see something done about the low numbers (and marks) of males in higher education. For these reasons and MANY more there has begun an International Men’s Day in order to try and highlight these issues: http://www.internationalmensday.com/Be sure of one thing: “every day is international men’s day” is code-speak for I-don’t-give-a-crap-about-males, and is in fact spoken only by man-hating types. Our young boys particularly need saving from these male-hating women, because boys self esteem is rock-bottom and thier cries for help are being drowned out ny feminist “jokes” about how undeserving males are.Put International Men’s day on your calendar and lets speak out on behalf of our male children. It is celebrated on November 19.Peter
Men are much more favourably disposed towards within UK society than women. Young male suicide has been heavily addressed as has depression. Young women fall victim to suicide also. There is more could be done for certain in getting men to come forward about the depression that often afflicts them. But it hardly requires an International Men’s Day to achieve this. Cancer services under funding affects both sexes. Specifically male cancers may have been more favourably treated in this regard than female ones. If women are now succeeding in academic institutions good for them. Although this should not be at the expense of men. Be sure of one thing: “every day is international men’s day” is code-speak for I-don’t-give-a-crap-about-males, and is in fact spoken only by man-hating types.Rubbish – suggests I am a male-hating male! Men and women are all human and deserving of the same human rights. I think male clerics pose a greater threat to ‘our young boys’ than ‘male hating women.’ I have male children and they are doing alright. They don’t need an International Men’s Day. Their esteem might hit rock bottom if they were to assume the highly dubious assumptions posted here. Don’t like jokes either? Great world that you would have us all live in. I will certainly put International Men’s Day on my calendar in order to avoid it if this is what it amounts to.
Men work far logner hours than women in themost dangerous and dirt jobs and are 19 tiems more likely to be killed in the workplace.They are far more likely to be faslely imprisoned, and far more likely to to be unlawfully denied acess to their children.Men have far less spent on their healthcare, and die five years earlier than women as a result.Men pay more in taxes than women, yet wait five year longer for their state pensions and thus cannot retire.Political parties deny men in some towns and cities the opportunity to represent their community in Parliament solely becauseMen suffer almost as much domestic abuse as women, yet the government refuses to provide services to help them and their children and spends all the money on women instead.We need an International mens day more than ever, perhaps more than oen the way things are going.
UK Women are already one of the most privileged and pampered creatures to have ever walked the face of the earth.
Female Privilege Checklist
1. Do you experience other people paying for your dates, or occasionally even picking up the tab in non-romantic settings? Or paying for your vacations when the relationship moves along?
2. Do you occasionally experience subservience and deference being volunteered to you by the opposite sex (opening doors, giving up a seat in the bus, standing up when you come in the room)?
3. Are you able to pursue what you are interested in at university without much societal pressure on “breadwinning” – although you could also take that route if it so interests you?
4.a Have you never been required to register for selective service? Would you never be ripped out of your life and forced to defend your country in time of attack or national emergency? Can you demand strength and full participation in society, but then get out of this obligation by pretending to be weak with no influence over society (but only when it suits you)?
5. Will you statistically get a much lighter sentence for exactly the same offense if you commita crime?
5.b Do you have special legal excuses for your sex alone which often allow you to get off thehook for the crimes you commit? Are judges usually more lenient, protective and paternalistic when it comes to dealing with your sex?
6. Are you able to take on a job or choose a career route that is only capable of supporting yourself, with no thought to preparing yourself to also support a spouse/children, although you are also free to choose a more difficult career that will bring you more money? Do you not have much pressure on you with regard to this?
7. If you are in a committed relationship, do you have much greater flexibility to choose whether you want to work or simply stay at home (even without kids)?
8. Will you not be called an unemployed loser if you decide to be a homemaker?
9. If you have a flat tire on the road, if someone is harassing you in a public place, if an animal attacks you, or if you are lost, will someone be much, much more likely to step-in and assist you?
10.a Are people generally much nicer to you in public? Are you sometimes given privileged treatment or better customer service?
