Chris Calland’s recent article suggested that in order to get more people voting for the Labour party we need to set up a ‘Labour Men’s Network’ – an opportunity, presumably, for men to get together, support each other in their political endeavours and discuss the problems they face in society.
Obviously, what we are failing to recognise is that men, as a whole, are oppressed, disadvantaged, and in need of a helping hand if they are to succeed in the political world. At least that’s what the article suggested, no matter whether or not intentionally, through its thoughtless proposition.
The article entirely undermines the equality agenda and misses the point of much of the work that the Labour party is doing in this area.
Men’s networks that exclude women are the problem, not the solution.
It is ignorant to suggest that men’s networks do not already exist in politics, informally, in every part of the country.
The way the article makes a jump from the need for Labour to appeal more to working people in rural communities – especially those who do ‘manual labour’ – to the need for Labour to appeal more to men in general also seems bizarrely dismissive of the many working women who also are part of rural communities!
The point that I presume that the article was trying to make is that we do need to do more to appeal to working-class men in rural communities because they are statistically less likely to vote Labour than working-class women in such areas. The solution to this problem is to shape a party narrative which appeals more universally to rural communities, not to pitch men and women against each other.
In proposing a ‘Labour Men’s Network’, Calland draws a parallel with the Labour Women’s Network, which consequently implies that such an organisation’s mission would be to ensure men’s voices were better represented. To link the issue of Labour’s policies arguably failing to appeal enough to a certain section of society to the need for equal representation for men and women distracts from the article’s wider argument; suggesting that we should appeal more to men by setting up an organisation parallel to one with the chief purpose of alleviating the inequality caused by the structural oppression of women in society is ludicrous and somewhat offensive.
A formal men’s network would undermine the incredible amount of work put in by a huge number of people to put women on a more equal footing with men, both within the party and in society more widely.
I will be the first to protest against any move to set up a ‘Labour Men’s Network’, but naturally welcome attempts to widen the party’s appeal without undermining the excellent work the party does on equality issues. If widening the party’s appeal to arguably forgotten sections of the electorate was the intended thrust of Calland’s article, it’s a shame a clearer distinction wasn’t made between doing just that and automatically equating the status of such groups to those that are underrepresented and discriminated against in society.
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Bex Bailey is the Youth Rep on Labour’s National Executive Committee. She tweets @bexbailey6
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In fairness I think this article does a pretty good job of – willfully or otherwise – distorting Chris Calland’s argument, which categorically did not call for a group to “support each other in their political endeavours and discuss the problems they face in society”.
Calland wasn’t asking for the establishment of a vehicle to support men in their political ambitions, it’s just that the label he choose suggested as such. It actually suggested that the party’s policy-making process should explicitly look at how to tailor policies to the male vote, such as paid leave for fathers to attend hospital appointments during their partner’s pregnancy. This is even more important when the party is only 1% ahead of the Conservatives amongst male voting intentions.
As the Labour party would should be forever striving for equal representation and as a Labour male I was proud to recently attend a Labour Women’s Network and show my support for the fantastic work it is doing to empower women in the movement and beyond. I also, funnily enough, believe I saw Chris Calland there.
I don’t agree with the suggestion that a Men’s network would undermine the equality agenda, in fact it would reinforce equality. The Labour party is meant to stand for fairness, how is it fair that we have All Woman Shortlists or that men who express an opinion on the matter are immediately castigated for doing so? Gender shouldn’t be the deciding factor for opportunities to get on, it should be based on capabilities.
Would have been nice if the article ridiculed would have been part of the lecture which by it’s very tone is “ludicrous and somewhat offensive”.
I have a lot of time for Bex but sadly she does herself a massive injustice for believing to achieve an end to inequality you have to force feed inequality on the membership.
I agree completely with Mark in his post and reference to AWS, it is a completely flawed system and explains why, despite localism being apparently a good thing, candidates from outside some constituencies were having to be parachuted in, at the expense of males, just accommodate it.
It’s why the European elections are a complete and utter farce and why if you’re a young male looking to make a difference through Politics I’d strongly recommend not joining Labour, in its current format.
The party laughingly claims it wants a better politics I am afraid, based on nonsense in the article by Bex, there is zero chance of that happening!
ludicrous and somewhat offensive.
Great reply how can a party that boasts about equality then force AWS on members my CLP officers are about 80% female political correctness gone mad
Because every parachuted in candidate ever was a woman in an AWS seat, obvs. David Miliband never happened.
