International Men’s Day

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered International Men’s Day.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I start by thanking the many colleagues from all parties in the House who supported the application for this debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for it as close to International Men’s Day as possible.

I am sorry that the debate is not in the main Chamber and that we have been put back into Westminster Hall, but that is certainly not the fault of the Backbench Business Committee, which tried to make it happen in the main Chamber. The debate was actually allocated time in the main Chamber, but unfortunately the Government did not allocate the time for the Backbench Business Committee to hold it. I certainly do not blame the Backbench Business Committee; I am actually very grateful to it for finding an alternative date, namely today.

I also thank once again all the many people who have been in touch with me to tell me their story or to put forward their organisation’s point of view. I am very grateful to them all for taking the time.

International Men’s Day was actually on 19 November, and for most people I should imagine that it was a case of blinking and missing it. That is why I feel that this debate is important. International Men’s Day does not receive anything like the coverage that International Women’s Day does. As I have said in previous debates, the aims of International Men’s Day are admirable. Its objectives are:

“To promote positive male role models…To celebrate men’s positive contributions…To focus on men’s health and wellbeing…To highlight discrimination against men”—

that includes highlighting the inequalities that men and boys face—

“To improve gender relations and promote gender equality”

and finally

“To create a safer, better world”

for everyone. It is worth reiterating those aims, as they provide a focus for what International Men’s Day is trying to achieve.

There is so much that I could say today that it is very hard to know where to start. As I have said before, there are many areas where I think the plight of men is ignored or minimised, and many areas where men are certainly treated differently from women. I will concentrate on the things that I feel need to be pointed out, which others will perhaps not mention today. That way, we can ensure that we cover a wide range of subjects in the debate.

I start with the issue of domestic violence. I will keep mentioning the unrecognised male victims of domestic violence in this type of debate, especially as the issue can—tragically—sometimes lead to suicide, which, as has been said during these debates many times, disproportionately affects men.

One message I have received that links these things together was from someone who said they had been suicidal in the past. They wrote to me and said:

“Thank you so very much for all that you have done for equality by calling attention to Men’s rights issues. I have only recently…discovered the men’s rights campaign after seeing a 2011 episode of the US Talk show, ‘The Talk’, in which a majority female panel and audience mercilessly jested at the idea of a brutally violent sex crime in the news, purely because it had been committed against a man.

To see how that, and other things, was acceptable made me want to give up.

Earlier this year I was suicidal. I’ve contemplated it several times before, but have never come so close.

Without exaggeration of ego, I can tell you that you have saved my life.”

An episode of “The Jeremy Kyle Show”, which was along the same lines as the TV show that I have just mentioned, was recently brought to my attention. A woman was explaining that her partner had gone to the bathroom and she discovered that he was cheating on her. She said that when he came out of the bathroom, she hit him in the face. The audience laughed, then clapped and then whooped with delight. That is the reaction of the public to domestic violence against a man. If attitudes need to change, then it is these attitudes that should be at the top of the list. Can people imagine what the reaction would have been if that had been a man admitting to hitting a woman in the face?

Yet that was not an isolated incident. There are many examples of these attitudes to male victims of domestic violence, which to me is like everyday sexism towards men. The crime survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics showed that in the year ending March 2017 more women than men thought it was acceptable to hit or slap a partner if they had been having an affair or cheated. That paints an uncomfortable picture for those who want to portray domestic violence as purely a male problem. Is it any wonder that men are less likely to come forward to be counted and report abuse, especially if that is the social reaction to such violence?

One man who contacted me said:

“My mental ill health started affecting me as far back as 2010 when I was in a relationship with an abusive ex-girlfriend. I was frequently hit, had my bank account drained of money and was often locked in a bedroom with no way of getting out. I got out of the relationship, but it did have a dramatic effect on my own mental health and wellbeing.”

Later on, he was assisted by the Richmond Fellowship, which I believe is a national mental health charity, and he actually ended up working for it. He says:

“Without the support of Richmond Fellowship and Cambridge 105 Radio, I wouldn’t be here now sharing this story.”

This is just one example of a man suffering domestic abuse. On the positive side, it also shows that there are people and organisations out there that can and do help.

Nothing highlights more starkly the apparent lack of concern for male victims of domestic abuse than the Equal Treatment Bench Book, which is used in the courts—by magistrates, for example. It should be renamed, given that its section on domestic abuse has nothing “equal” about it at all. It refers to the number of women killed each week by a current or former partner, without making any mention at all of the men murdered or abused by their current or former partners. It also says:

“There are a number of significant reasons why women do not leave dangerous partners, including safety”.

