International Men’s Day started half an hour ago – in the UK, anyway – and I thought it timely to pay tribute to Philip Davies MP (C, Shipley), who the Anti-Feminism League presented with a Winston award in 2012 – here.
For some years Philip has been the only elected politician in the English-speaking world publicly advocating for the human rights of men and boys in a number of areas. We look forward to him returning to parliament following the coming general election, despite the futile efforts the Labourparty are making with a view to toppling him.
His Wikipedia page is here, the Gender and Sexuality Issues section here. An extract (the numbers are references, go to the page to link to them):

On 27 October 2015, he presented the case to the Backbench Business Committee for a parliamentary debate on men’s issues such as: prostate and testicular cancer, less equality for men in child custody and lower performance in education compared to girls of the same age.[62] In addition, he proposed parliamentary observance of International Men’s Day.[63] This led to a public disagreement with Labour MP Jess Phillips who laughed at his proposal.[64][65] “As the only woman on this committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men’s Day”, Phillips said in response to Davies during the meeting.[66]
The committee originally rejected his case, but a debate in Westminster Hall on 19 November was eventually granted after Labour and Conservative colleagues gave their support.[67] Davies said during the debate: “The problem is virtually everything we do in this House and debate in this House seems to start with the premise that everything is biased against women and something must be done about it – never an appreciation that men’s issues can be just as important and that men can be just as badly treated in certain areas as women”.[12] Maria Miller, Conservative chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee responded to Davies: “Women face discrimination on a daily basis, that’s not a myth. My honourable friend does not do his case much good at all when he tries to belittle that”.[12] “One of the most depressing things to happen recently was the introduction of the Select Committee on Women and Equalities”, he said during the debate; the select committee had been created earlier in the year.[68][69]
In July 2016, Davies gave a speech on the justice gender gap at the International Conference of Men’s Issues organised by Justice for Men and Boys.[70] He said: “I don’t believe there’s an issue between men and women. The problem is being stirred up by those who can be described as militant feminists and the politically correct males who pander to this nonsense”.[71] Objecting to the lower number of men who win in custody cases with their former partners, he said: “Many women use their children as a stick to beat the father with”. He rejected a suggestion that his appearance at a J4MB event meant that he subscribed to the party’s viewpoint.[71] He did not receive a fee for his participation in the event.[72]
In response to Davies’ comments at the July 2016 event, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, said that Davies’ “deeply sexist” opinions showed that he had an “utter contempt for women”. He called on Theresa May, the Conservative leader, to withdraw the party whip from Davies.[73] The Labour peer Baroness Corston, a barrister who reviewed the issue of women in the justice system for the Home Office, told The Guardian that “There is indisputable evidence that women are treated by the courts more harshly” than men.[74] Davies responded by providing figures from the Ministry of Justice collected by men’s-rights lobby group Parity, which he argued suggest that the courts favour women when sentencing.[75] He said that Corston is thus “ill-informed or deliberately lying when she accuses me of lying”.[74]
An International Men’s Day debate, instigated by Davies, took place for the first time in the House of Commons on 17 November 2016. Davies rejected claims that it is a stunt and hoped it would become an annual event.[76] In an article for The Times published on the same day, Davies wrote: “The aims of International Men’s Day are laudable. They include promoting male role models, celebrating the contribution men make, focusing on men’s health and wellbeing as well as highlighting discrimination against men”.[77][78]
Davies was elected, unopposed, to the women and equalities select committee in December 2016.[79] “Philip Davies doesn’t even think that the Women’s and Equalities Committee should exist, yet he’s about to join it”, commented the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, “perhaps giving him a chance to rethink his views”.[68]

The best way I could think of to pay tribute to Philip was to post links to materials concerning him on this website. Our YouTube channel has 13 videos involving Philip – here. They include his talk The Justice Gender Gap at the 2016 London conference. We look forward to the video of his recent talk at the recent conference in Chicago. His interview with Elizabeth and myself in his office, last December, is here.
We’ve published many blog pieces concerning Philip, or with references to him – here.