I was once turned away from a Progress event because I have the wrong kind of genitalia – in fact I was told to leave in no uncertain terms. I have a feeling that might have been illegal but let’s ignore that for a second…
1) Men are 4 times more likely to commit suicice
2) Prostate cancer receives half the funding of breast cancer, despite killing roughly the same amount of people
3) Men live on average 4 years less than women, are significantly more likely to contract cancer, and significantly less likely to visit a Doctor quickly.
4) In 2011, 42% of victims of domestic violence were men. And men are twice as less likely to report such incidents
Who is talking about this stuff? Noone. In fact, to even raise these kind of issues is increasingly seen as ‘sexist’ because we’re meant to be spending all our time talking about women – and talking about men is clearly unnecessary as we’re all rich and successful and know someone in Eton who can sort us out with an important job.
In all the fuss last year about the ‘mummy tax’, noone seemed to give two hoots that paternity benefits were being cut as well. Indeed, in political discourse, any mention of family/child policy are referred to as ‘women’s policies’ – there’s never any mention of Dads. And let’s not get into the issues of the inherent bias against men in the family courts which often leaves loving, caring men without access to their children.
The women’s network was set up because, understandably, there was a view that we needed a forum to get issues specific to women on the agenda. If that’s what it takes to get men’s issues like those above on the agenda, maybe we should do it. And perhaps a little solidarity from women wouldn’t go amiss.
Can you provide a source for the 42% figure please? Thanks.
Of course, number 2 on the list linked below. Scroll down to the footnotes to get the link to the data itself on page 65 of the British Crime Survey.
http://www.mankind.org.uk/pdfs/15%20Key%20Facts%202011_Oct%202011.pdf
But women’s networks are political spaces. Imperfect attempts to solve issues of representation. Women don’t gather to discuss breast cancer funding or health issues. While all of these things are hugely important and deserve support, press time and change to happen in society – they’re not relevant to this discussion.
Also, specifically related to suicide. Men suffer at the hands of regressive ideas of sexuality and gender too. A disproportionate amount of GBT men commit suicide, and men are pressured to ‘man up’ and not discuss their feelings. That is patriarchy too, and men would benefit from women’s liberation.
Another issue mention – men in primary schools. One of the reasons so few men teach in primary is the perception of men in ‘women’s’ professions – something else that is tackled by increasing women’s status in society. But another is that when men do enter traditionally female-dominated professions, they progress much much quicker into managerial and leadership positions, thus being seen less frequently on the ground.
Good point on male issues. Personally, I think a Labour Men’s Network is a stupid idea but the Labour Party should talk about ‘men’ and ‘boys’. You make very good points regarding health, domestic violence and fatherhood. Jon Cruddas and David Lammy are leading the way in the Labour Party in talking about fathers etc. What I think needs to be addressed is the paucity of men working in childcare and in primary schools. I visited my old primary school and only 2 teachers (Head and Deputy Head) were men. This is in an inner city area where there is a lot of knife and gun crime and many of those children will not have a male role model.
If no one is talking about the issues that face men then that is the fault of men. When 77% of MPs, 78% of peers, 70% of representatives in the devolved legislatures and 69% of Councillors it can hardly be argued that this is because men don’t have a platform from which to speak.
While the Labour Party’s record is notably better than that of the body politic as a whole (33% of Labour MPs and 50% of Labour Welsh Assembly Members are women) this has substantially been because of positive action by the Party.
Aside from the fact that almost every Labour Party meeting I have ever been to has been predominantly male (suggesting that men probably don’t feel unable to fully participate in the Party), why would a separate structure be needed to discuss ‘male issues’? Why would women be unsupportive of men havering paid leave for antenatal appointments – indeed why is this a purely male issue anyway?
Finally, the implicit suggestion that candidates selected via All Women Shortlists are somehow less capable that prospective male candidates is pure nonsense, not least as some of Labour’s most talented MPs were originally selected this way.
As a Party we have to recognise that the ways in which we work and the society in which we live means that women are frequently discouraged or less able to be involved in our structures or stand for public elected office – the same cannot be said for men, now or at any time.
I didn’t say or suggest woman candidates are less capable. I suggested that every candidate should be judged on capabilities. There are some excellent woman candidates, there are also some excellent male candidates. Why should we be excluding one over the other?
We should be recognising basic inequalities that mean that when a man and woman are placed side by side they aren’t recognised equally unfortunately. The same for BME candidates too. I like to think of this image : http://global3.memecdn.com/justice-and-equality_c_1028911.jpg
I’ve written a fair amount about female favouritism in the Labour Party and wider Left, and identity politics more generally. The more time I’ve spent on it, the more of a problem I think it is – not least because of the angry people who shout you down and deny your right to speak when you question their ideologies (of which a classic example is the mention of “structural oppression of women in society” here from the … NEC rep … structural oppression eh?). Favouritism is the sort of visceral thing that people look at to decide how they’re going to vote, especally if you think it’s another lot that’s getting it. It also doesn’t help within the party in maintaining commitment and membership when men see themselves getting discrimated against and excluded at every turn.
