All Party Parliamentary Group for Men and Boys

Predictably the Biden Whitehouse has rejected overtures to create a policy forum for men and boys in the USA and instead has doubled-down on the “women and girls only” agenda in the form of a new Gender Policy Council whose remit is just that – women and girls, only. You can hear Warren Farrell talk about his disappointment here.

But whilst the USA goes backwards there is better news from the UK. An All Party Parliamentary Group on issues affecting men and boys has now been formed within the UK Parliament.

Mike Bell, of Equi-law UK, is to be congratulated for being central in bringing this about.

The Chair is Mark Jenkinson, MP, with vice-chairs Lord Fred Ponsonby; Baroness Margaret Eaton; Ben Bradley, MP, and Nick Fletcher, MP.

Total membership of the APPG, which is restricted to the two Houses of Parliament, numbers 15. This does not include any Opposition (Labour Party) MPs, but does include three Labour Peers.

For further details see Mike Bell’s Equi-law UK page.

30 thoughts on “All Party Parliamentary Group for Men and Boys

  1. Philip Griffiths

    Re Lack of Labour Party Representation on APGG for Men and Boys
    I have received a polite reply from a Labour Party caseworker explaining that there are over 1000 APGGs and fewer Labour MPs.
    I have reviewed that data and I find that there are at least 12 APGGs with a specifically female focus and all of those have substantial Labour representation at the MP level. These include,
    Women and Enterprise
    Women and Work
    Women in Parliament
    Women in the Penal System
    Women in Transport
    Women in Peace and Security
    Women’s Football
    Women’s Health
    Muslim Women
    Netball
    Breast Cancer
    Endometriosis

    I have explained that APGG for men and boys is the only group representing the interests of 49% of the population and that Labour should spare at least one MP for this committee.
    I hope others will write to their Labour MPs.

    Reply
  2. Stephen Timmis

    I will reserve judgement here. The idea sounds good, but we may yet end up with it being taken over and the topics discussed will become ominously familiar…
    The main issues that affect Men and Boys:-
    1) How to teach them not to Rape, and not to promote Rape culture.
    2) How to teach them to let go of their male privilege.
    3) How can we encourage them to make best use of their time in prison by working for 50p an hour at a job that an uninprisoned man has been made redundant from
    4) Advice on how to make child support and alimony payments without anger and resentment
    5) How to face up to the personal responsibility of being divorced by a partner for no reasons other than boredom and financial gain. How to take the blame gracefully for only earning an average wage, rather than a top 10% wage, only being home from work for 1 day a week and so being clearly neglectful of both partner and children.
    6) How can we teach men to die prematurely without making too much fuss
    7) How can we stop men being selfish escapists by means of suicide, engaged in only for the misogynistic purpose of expressing their toxic masculinity by absenting themselves from serving the needs of women.
    8) Teach them not to die on the job as a means of avoiding their financial obligations to women

    Reply
      1. Groan

        I think Stephen is pointing out that usually the stories about the problems males face get turned round to be about their negative impact on females. The classic being the deaths or massacres of men during wars results in lots of “struggling widows”, who are the “real” casualties of war. In a recent article about a west African country losing young men to the migrations to Europe, their attempts to find work left huge “gaps” in fishing, carpentry, building etc. Of course no one in the country nor the article considered that the women could do any of these skilled jobs, nor that the men’s aims were generally to earn money to “send home” .

        Reply
    1. Hector

      I am going to pretend that this is satire. This is so insensitive. Asking people to learn how to die early without making much of a fuss. Imagine if you replaced boys and men with girls and women. “selfish escapists by means of suicide, engaged in only for the misogynistic purpose of expressing their toxic masculinity by absenting themselves from serving the needs of women.” as someone who has had a very close friend commit suicide, I will have you know that the motivations for suicide are very different. In fact, often having something to do stops people committing suicide, not that they commit suicide to not do something. There is a reason men die on the job more, it’s one of the reasons the average man earns more than the average woman, more dangerous jobs are higher paying. Why is it that men die earlier than women in most, if not all countries? It is because there is very little support for men and boys compared to women and girls. There are far more women’s health things than men’s health things. I’m only thirteen and even I can see the flaws in your misandry-based arguments. Please I hope that this is satire.

      Reply
      1. Groan

        It is. For your information locally to me, men in the construction industry are the most at risk of suicide (the City of Salford) . In the “business” of mental health this is no surprise as it is generally the industries with insecure employment (short contracts, day hire, “gig economy” contracts and seasonal contracts) which are related to suicide.

        Reply
  3. Spinflight

    Excellent news…

    So finally issues that we would like raised might get an airing?

    Would we contact the members directly, generally MPs get sniffy about dealing with a non constituent, or is there going to be a group contact?