What about men? That is a Ministry of Justice publication, for goodness’ sake. I fail to see how publications such as this help magistrates to abide by their sworn oath that they will

“do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”

Interestingly, within further breakdowns of domestic abuse figures there are some noteworthy facts that an Equal Treatment Bench Book should perhaps have taken into consideration. For example, according to the crime survey by the ONS for the year ending March 2017, the number of black African men who have suffered domestic abuse is more than double the number of black African women who have suffered such abuse, at a rate of 8.7 per 100 for such men compared with 4.2 per 100 for such women. In the white Irish category, men are four and a half times more likely to be victims of domestic abuse than women, at a rate of 8.2 per 100 of the population for such men compared with 1.8 for such women. There is so much more that could be said about the Equal Treatment Bench Book, but I will resist the temptation to go down that route today.

I move on to the issue of women and men in prison. I have covered this problem in the justice system on many occasions and highlighted the clear bias in favour of women at every stage, yet there are still people who do not want to see any women at all being sent to prison. Setting aside the fact that it is very hard for a woman actually to get sent to prison in the first place, those so-called equality supporters are just showing their true colours. It would almost be easy to confine their comments to the loony bin of thinking if it was not for the unbelievable fact that the Ministry of Justice appears somehow to have been hypnotised by these idiotic suggestions.

The Government’s recently launched strategy on female offenders is completely wrong-headed. One of the justifications for its lily-livered approach to female offenders was said to be that female prisoners were often victims of domestic violence. Having recently tabled parliamentary questions, I can confirm something that people might not expect: there are two and a half times more men than women in prison who have suffered domestic abuse. That is the fact of the matter. In the latest figures, which relate to 30 June 2017, the Ministry of Justice says that 1,626 female prisoners had been the victim of domestic abuse. On the same day, there were 4,146 male prisoners in the same position. Again, that might be an inconvenient truth to the Ministry of Justice, but it is the reality, based on the Ministry’s own statistics.

In another irony, the same parliamentary questions revealed that nearly one in five female prisoners—18%—is a perpetrator of domestic violence. You couldn’t make it up: the Ministry of Justice’s strategy is based in part on women being the victims of domestic abuse, yet the beneficiaries of the policy could well have committed domestic abuse themselves.

All these noises about female offenders, saying how a different approach is needed to deal with women, are supposed to be in the name of equality, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is one of the most blatantly sexist, discriminatory things that is happening under our very noses. I should say, before the Ministry of Justice suggest it, that the solution is not letting out male prisoners and rehabilitating them in the community as well, to make it a level playing field. All those people are criminals, and the solution is to make sure that we keep them in prison.

I also want to touch on male circumcision: male genital mutilation. According to a barrister’s opinion, carrying out circumcision on males when there is no medical need—non-therapeutic circumcision—is a crime under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, being at least actual bodily harm if not grievous bodily harm. In 1983, Lord Hailsham, the then Lord Chancellor, said of female genital mutilation:

“in the case of a minor under the age of 16, there is no possibility that consent is any defence at all. A minor under the age of 16 is not able to consent to the commission upon her of a criminal assault. Neither parental consent nor the consent of the minor would be any defence at all, and if the parents did such a thing, or instigated such a thing or participated in such a thing, it would only render them liable to criminal penalties, too.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 April 1983; Vol. 441, c. 677.]

When I put it to the Government in 2016 that female genital mutilation was already illegal before specific laws on the subject were introduced, they agreed that it was. When I then put to them the position regarding boys, they took a different line. They quoted Sir James Munby, who was the president of the Family Division of the High Court, in a case of January 2015:

“Whereas it can never be reasonable parenting to inflict any form of FGM on a child, the position is quite different with male circumcision. Society and the law, including family law, are prepared to tolerate non-therapeutic male circumcision performed for religious or even for purely cultural or conventional reasons, while no longer being willing to tolerate FGM in any of its forms.”

As the former barrister who I mentioned earlier also said, it would require a parliamentary override for male circumcision to be legal, and that has never existed. No exemptions to the law of the land are permissible for religious or cultural reasons.

The Ministry of Justice went on to say that there was no doubt that female genital mutilation could have a physical and psychological impact on women, and also said that some girls die as a result of the procedure, which is absolutely correct. I do not pretend to be an expert in this field, but I believe that boys have also been reported to have died following a circumcision, and I have seen accounts of the physical and psychological impact of circumcision on men.

I understand that the position of the NHS is that the risks associated with routine circumcision, such as infection and excessive bleeding, outweigh any potential benefits. I am mentioning all this because I believe it should be on the record, not least because of the very different approaches to male and female genital mutilation. The Government said back in 2016 that they had no current plans to change the law in relation to male circumcision. Given everything I have said, there may be no need to change the law to bring about a change in male circumcisions. However, I would be particularly interested to hear from the Minister on that point.