Philip, on behalf of the global men’s rights movement, I salute you. Thank you for all that you’ve done to advocate for men and boys, when other politicians have been too hostile, disinterested, or spineless, to do likewise.

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Our last general election manifesto is here.
Our YouTube channel is here.
If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Impressive (video, 57:14).

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Elizabeth Hobson’s last blog piece on this issue, published eight days before yesterday’s events, has details including all the speakers at the conference – here. William Collins was the keynote speaker, other high-profile speakers included John Waters, Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), and Alison Tieman.

It was the third consecutive annual event, always held on a Sunday on or close to International Men’s Day, and definitely the best yet, all agreed. My thanks to Elizabeth and Natty for all their hard work in relation to both the march and the conference (the latter lasted from 3pm to near midnight), and the Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) for their input to the march in particlar.

The indefatigable Ewan Jones was taking plenty of video footage of the march, and we look forward to watching it in due course. A particular highlight was the brilliant idea – I don’t know whose it was – to protest and chant next to the Millicent Fawcett status in Parliament Square, which I know Ewan filmed. That should be a real treat to watch.

The award-winning director Anthony J Corniche III – “Tom” – filmed all the talks and we look forward to them being published in due course.

My thanks to Elizabeth for the following images:

Elizabeth and Natty

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF)

A small selection of the banners and placards outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Michelle, Lisa, Natty

Natty defies gravity

Elizabeth and myself

Vincent McGovern (Families Need Fathers) defies gravity

Phillip Tanzer and others

A number of people in front of the Mahatma Gandhi statue

Rod and some of the SIFF men

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Enjoy (audio, 10:26).

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Janice on fine form, as always (video, 47:36).

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

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If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

This evening I’ll be posting a report on yesterday’s March 4 Men and Messages 4 Men conference.

I’ve been asked by a number of people who attended the conference, to post the transcript of my talk, “Abortion is a men’s issue, too”, which was well-received, I’m pleased to report. The transcript is here, and takes up the remainder of this blog piece.

“Good evening. I’d like to draw on our last general election manifesto on the issue of abortion, particularly relating to the situation in the UK. Elective abortions are permissible in the UK up to 24 weeks after conception. When the 1967 Abortion Act was passed, 24-week-old foetuses were not viable, but with the passage of time and the advance of medical technology, they increasingly are viable. In the same hospital today, one medical team could be fighting to save the life of a 24-week-old foetus, while another medical team is killing a foetus of the same age.

There comes a point at which the basic right to life of an unborn child overrides the right of a woman over her body. One person’s rights end where another person’s rights begin. In an age when contraception has long been readily available and highly reliable, women should be held morally accountable for the children they conceive. We believe there’s a point in pregnancy when society – and the law – needs to recognize the right of the unborn child to life.

When the Abortion Act (1967) was passed, the British public was assured it wouldn’t lead to abortion on demand. That assurance has, predictably, proved hollow. Abortion on demand has been freely available in the UK for over half a century. Over 10 million foetuses – or unborn children, depending on your perspective – have been killed in the UK since the passing of the Act. Every year around 200,000 more are killed.

There’s a growing awareness that 97% of the abortions carried out in England, Wales, and Scotland, are carried out on grounds which may be illegal. The Abortion Act permits elective abortions to be performed on numerous grounds, when authorized by two medical practitioners. One of the grounds is to reduce the risk of injury to the mental health of women.

In 2012, in England and Wales, over 185,000 abortions were carried out. Over 180,000 of them (97%) were carried out under grounds ‘C’ of the Abortion Act, which stipulates the following – ‘the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (section 1(1)(a))’.

