Caroline Nokes MP

Chair
Women and Equalities Committee
House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1A 0AA

Wednesday 18th November 2020

Re: Men’s Committee and the appointment of a Minister for Men

Dear Caroline,

Tomorrow is International Men’s Day and to mark this there will be a debate in the House of
Common. We welcome this recent innovation, however for the rest of the year, the suffering and
plight of men are either treated as something of a joke, or worse, completely ignored by Parliament
and by the Women and Equalities Committee.

Indeed, when the issue of holding a debate on gender issues including domestic violence against
men, male suicide and the premature mortality rates for men was first put forward in 2015 by Philip
Davies MP, Labour’s Jess Philips MP, laughed at this proposition,1 saying “as the only woman on this
committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men’s Day”.2 Ms Philips, went further in an
article for the Independent Newspaper, saying: “…Men are celebrated, elevated and awarded every
day of the week on every day of the year. Being a man is its own reward. You hit the jackpot when
you are born a boy child.”3

Ms Philips comments are far from unique and reflect a grotesque and incorrect view that men are
always the abusers and never the abused. The stats could not be clearer, according to the last ONS
Crime Survey for England and Wales, 1 in 3 domestic abuse victims are men, some 786,000 per

1
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11962537/Whats-so-funny-about-a-mens-rights-
debate.html
2
https://www.itv.com/news/2015-10-30/labour-mp-jess-phillips-targeted-by-trolls-after-scoffing-at-mens-
rights-debate-request/
3
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/we-need-international-mens-day-about-as-much-as-a-white-history-
month-or-able-body-action-day-a6740646.html

F4J, Rear of 9 Westgate, Patrington, East Yorkshire, HU12 0NA

year.4 Put another way around 2,000 men are victims of domestic abuse every day, which means
since you Boris Johnson became the Prime Minister, more than one million men have been victims,
yet there is still little or no support for them.

A survey, we conducted last year to coincide with International Men’s day highlighted the appalling
lack of support for male victims of domestic abuse. Out of 300 local authorities, just three confirmed
any dedicated refuge provision for men – just 13 dedicated beds across the whole of the UK. Two
further authorities provided dispersed or out-of-area accommodation. Setting this in context, 18
councils spent £21million of taxpayers’ money on services for women, but were unable to confirm
even £1 spent on men.5 12 months on, little has changed.

Turning to another issue men that disproportionately affects men - suicide. Every day, nearly 14 men
take their own lives around 5,000 deaths a year – yet the majority of councils have no specific
programmes to cut the male suicide rate and the governmental response thus far has been
pathetic.6

At the same time data shows that girl outperform boys at school. By Key Stage 2 girls have moved
ahead of boys. According to the Gender Trust, in 2015, around 83per cent of girls achieved a level 4
or higher score, whereas only 77 per cent of boys attained level 4 or higher.7 These trends continued
up to GCSE level, with around 10 per cent more girls earning 5 or more A* – C grades than boys.

So entrenched is this inequality that there is a persistent disparity between male and female school-
leavers applying to university. UCAS data shows girls are 35 per cent more likely to apply for
university than their male peers are.8 This gap widens even further amongst applicants from the
lowest socio-economic backgrounds. Women from disadvantaged backgrounds are nearly 60 per
cent more likely to apply for university than men from the same background.9

And there are the health outcomes of men. In the Telegraph, your old paper, in 2015 an article
Telegraph concluded that “…as nation we spend more time, money and energy trying to prevent,
detect and cure female cancers in the UK – and yet men are 58pc more likely to die of cancer before
the age of 65 than women.”10 We can find little evidence that this changed. As a recent Harvard
study put it, “Men rule on the playing field, but in medical terms, it's a very different story. When it
comes to health, men are the weaker sex.”11

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinengland
andwalesoverview/november2019
5
https://conservativewoman.co.uk/why-we-need-a-minister-for-men/
6