I also want to touch on parental alienation. Men are clearly disadvantaged when it comes to family breakdowns and how children are allocated after those breakdowns. Women are more likely to get custody of the children and, as has been noted on many occasions, men really do draw the short straw in these instances. Parental alienation is a topic that requires much more time than can be given to it today, but I want to put on record how concerned I am about what is a growing problem in this country. For those not familiar with parental alienation, it is what it sounds like: parents being alienated from their children, usually by the other parent, to the detriment of that parent and the children. In my view, it is a form of child abuse. It can happen for all kinds of reasons, and in some cases it is clearly right that parents are kept away from their children—for example, when there are genuine safety concerns. However, parents—when I say “parents”, it is usually men, in reality—are being kept from their children without justification.

One solution is more use of child contact centres. I recently visited Bingley contact centre in my constituency, which is run out of Bingley Baptist church. It is one of the centres under the umbrella of the National Association of Child Contact Centres, which says that more than 1 million children have no contact whatever with one parent or another after separation. I want to place on record my thanks to everybody who works at the Bingley contact centre. They are all volunteers, and they give up their time week in, week out to make sure that parents get to see their children and—just as importantly, if not more importantly—that those children get to see their parents. It is fantastic to see the reaction of the children when they see the parent who has previously been alienated from them. These centres are meant to be a temporary solution, and they work to give—mainly—fathers the chance to get back into their children’s lives. There is a waiting list for that service in Bingley, and no doubt in other places around the country. That is a shame, as the more fathers who can see their children, the better.

I mentioned everyday sexism against men earlier in relation to domestic violence, but there are plenty more cases that need to be challenged. People may recall the absolute hoo-hah over the Presidents Club charity event. That men-only event was derided because the hostesses were asked to wear certain clothes, and a lap dance was given as a prize. I am sure we remember that all hell broke loose when that event was reported. Even the millions raised for good causes, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, were under threat of being returned in disgust.

Fast-forward a few months, and the Daily Mail featured an article about 11 old ladies who invited their daughters and granddaughters to their nursing home for a performance by Hunks in Trunks, complete with numerous pictures of male dancers in the buff, with no trunks in sight. That was of course hilarious, and not seedy at all: women ogling men, women touching men—and those men had far fewer clothes on than the women who were at the Dorchester hotel for that charity dinner, I can assure you, Mr Bailey.

If that had been a bunch of male pensioners doing that with women with no clothes on, apart from a scrap of material, I am pretty sure that the reaction in the newspapers would have been very different. The papers certainly would not have been reporting the story in such a glib fashion. I accept that the events are not totally comparable, but there are plenty of other, similar examples of how we treat men and women differently. Adverts that apparently objectify women do not, it seems, do the same for men.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman almost admitted at the end of his remarks that the two situations are not comparable. Does he not see the difference between essentially forcing women to look and dress a certain way as part of their job to please men, and a person having a job where they take their clothes off for a living?

[Philip Davies]

I see the hon. Lady’s point, and I absolutely accept it. I just hope that when the papers report a similar event in reverse, she will say, “Well, that is absolutely fine.” I do not think the reports would have been the same if male pensioners had been doing to women what those female pensioners were doing to men, but if the hon. Lady is saying that she would treat both exactly the same, that is fine; that is all I ask in this particular instance. I just doubt that that would have been the general reaction.

To show how ridiculous these things are, I was recently accused of sexism, and I could not for the life of me think what the lady who complained was talking about until she explained. I had sent her an email in response to her message to me following the mass misreporting that I had blocked the Bill to deal with upskirting, when, in fact, as the Speaker confirmed afterwards, I had done nothing of the sort. I said I was

“sorry people just act like a herd without knowing the facts.”

She tweeted that I had sent her a sexist message. I was dumbfounded because I could not work out what on earth was sexist about that line. When I inquired, she sent me an email back saying that by referring to the words “people” and “herd” it sounded as though I was referring to women as cows. That is how ridiculous the situation has got. You literally could not make it up.

Then we have the pay gap, which is reported in such a way as to be sexist against men. Although the whole thing is a nonsense from start to finish—I suspect most people who complain about the pay gap have not got even the first idea how it is calculated—it seems that a pay gap against women is totally unacceptable and yet a pay gap against men is apparently a good thing—at least, it seems to be, according to organisations such as the Parliamentary Digital Service. On Parliament’s own website, on the release of its figures, it states:

“In the Parliamentary Digital Service...the mean pay gap was -5.21%. The median pay gap was revealed to be -4.16%. This negative gap”—

the fact that men are paid less than women on average in that department—

“illustrates that women have a pay lead in terms of both mean and median hourly pay over men.”