This isn’t just a problem with men though but with the large majority of women out there who don’t identify with this ideological feminism that only seems to benefit middle class graduates who have few real disadvantages.
A blogpost on this here following a few comments Frank Field made about Labour’s ‘equalities agenda’ a few months ago.
http://afreeleftblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/frank-field-some-home-truths-on-labours.html
Just to point out Bex was elected to the NEC on what was the equivalent of AWS for the NEC youth rep…she as much as anyone is socially oppressed by being a woman and the idea that the fact she’s on the NEC shows that women aren’t oppressed would be ludicrous – because a few women who break the trend does not change the trend that the majority, by a long way, of people in power across a wide variety of sectors are men – even if she wasn’t elected from an all women’s list.
Hi Rachel, yes in this way we bracket, you, Bex and all women under the heading “oppressed” and me plus all men as “oppressor” (though perhaps excluding all those with some colour in their skin and gay men if we’re going all ‘intersectional’). This is ideological reductionism, judging everyone according to criteria that have nothing to do with what Martin Luther King called “the content of their character”, while denying the relevance of ethics and respect for individuality – surely the basics that go into making up any decent non-oppressive society and indeed any decent non-oppressive institution.
There are some rather unpleasant forerunners to this kind of determinist thinking that used class, race and ethnicity in the same way to delineate good and bad, oppressed and oppressor. To my knowledge those situations didn’t end up well.
Underlying this ideology though is a certain lack of seriousness. When confronted over calling out all men as oppressors, in my experience the accusers quickly withdraw and make out it was actually no big deal. I wonder how you would like it if you tried to go around living a good life and being decent to people and a bunch of people who are meant to be on your side went around saying continuously how you and everyone defined as like you was an “oppressor”. This is normally and rather pathetically tacitly justified as revenge for all the bad things that men do to women, but 1) two generalised wrongs don’t make a universal right and 2) it’s not making for an atmosphere of particular solidarity.
No, simply put, because you are equating something that is at a structural level with an individual one. Recognising that women, as a collective group, are oppressed in a society built around the needs of a certain class of men, does not therefore equate to calling you – as an individual man – an ‘oppressor’.
MLK’s speeches about judging people by the ‘content of their character’ were in direct relation to the fact that, unfortunately in society, people aren’t judged as such. To misuse his words to suggest this is a given fact and we live in a meritocracy is disingenuous at best.
“lacks seriousness”, “pathetically justified” – there are some quite interesting tones in the way you engage in this discussion.
“Simply put”, eh? That reminds me of Hegel using the term “concrete” to refer to something that was anything but.
And it is perfectly true that I as a man regularly get bracketed as an oppressor by feminist ideologues – that’s what happens when you have such convoluted, contorted theories which some people misunderstand better than others. In the theory this oppression is normally deemed unconscious due to ‘the system’ or ‘structure’ but that demarcation doesn’t really mean very much and sends exactly the same message.
This is classic ideology, blaming those on the receiving end for the essential nonsense of the theory.
On Martin Luther King, putting words into my mouth and then using them to say I’m being “disingenuous at best” is … well let’s just say there’s a certain irony there.
I would ask commenters on this article to review the evidence about women’s participation in politics… A short review available here http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2013/03/08/sex-and-power/
Another typical Progress debate.
White people talking to White people about “Equality”.
We have had All Women’s Shortlists for the past 15 years, and they have only produced 3 BAME women as MPs. More ethnic minority Labour women MPs have won open shortlists, than have won AWS (Yasmin Qureshi, Rushanara Ali, Seema Malhotra, Dawn Butler). Indeed, during this round of selections for 2015, only one non-white woman has prevailed.
And which seats do the party deem suitable for AWS? Not seats like Carlisle or our northern heartlands or south wales, but urban London seats with large BAME populations – Lewisham East, Lewisham Deptford, Hackney South, West Ham, Walthamstow, Islington South. Are we seeing a pattern here?
All the evidence suggests that ethnicity is a greater barrier to selection as a LABOUR candidate, than gender, and being local, or having a local connection is by far the most important criteria. If a constituency is minded to select a BAME candidate, then gender is not important.
But White men continue to complain about disadvantage, despite having the support on the unions, and senior Labour Party insiders launching the parachute regiment at late selections.
I think that a reality check is necessary.