    By the way, could you subscribe me pleas?

    Reply
    1. Groan

      I noticed on the Equi Law site the Groups is focused at the moment on” To create a narrative ‘What is it like to be a boy, today?’, based on evidence and personal tesimony” . Which suggests as a group they will be most interested in issues that affect boys. Which of course can be pretty broad from education to fatherlessness. It would make sense for as many of as can to support the Group in this focus. Given the size of the “elephant” that is feminist influence in Parlement they are wise to try to tackle it part by part.

      Reply
      1. Spinflight

        One of my mates is a supply teacher who was given responsibility for the naughty class… Amusingly caled the inclusion class, because they had been excluded from their regular classes.

        Naturally this was 90% boys. Seems that the effects he had on them, as a red pill type, were pretty dramatic in terms of their academic performance. Though he did have an issue where some of them deliberately reoffended in otder to get back into the naughty class…

        Seems that the biggest thing he did was explaining to them that their teachers were feminists who hated them no matter what they did.

        I’ll see if I can get him to write up his expereiences for the APPG.

        Reply
        1. Tony

          I imagine your mate wasn’t invited back, or was he?
          Were other teachers aware of his ‘awareness training’ or not?

          There was a festival of inclusion organised by –
          National Development Team for Inclusion
          “We are a social change organisation working to enable people at risk of exclusion, due to age or disability, to live the life they choose.
          Through our change and development work, research and evaluation and best practice examples, we inspire and support policymakers, services and communities to make change happen – change that leads to better lives.”

          …two weeks ago. Everyone commented upon how bad life had become in schools and one speaker made reference to the NAZI posters referenceing the cost of keeping people with SEND alive.. as we know they murdered children with SEND.

          “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
          To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
          ― Buckminster Fuller

          As an educationalist I realise schools have failed…. everyone.

          Reply
          1. Mike Chaffin

            I gathered they had a problem… His results were startling and none wanted to teach the naughty kids. So he was given a long term contract. Don’t think he was very popular in the staff room though!

            Which he should rightly take as a compliment.

  4. Edward

    The complete absence of any Labour Party MPs speaks volumes about the current state of their political party. Shameful, though not surprising.

    Reply
      1. Philip Griffiths

        I have written to my local Labour MP to ask whether Labour’s absence reflects indifference to men’s issues or whether they were not asked to forward a name.
        I would encourage anyone with a Labour MP to do the same, particularly if you live in the Birmingham Yardley constituency.

        Reply
  5. paul parmenter

    I have pinched myself several times; gone away and come back again later; and ensured I was not drunk or hallucinating. But the article and the link to the Equi-Law page are still there. So, by Jove, it definitely appears to be true. There really are a few Parliamentarians who have finally noticed that some of the laws they impose on us are not fair either in concept or in practice.

    Maybe there is hope after all. Provided, of course, that the majority of feminists in government don’t get their claws into the APPG, take over and twist it into yet another pro-female pressure group. Has Jess Phillips noticed it yet?

    Reply
    1. William Collins Post author

      It is a good sign that decent people do exist in Parliament. However one must be realistic about APPGs, i.e., they do not have any great power.

      Reply
    1. Spinflight

      Quite….

      Which reminds me that the only demand of the Chartists which was never implemented is that elections be held once per year instead of once every five.

      So could be a starter for ten on a new Charter… Gives some historical linkage.

      In which case what would be the demands of a NeoChartist, in say another 5 demands?

      In other words how could the aims of the manoverse be codified into simple and easy to digest points?

      My thinking here is that nothing the feminists ever do politically or culturally actually carries their name. Maybe it’s time to be a bit more Moaist?

      Reply
      1. martyn holland

        Voluntary taxation. If we could withhold their funding then they might be interested in our views and feedback. Money talks.

        Reply
  6. Philip Griffiths

    This is an important first step. William, thank you for your role in patiently collecting and collating evidence that challenges feminist myths. This blog is such an important resource.

    Reply
  7. Groan

    A hugely significant development in being the first small voice in Parliament. I hope there will be opportunities to assist them in forming their arguments. From my own experience the way public services work is simply to ignore the data or reports that they collect or collate. Following the widespread application of the VAWG Strategy they simply don’t even ask about impacts on men and boys, because the Strategy only requires a focus on WaGs. Philip Davies’ story is very illustrative. As he says fir many years he simply believed the debates in Parluament where feminists asserted that women are more harshly treated in the Criminal Justice system. Then in preparation for an up coming debate he asked the researchers from the Library of Parliament to do a breif analysis (one of its priorities of the Library is to be a resource for MPs). And was surprised to find that all the data proved the reverse of the information he’d believed. People interested I men and boys will need help to find the information or ask the right questions.

    Reply

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