The director of the Parliamentary Digital Service said:

“I am delighted that this first set of gender pay data is so encouraging for women in our organisation and I am proud to lead an organisation which is committed to ensuring equality and diversity in staff, including gender equality.”

So it seems the politically correct belief is that a pay gap is OK if it is against men. That cannot be right. We surely should not want a pay gap at all. Any pay gap must be wrong. We have a part-time pay gap in the UK that has persistently favoured women over men. I never hear anybody complaining about the part-time pay gap in this country, but we have to treat these things equally. If a pay gap is wrong, it is wrong. One cannot be right and one wrong. We can all agree with that.

This is one of the myths that has taken on an untouchable status as evidence of discrimination against women, when it is nothing of the kind, particularly given that the pay gap is not about paying someone less for the same job, which is already illegal. I wish that normally intelligent people would grasp that and do more to expose this issue for the sham that it is.

Yet again there are many more issues that I would like to cover today, but I do not have time. We have blatant discrimination against men in businesses, organisations and politics, where we are hellbent on having more women. No care is given to how that is achieved, so we now have positive discrimination, which is, as it says, discrimination. People think, not without justification, that women have been discriminated against in the past, but rather than thinking the solution is to remove that discrimination, it seems their agenda is to try to reverse it and say, “We want you to be discriminated against in the way that we were for all those years.” That kind of revenge tactic is what positive discrimination is. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) laughs, but women-only shortlists, which she may have been a beneficiary of, discriminate against men. She thinks it is funny, but the people of Blaenau Gwent did not think it was funny when Labour lost one of its safest seats in 2005 simply because it had imposed a women-only shortlist and denied a good local man with impeccable local credentials the chance of standing. He stood as an independent and won the seat, which had been one of Labour’s safest seats in the country. That indicates the hon. Lady is probably slightly out of touch with working-class Labour voters around the country.

[Dawn Butler]

What amuses me is how out of touch the hon. Gentleman is when he talks about the hoo-hah over girls as young as 18 years old being forced to wear short skirts and high heels to serve men. He talks about the “untouchable status” of women when we try to get some balance and equality into the system. Without all-women shortlists, this House would not be as diverse as it is, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman has taken offence at.

[Philip Davies]

I do not really want to get into women-only shortlists, apart from saying that they clearly discriminate against men. There are only two possible reasons to have a women-only shortlist: either the women standing are not as good as the men and therefore need positive discrimination to help them, or the Labour party selection committee is so sexist it would choose a worse man than a better woman. If the hon. Lady believes the Labour party is stuffed with sexists who would choose a worse man than a better woman, I will not disagree with her, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement of people running the Labour party up and down the country. I will not even go on to the barmy idea that our stretched police forces should now extend the list of hate incidents—not even hate crimes—that they spend time on to cover misogyny and maybe misandry, but, in all likelihood, just misogyny.

I hope that the issues I have covered are different from those that others will speak about in this debate. I think the world really has gone mad at times, which is why I am glad that we can have these debates to discuss the variety of issues affecting men. As I have said before, nothing I say on this subject should be controversial in a normal world, yet people who have read or seen things about me might get the impression that I have somehow been unbelievably controversial in simply asking for men to be treated exactly the same as women. It is apparently sexist to ask that men are treated the same as women, but I do not think it is.

Finally, one clear message that I would like to go out today is that men should not feel alone. Whatever their problem, there are people out there who can see their point of view and can help. We politicians are not all blind to the problems that men face, and I hope that men feel reassured that they have a voice in Parliament on all issues and not just those that fit certain politically correct agendas. Also, the vast majority of women out there agree with common sense rather than the politically correct dogma that many people in this House give them as they claim to represent their interests. Together I hope we can make this country a better place for men and women, so they can live together equally happily, being treated the same and not differently simply because of their gender.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Bailey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) on securing the debate, but I think he has done a bit of a disservice to it and to its theme. The hon. Members for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) hit the nail on the head when they talked about a fear of male privilege being taken away, and how the debate should not pitch one gender against another. Equality is equality, and that is what we strive for.

I am pleased that the debate is in its fourth year, and that I have been able to speak in it again on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition. As we have heard, more than 70 countries around the world celebrated International Men’s Day this year. I am always happy to appreciate and talk about the positive contributions that men make in society. Today plays a pivotal role in raising awareness of the issues affecting men in the UK, some of which we have heard about.

