In the course of a very enjoyable lunch on Sunday with a number of people interested in men’s and boys’ human rights, I happened to mention the issue of men paying 72% of the income tax collected by the government, while women pay just 28%. One of the assembled – a professor in a scientific discipline – commented:
Ah, yes – the gender tax gap!
This insight started me thinking about ‘gender gaps’, given that feminists trot out some ridiculous ones supposedly reflecting disadvantages faced by women, such as their analysis of the ‘gender pay gap’. We’ve now reached a total of 20 topics in our election manifesto – there may be more to come – and all of them could reasonably be described as gender gaps:
1. Abortion
2. Genital mutilation
3. Access to parents following family breakdowns
4. Education
5. Employment
6. Income tax
7. Access to children
8. Physical abuse
9. Sexual abuse
10. Suicide
11. Homelessness
12. Criminal justice system bias
13. Reproductive rights
14. Paternity fraud
15. Anonymity for those suspected of having committed sexual offences
16. Financial settlements following divorce
17. Health
18. Political representation
19. Government interference in company director appointments
20. Retirement years expectation
For the avoidance of doubt, we include abortion as a ‘gender gap’ issue because women alone have the legal power to decide on an abortion. We’re not calling for men to have any such rights, but we will be making proposals for abortion law reform in our manifesto, which we now hope to publish before the end of October.