10.b Do you get first dibs on a lifeboat when your ship begins to sink?
11. Are you much more capable of “marrying up” and enjoying the money and status that comes with this?
12.a Are you statistically much more likely to be given money in a divorce – sometimes huge amounts – even if your behavior caused the divorce (e.g. affair) and even if you didn’t work for the money?
12.b Is custody of your kids almost automatic after divorce regardless of your parenting abilities?
On top of this, do you have the ability to make false accusations of rape or child abuse in order to help you gain custody? Is it possible for you to deprive your child of his or her other parent in violation of court orders without serious consequences?
13.a If you hit or slap a person – is it much more likely to just be viewed as cute, understandable or not a problem? Are there nearly zero consequences for your violence?
13.b If you are ever physically, emotionally, or sexually abused by in any way, are there dozens upon dozens of organizations that are specifically in place to fight for you and house you when necessary? Do you have the ability to have someone taken-away by police if you make a false or exaggerated accusation of abuse?
14.a Do you statistically live much longer – possibly due to less stress on you with regard to breadwinning, providing protection, being responsible, not having society viewing you as “expendable” or not having society viewing your problems as being unimportant? Can you blame the earlier deaths of the other sex on their stupid behavior or bad genes?
14.b Are you about 20 times less likely to die or get injured in your workplace?
15. Do you have much more money spent on your health concerns in reality (e.g. 5 times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer – although they have roughly the same death rates) while you simultaneously claim that more care has to be taken for your needs?
16. Are you much less likely to be homeless? Is more offered to you by society when you are in this position?
17. Is there far less scorn and pressure on you by society when you are irresponsible? Are your default rates for payment of child support roughly twice those of the other gender, while you simultaneously complain about the other gender not paying?
18.a Has whining about and hating the other gender actually been made into a course of studies in college- as opposed to the true, neutral, unbiased study of this topic – which is simply anthropology?
18.b Can you tell everyone that your sex is the superior sex without you being called sexist?
18.c Can you ignore the fact that your sex’s traditional gender-roles would not place you into situations where you’d be likely to be forced to do immoral things and then use the results of this as evidence that your sex is morally superior?
19. Do you have full opportunity to pursue you want in life – become a doctor, a lawyer, start a business – while simultaneously using the fact that many of your gender don’t CHOOSE themselves to do these things as an argument to try to gain even more advantages? Do you get affirmative action because many of your gender don’t choose to do these things, and thusly the
numbers don’t “come out right”?
20.a Can you manipulate the other gender with sex in some cases to get what you want? Can you pretend like you don’t even know what anyone is talking about when confronted on this?
20.b Can you use your sex appeal to get-ahead on the job? Can you knowingly dress provocatively but act shocked if someone treats you provocatively?
20.c Do you also have the ability to accuse people of sexual harrassment for any reason, factual or not? Do you make up the definition of ‘sexual harrassment’, and can this definition change depending on the person and whether you like them or not?
21. If you take a job that is traditionally taken by those of the opposite sex, will you be thought of as a brave pioneer by many? Will no one call your sexual orientation into question?
22.a Can you complain that the clothes, shoes hair, grooming items etc. for your sex are more expensive than those of the opposite sex without ever noticing that the varieties, styles and complexity of those products are often greater than those of the opposite sex? Do you have far more retail space devoted to your shopping desires than does the opposite sex?
22.b Can you wear the clothes traditionally associated with the opposite sex without running the risk of getting beat-up or ostracized?
23. Can you manipulate using old notions of men protecting and deferring to women when it comes in handy?
24. Can you effectively manipulate by playing the victim? Do tears help you in getting your way instead of getting you called a wimp?
25. As a child, were you told that you are beautiful, cute and sweet? Could you wear any color you wanted without fear of insult?
26. Can you get sympathy if you don’t work and don’t have children by listing all the household work while simultaneously being able to bear the cognitive dissonance of calling your sister’s husband who stays home a worthless bum
whom she ought to leave?
27. Can you claim that your sex’s work “never ends” while your sex also, on average, watches more television in every time-slot than members of the opposite sex?