When we talk about men, we mean all men—the intersectionality of men, including trans men, disabled men, black men, poor men and young men. As we have heard, they suffer from everything from domestic abuse to rape, bullying and forced marriages, to name but a few. Nobody has yet mentioned the rough sleeping rate. In 2016-17, 86% of rough sleepers were male, which is a shocking statistic. We must ask ourselves what we can do as a society to prevent that from escalating and to tackle the issue before us.

One major issue that also largely affects men and was mentioned a number of times by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) is, sadly, suicide. In 2017, 4,382 men tragically took their own lives—an average of 12 per day. We must look at what drives men to take their own lives and at what we can do as a society, and in this place, to reduce that high rate. Mental health plays a huge role, as do poverty, feelings of inadequacy, and social media. Hon. Members talked about health and cancer, and men have a high rate of prostate cancer. It is also a fact that men remain three times more likely to take their own lives than women. Again, we should focus on what we as a society can do to stop that happening. Mental health issues play a huge role in suicide and in homelessness, and disproportionately affect men from diverse communities—I think the hon. Member for Shipley touched on that. According to the Lambeth collective’s black health and wellbeing commission, black men are 17 times more likely to be diagnosed with serious mental health issues.

Other issues, regarding institutional racism, pertain to the diagnosis of mental health issues, such as the overmedication of black men. However, that does not negate the fact that a high proportion of black men suffer from mental health issues. Again, we must ask ourselves what we can do collectively as a society, and in this place, to stop that happening. I should also say that always having to justify themselves against racial stereotyping plays a fundamental role in the mental health of black men.

In 2013, the gay men’s health survey found that 3% of gay men and 5% of bisexual men attempted suicide that year, compared with just 0.4% of heterosexual men. We need to understand the role that we play in society, through our language and our attitudes, in allowing people to feel comfortable in their own skin.

Time and again, we hear the Prime Minister say that mental health will be given parity with physical health, but it seems to be all talk and no action. Money is not being put into mental health. It is so disappointing that mental health funding has been cut and that the number of mental health nurses has fallen by at least 6,600. How can we give parity to mental health if we are cutting the numbers of mental health nurses? We need mental health nurses in schools, in hospitals and everywhere we want to encourage men and young boys to talk about their issues. Every Member of this House must speak up and hold the Prime Minister to account. We must insist that mental health be prioritised and that mental health services be improved for everyone—young, old, male, female, intersex and non-binary. By doing so, we will prevent more people from taking their own lives.

One campaign that I supported this year was for Albert Trott to be recognised with a blue plaque. Albert Trott was a talented cricketer who played for Middlesex, Australia and England and who lived in Brent, my constituency, between 1897 and 1911. He is famous for being the only man ever to hit a ball over the pavilion at Lord’s—a great feat. Sadly, after his retirement he suffered from depression and mental illness. In July 1914, at the age of just 41, he took his own life. Some have alleged that he may not have been recognised for his accomplishments because of the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health. I am clear that Albert Trott should be celebrated and recognised. There should be a blue plaque in his name; perhaps it could even make mention of mental health to raise awareness of the issue, especially in professional sports.

Currently, no footballers in the premier league have publicly come out as gay. That is a sad situation—just imagine the anxiety and the turmoil for footballers who are gay. I am pleased that most of us in this House have agreed to make homophobic chanting at football matches a criminal offence. The Football Offences (Amendment) Bill will receive its Second Reading in January 2019 and I hope we will vote to make it law. We must do more to ensure that people are free to be their true and authentic selves at work, at home and in the street.

Let me mention a few names of people at the forefront who have used their fame to highlight the issue. Reggie Yates has done some amazing work on mental health and on what prison does to the mind. I was so impressed by hearing him speak and speaking to him. We need to do more to support him in encouraging black men to speak up. He has worked with #GramFam and CALM—the Campaign Against Living Miserably, which helps young men in regard to mental health. I could mention so many more people, including Stormzy, Zayn Malik and Gareth Thomas, who came out after retiring and who recently suffered a homophobic attack and was brave enough to speak about it. I am grateful to them all for sharing their inspirational stories, which remind us that we need to talk about men and celebrate good men.

I know that time is short, Mr Bailey, so I will conclude. There is no shame in being caring. We have heard today about how we want to encourage men to talk and share their feelings. Let me end with a reply to the hon. Member for Shipley, who asked me about the standard of women MPs. I want him to listen very carefully to this: I look forward to the day when there are more rubbish women in this House. I look forward to the day when there are as many rubbish female MPs as rubbish male MPs, because only then will I know that we have reached true equality.