An excellent piece, prompted by yesterday’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention Bill in the House of Commons, passed by 138 votes to 1 (Philip Davies). The Bill now goes to the House of Lords for ratification, where it is certain of a similarly overwhelming vote.
A woeful article in The Independent is here. The writer of the piece – in which the existence of male victims of domestic violence are not recognized once, hence missing the point of Philip Davies’s actions yesterday – is an 18-year-old feminist, Yas Necati. From her blog:
Yas Necati is an eighteen year old activist who was born in, and is still being raised in, London. A passion for comic-books, feminism and changing the world means that she is, of course, a super-duper nerd! She’s SUPER proud to be a member of No More Page 3 HQ, fighting to end a long-outdated sexist institution, whilst having true “harmless fun” along the way.
If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.
Justice for Men & Boys 
As always Mr Collins is a model of clarity. As he says most of the convention is actuall in place in the UK but I’d highlight two areas where there will be significant impact.
The provisions for specific funding for Women is actually “necessary” because the current earmarking of specific funding streams is actually contrary to the “Equality Duty” required of public authorities under the Equality Act. Thus governments have twice issued “guidance”(very carefully worded because they know they are “flying close to the wind”) and special funds under VAWG Strategy to counter the process whereby Councils and other Public Authorities change funding to reflect the evidence, from the Gov itself (see for instance the information supplied to Philip Davies) .This move from the specific women and girls services to more generic services, which gained pace as budgets were squeezed and authorities had to test the effectiveness of what they funded. Even sometimes insisting local Womansaid or Refuge services offer options for men. This fuelled the Womens “industry” to lobby hard with each new Gov. committing to the VAWG Strategy and “ring fencing” funding for the very organisations lobbying. As Mr. Collins and Mr Davies point out WAWG is sexism and is actually unlawful, though of course to be illegal it would need a court case,or at very least a judicial review.
The second big thing will be in education. To a large degree Schools themselves are in charge of sex or relationship education and this varies considerably in extent and content. Of course there are some feminist programmes and materials but no compulsion that makes these uniformly used. The ratification gives Gov. the job of changing this autonomy to compel schools to comply with a “national” programme.
So in fact the passage into law will compel UK Gov. to act contrary to its own Equality Act and the duty to be equitable and evidence based. And contrary to its legislation giving schools (their boards of governors) autonomy.
I expect the majority of MPs saw it as good “virtue signalling”.
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It just shows how dysfunctional our society has become when a superbly researched and written piece like William’s can only achieve a modest – if distinguished – readership, while a load of feminist guff by an 18-year-old gets published by the Independent. Though perhaps it’s a good sign they are having to scrape so far down in the barrel to find someone who will write this stuff.
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Absolutely right getting children to write articles for them is hardly the acme of journalism. I wouldn’t buy the stupid rag but I have put some counter-arguments in the comments section.
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