Of those 180,000+ abortions, almost all (99.94 per cent) were carried out on the grounds of reducing the risk of injury to women’s mental health. Only 109 abortions (0.06% of the total) were carried out on the grounds of reducing the risk of injury to the women’s physical health.

There is no evidence to support the thesis that abortion reduces the risk to mental health of women with an unwanted pregnancy. None. Clinical trials to investigate the matter would, of course, be highly unethical. There is, however, some evidence to suggest that abortion itself increases the risk to mental health, so medical practitioners who authorize abortions on mental health risk grounds are doing so in the knowledge there’s no body of research to support their authorizations, and that is arguably illegal.

In December 2011 The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health published a 252-page report for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Induced Abortion and Mental Health: a systematic review of the mental health outcomes of induced abortion, including their prevalence and associated factors. Among the key findings of the report was this:

The rate of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth.

In April 2013 the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry published a report titled, Does abortion reduce the mental health risks of unwanted or unplanned pregnancy? A re-appraisal of the evidence.  The full conclusion of the report was this:

There is no available evidence to suggest that abortion has therapeutic effects in reducing the mental health risks of unwanted or unintended pregnancy. There is suggestive evidence that abortion may be associated with small to moderate increases in risks of anxiety, alcohol misuse, illicit drug use, and suicidal behaviour.

In our manifesto we made proposals in three areas:

1. The Abortion Act (1967) should be amended to limit women’s right to have an abortion on the grounds of reducing the risk of injury to their mental health to a maximum of 13 weeks after conception. At this stage the gender of the embryo is unclear, so this would result in the end of gender-specific abortions, the incidence of which in the UK is a matter of some dispute.
2. The Abortion Act (1967) should remain unchanged with respect to women’s rights to have abortions carried out on the grounds of reducing the risk of injury to their physical health.
3. It should be a criminal offence for a British woman to have an abortion outside the UK more than 13 weeks after conception, on grounds other than reducing the risk of injury to her physical health.

I’d like to continue with a thought experiment. I’d like you to imagine yourselves living in a patriarchy, and more specifically a patriarchy as envisaged by feminists, one in which men as a class oppress women and girls as a class, for the benefit of men and boys, as they have for millennia.

In this patriarchy, of course, women wouldn’t have the vote. Let’s further imagine that in 1967 an Act was passed, not the Abortion Act, but an Act that gave fathers of babies up to 24 weeks of age the right to have their babies killed by doctors at taxpayers’ expense, without fear of punishment. Mothers would have no right to stop the killing of their babies. In the 52 years since the Act was passed, over 10 million babies have been killed, and every year another 200,000 plus are killed. Fathers justify their right to have their babies killed with the slogan, “My baby, my choice”.

If we do a parent gender switch, rather than babies under 24 weeks of age being killed at the behest of their fathers, we have foetuses under 24 weeks of age being killed at the behest of their mothers, the reality of abortion in the UK since 1967. Now of course there are differences between a 24 week old baby and a 24 week old foetus, but neither are viable without external support and protection – in the case of the foetus, that of its mother. Killing 24 week old foetuses and 24 week old babies seems to me to be morally equivalent.

I’ve been an atheist for about 45 years, since I was a teenager, but it’s all too evident to me that with the decline of religion in the UK – and the decline of Christianity, in particular – the nation’s moral compass has been well and truly shattered. Nobody in their right mind would advocate for the right of fathers to have their babies killed. Yet society turns a blind eye to the right of mothers to have their unborn children killed, under the name of women’s rights. I look forward to a future of MRAs increasingly working with religious people on matters of common interest, such as abortion.

Feminism is, among other things, a death cult, and no group in the world is keener on abortion than feminists. Feminists are keen on the right of women to kill their unborn children, and they have not the slightest interest in the responsibility of women to protect them. That’s been a theme of feminism from the beginning, of course – ever more rights, ever fewer responsibilities.

The rallying cry of feminists with respect to abortion is, of course, “My Body, My Choice”. And why is that? As always with feminists, it’s about power. By stating that only women can decide on abortion, women gain power over life and death, and men are denied it.