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicide
sintheunitedkingdom/2018registrations
7
http://www.gendertrust.org.uk/gender-inequality-in-the-british-education-system/
8
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/our-education-system-must-stop-ignoring-its-bias-against-
boys/
9
http://www.gendertrust.org.uk/gender-inequality-in-the-british-education-system/
10
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11962537/Whats-so-funny-about-a-mens-rights-
debate.html
11
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/mars-vs-venus-the-gender-gap-in-health

F4J, Rear of 9 Westgate, Patrington, East Yorkshire, HU12 0NA

Regrettably, this health inequality has been further compounded by COVID. According to numerous
reports disproportionately more men are dying of Coronavirus.12 13 14 15

As the ONS put it in their wonderfully unemotional language, “Males had a higher rate of death due
to COVID-19 than females in England and Wales; the age-standardised mortality rate (ASMR) for
males was 65.1 deaths per 100,000 males compared with 43.3 deaths per 100,000 females.”16 This
represents a 50 per cent increase on the chances of dying if you are a man.

Given the title of your Committee and the truly horrendous facts, we had hoped that all of the above
might have triggered even a scintilla of interest from you as the Chair, or its’ members, but No.
While thousands of men are dying, committing suicide or being failed by our education system, the
Women and Equalities Committee, is failing to look at them.

Never has it been clearer that this misandrist committee either will not or cannot interrogate these
issues, with its’ members failing to talk about them, compounded by a lack of leadership from you to
put them on the agenda. As Paulo Coelho said, only cowards hide behind silence – and this abject
failure to look at suffering of men and why so many are dying prematurely, is nothing short of
institutional cowardice. Accordingly, I enclose 11 white feathers, one for you and the other members
of the Committee.

This is why we believe you should consider your position as the Chair for failing to investigate these
inequalities. We also call on the Government and Parliament create a men’s committee that would
focus on the structural barriers, discrimination and poor outcomes that so many men experience day
in day out in Britain and to appoint a Minister for Men.

We are also asking the other members of the committee, via this letter, whether or not they support
the creation of a Men and Equalities Committee and the appointment of a Minister for Men? Those
that cannot, or will support this much overdue change, should consider their position as it makes a
mockery of the purpose of this committee and presumably the purpose of them being on it, an
interest or belief in equality.

The creation of the Men’s Committee and the appointment of a Minister for Men will not resolve
the crisis men face, or the disgraceful way those in authority continue to treat men, whether as
victims of domestic abuse, the denial of basic equal parenting rights for separated dads, or the blind
eye turned to the scandal of male suicide, education failure or the impact of COVID, but it would be
a start.

Along with these two measures, F4J is again calling on the Government to:

12
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-death-toll-italy-south-korea-sex-
update-cases-map-men-women-a9413271.html
13
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/19/coronavirus-kills-more-men-than-
women/
14
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2240898-why-are-men-more-likely-to-get-worse-symptoms-and-die-
from-covid-19/
15
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/jun/11/who-does-coronavirus-kill-in-england-
and-wales-visualising-the-data
16

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deaths
involvingcovid19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinjune2020

F4J, Rear of 9 Westgate, Patrington, East Yorkshire, HU12 0NA

 1. Pledge more money to combat male suicide
2. Enshrine in statute a legal presumption of 50/50 Shared Parenting and Child Support after
separation
3. Include contact denial and parental alienation within the definition of domestic violence
4. Make misandry a hate crime
5. Introduce legislation that introduces automatic parental responsibility for all fathers even
when they are not married
6. Reform of the Child Support Agency and Child Maintenance Service
7. Introduce a specific offence of using COVID lockdown measures to deny parental access
8. Publish a full audit on domestic violence support including refuge spaces for men
9. Commit to the provision of more domestic violence refuge beds for men and their children
across the country
10. Penalise any local authority that has a competency in this area that continually fails to
recognise domestic violence against men and implement a detailed action plan around
reducing domestic violence experienced by both women and men.

Yours sincerely,

Matt O’Connor
Founder of Fathers 4 Justice

C.C. All Member’s of the Women and Equalities Committee and by email to All MPs

F4J, Rear of 9 Westgate, Patrington, East Yorkshire, HU12 0NA