28. Can you “mix and match” traditional and progressive roles – finding just the right mix to get what you want? Can you be a “traditional wife” – enjoying the positive features of that (like not having to go-out and work a job in a factory) – while simultaneously being a progressive feminist when THAT gets you advantages? Or having a career while simultaneously using traditional
chivalry and male deference to your advantage?
29. Can you constantly say “that’s just typical” and “it doesn’t surprise me a bit” and make lemon faces if you are a parent-in-law? Is near-universal contempt by both genders for your behavior
hidden to a much greater extent?
30. Can almost any remark by your partner be construed as verbal abuse if you want sympathy, but the meanest, nastiest, most humiliating things that you can say simply involve “speaking your mind” and “some people just don’t want to hear the truth”?
31. Can you use the fact that gender roles were differentiated long ago – with different advantages/disadvantages for both genders – to try to induce guilt today in people who had absolutely no connection with any of that? Can you say that you have been discriminated against for thousands of years with a straight face when you’re only 20 years old? Can you even make things up about history and no one will really check or dare call you on it?
32. Can you propagate myths and outright lies , inflated rape statistics, intentional misconstrual of pay figures and many more) and be given a “pass” – without more rigor being demanded?
33. Can you rationalize your own failures using the concept of the “patriarchy”, and blame the other gender for nearly everything that goes wrong in your life – even with quite contorted explanations that no one would otherwise buy – while failures of the other gender are just … failures?
34. Do you want to be treated like a child when it suits you but as an adult when you get advantages from that? Do you “look the other way” when someone doesn’t require responsibility from you that they certainly would from the other gender?
35. As an infant, would amputating a piece of your genitals be a crime? Would not cutting your genitals be considered a basic human right to which you are entitled?
36. Can you focus heavily on perceived earnings in the workforce – the statistics of which are influenced by people’s choices in reality – while utterly ignoring the inter-family transfer of wealth? Can you completely ignore the fact that one gender picks tougher jobs, works more hours and takes on more responsibility because of more pressure to earn – but the other gender has the same lifestyle and statistically more assets . Can you deliberately claim that earnings figures are based on equal pay for equal work? (when you probably full well know that they simply involve all people working more than 35 hours – and don’t take type of job, hours worked over 35/week, danger, responsibility, years in the work force etc. into consideration at all)?
37. Is what used to simply be an irritation for grown-ups many years ago – the self-centered rantings and foot-stompings of spoiled brats – e.g. slutwalk now not only embraced by your most progressive movement but almost the cornerstone of it?
38. Can you get irritated about generalizations and stereotypes —- and utterly fail to see the hypocrisy in stereotyping and generalizing about one gender while simultaneously making a career (literally in some cases) whining about your own gender being stereotyped?
39. Can you get irritated about old-fashioned restrictive attitudes towards your sexual behavior while insulting men who engage in the same kind of sexual behavior that you would do in an eyeblink if you could?
40.a Do you reserve the right to blame any cruel, rude, or unrestrainedly angry thing that you do on my “time of month”? Is this true regardless of what time of month it actually is?
40.b Do you reserve the right to get angry and indignant if somebody suggests this to you regardless of how often you say it about yourself?
41. Do you reserve the right to call anyone “sexist” for any reason, based upon your own definition of the term? Is your sexist behavior never noticed?
42. Do you have the privilege of making long lists criticizing the privileges of the opposite sex while everyone pretends to not noice that you have a long list of none-too insignificant privileges of your own?
43. Do you have the privilege of blaming your privileges on the opposite sex?
44. Do you have the privilege of dishonestly insisting that you don’t have any privileges
MiGHOW, stop sitting on the fence!
AM,
If you really are a man, which I highly doubt then you are a disgrace to your sex and poor example to your sons sir.
Keep pushing for or turning a blind eye to misandrist policies, restrictions on men’s civil liberties, increasing criminalisation and shaming of men and enforcing institutionalised chivalry and one day you or your sons might very well fall foul of the systems you support.