Under the terms of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the work of radical feminists, only men can rape in the UK – in legal terms, at least. Nobody, least of all anti-feminists, would say that because women cannot (under the law) rape, their voices should not be heard on the subject. Yet feminists assert that because men can’t become pregnant, they’re not entitled to speak on the issue of abortion. The double standard is obvious. Post-menopausal women can’t conceive – should their views on abortion be silenced, too?

We’d rightly be appalled by a man who raped a woman – or a man, for that matter – and said in his defence, “My Body, My Choice”. And why? Because the crime has a victim, whether a woman or a man. The most obvious victim in abortions is, of course, the unborn child who is killed. But there are other victims, most notably the father of the unborn child, who may desperately wish to see it born and develop. He may even be willing to be the sole parent to the child. No matter. The woman has all the power, the man none. How many men have suffered egregiously because women in this country have decided to have their unborn children killed since the 1967 Abortion Act? Possibly millions of them.

The feminist position that 50 per cent of adults should have no right to oppose the killing of unborn children is nothing short of obscene. The men’s rights movement is increasingly recognizing that abortion is a men’s issue, as well as a women’s issue, and I believe Men’s Rights Activists will increasingly fight to save the lives of unborn children. Thank you.”

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Our thanks to Sean for this (video, 15:02).

Our last general election manifesto is here.
Our YouTube channel is here.
If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Our thanks to Sean for this (video, 15:02).

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

One of the more memorable talks at ICMI18 was given by Darren Deojee, a Scotsman. Even his entrance into the conference room was memorable. Wearing a kilt, Darren walked through the confreence rooms behind a bagpipe player, surely the most dramatic speaker entrance ever seen at an ICMI. His talk was titled, Positive Masculinity: Standing on the shoulders of giants (video, 44:24). The video includes his dramatic entrance (and exit).

Elizabeth’s latest blog piece on the day – including commentaty on the March 4 Men – is here, and includes a link to the ticket website (only a few tickets remain).

We look forward to seeing you at the walk and the conference.

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.

Just received:

Hi Everyone,

I have been getting no end of flak from feminists over my little post last week, which I wrote after watching hours of media stories showing firefighters battling the blaze engulfing so much of our country.

This is what I said: “Our media is full of images of brave men fighting the ferocious fires. As always, it’s usually men who do the really dangerous, difficult work protecting everyone else. Give thanks for the good in men.”

As you can imagine, female commentators everywhere hated my comment. Predictably, The Guardian responded with photos of female firefighters, but somehow failed to mention how many of the 20,000 firefighters involved in the current fires are actually women. I have some firefighters who have written to me who are trying to track down the numbers. Looks like less than 20% of volunteers, and about 5% of professional firefighters. Overwhelmingly male, as expected. Let me know if you can help.

Hilariously, Moira Rayner, the former Victorian equal opportunity commissioner, retweeted my comment with the caption “That’s a woman firefighter,” referring to the photo I used to accompany my tweet. It was “liked” over 600 times.

“I know my topic,” Rayner told BuzzFeed. “Bettina didn’t and her tweet was presumptuous, disrespectful to the specialist and the countless numbers of local community volunteers, and a little bit foolish.”

Well, then a reporter at BuzzFeed, Cameron Wilson, tracked down the firefighter in my photo, who turned out to be male – Dennis Wamsley, a volunteer with the Gloucester Rural Hearth Brigade.

What a hoot! Moira Rayner has been taking regular, very nasty potshots at me. This former “equal opportunity commissioner” has revealed her true colours, demonstrating why her former organization and others like it, have no interest in justice or fair treatment for men.

Exciting interview exposing the truth about our Family Court.

I have a rare interview for you today, with a brave, extraordinarily honest family lawyer from Sydney. I was delighted to discover Ezequiel Trumper, a very experienced lawyer who was willing to tell the truth about what’s going wrong with our Family Court.

In our interview Ezequiel doesn’t hold back. He exposes the way our court system is now weaponized to allow women to use false allegations to destroy men’s relationship with their children. He’s forced to explain to his male clients that they are absolutely up against it. They face a court which won’t enforce its own orders, where parental alienation is rewarded and perjury is rife.

This is a really important interview, particularly in the current climate where so much of mainstream media is pushing the feminist narrative decrying the need for a new inquiry and claiming women never lie.

Here’s the link to the new video –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpHzCNJxUvE

Please help me do everything possible to get people to see it.

Our mad feminists attract international attention.

Robert Franklin from the US-based National Parents Organization has been writing an excellent series of blogs about the way the Australian feminists are “howling like banshees” over the focus of this new inquiry:

“I’ve read article after article all aimed at the same thing – casting doubt on the latest Australian Governmental review of family law and courts in the Land Down Under. Those who oppose children having full, meaningful relationships with their fathers post-divorce don’t like the new review for the simple reason that they fear the truth may at last come out.”

Franklin points out that the previous review, by the Australian Law Reform Commission, was much more to the feminists liking. He’s written very detailed blogs about what was wrong with that review – here, here and here – and why the women’s groups were so keen on it. Franklin’s forthcoming blog will expose misinformation and distortions included in a dreadful article by Griffith University law lecturer, Zoe Rathus, published recently in The Conversation. Rathus’ title says it all: “Parental alienation: the debunked theory that women lie about violence is still used in court.”

Former WA Law Reform Commissioner, Augusto Zimmerman, has published an excellent Spectator Australia article: How abuse of violence orders corrupts our family law system. Zimmermann points out there is an undeniable correlation between apprehended orders, false claims of domestic violence, and parental alienation. He mentions an analysis of NSW court files, which reveals that these domestic violence cases, on average, are dealt with in less than three minutes – a shocking statistic proving that absolutely no attempt is made to investigate whether such allegations have any validity. For the woman alleging violence the system is fool proof, with no risk at all that her lies will be exposed.

My team of helpers.

Meanwhile, I have a wonderful team who are assisting with the process of getting good submissions into the Inquiry. We’ve been flooded with people needing help presenting their cases – huge numbers of dads, but also grandparents and other family members who have watched the men in their lives being torn apart by the Family Court process.

My team are all volunteers skilled at pulling together these complex stories into short, compelling narratives – leading hopefully to the committee being presented with concrete examples of the damage being caused by flaws in the current system. We are making sure these submissions receive proper attention.

We will probably need more volunteers to help with this process, so if you have time to spare and think you may be good at this type of work, please contact me.

Comeuppance for Sarah Jane Parkinson’s corrupt boyfriend.

Remember the corrupt policeman boyfriend of Sarah Jane Parkinson, who helped stitch up Dan Jones? (Here’s the video I made about Parkinson, who was imprisoned in January for false rape and violence allegations.)

NSW Snr Constable White, now the imprisoned Parkinson’s husband, will appear in the ACT Magistrates Court on Dec 18 on perjury and weapons offences. Let’s hope the sleazebag gets his comeuppance.

Meanwhile, the Jones family is awaiting news regarding Parkinson’s application for early release. The decision of the Sentence Administration Board has been adjourned for a second time as Parkinson tries to manipulate the system yet again.

The family is also no closer in their quest for compensation for the over $350k they spent defending Dan from the false allegations. They have another legal team working on that but face further legal fees. Generous folk might like to contribute to the gofundme fund-raiser.

Well, that’s it for today. Cheers, Tina

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Our last general election manifesto is here.

Our YouTube channel is here.

If everyone who read this gave us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. £5.00 monthly would entitle you to Bronze party membership, details here. Benefits include a dedicated and signed book by Mike Buchanan. Click below to make a difference. Thanks.