Gender Advisory Panel Complaint.

On the 3rd February, I attended a meeting of the Gender Advisory Panel, at Castle Buildings, chaired by Eileen Sung of the Gender Equality Unit. The aim of my attendance was to highlight ,as men, areas of inequality with a view to them forming part of the Gender Equality Strategy. No mention of the people who would be present was given beforehand. Upon attending, I gave my speech about inequalities men suffer. This was across the board and very indepth, and included facts, stats and links to the research where information came from. Midway through, Eileen Sung prompted me, when discussing Family Law, if anything had changed. I advised no. ( Eileen Sung is aware of my activism within this area and I feel this prompt was a deliberate act to discredit me). Family Law is an area which, once addressed, many areas of inequality could be rectified. When I finished my speech, one lady highlighted her concern ref the figures of males who suffer crime, and males who are imprisoned, compared to numbers of females who suffer crime, and are imprisoned. This is a major inequality in whereby females commit the same crimes, but are not being imprisoned for such. She turned this aspect round and tried to discredit the inequality by way of highlighting females suffer more Domestic Violence. This is true, but, Domestic Violence was not mentioned, it was figures for ALL crime as a whole where men suffer more. The discussion then moved swiftly to Domestic Violence, which is one of a number of areas of gender inequality reference male support networks. This change of discussion was not my doing but had to be replied to. It was highlighted there is a lack of support networks, but , Eileen Sung highlighted the National Domestic Violence Helpline which is managed by Womans Aid. Eileen Sung was made aware of our views, as men, of this service several years ago at a meeting which we attended with her department. At this meeting, Eileen Sung made commitments which she negated on after. In response to Eileen Sung highlighting the National Domestic Violence Helpline, our views were given, not personal feelings, but views of men who have come to us seeking help, that they do not want to use a service managed by Womans Aid. Please note, at a previous meeting of the Hard to reach Working Group, it was openly denied Womans Aid have a hand in the National Domestic Violence Helpline, but then openly admitted by Womans Aid at a more recent meeting of stakeholders working with males, that they manage it. (Across the UK, a councillor has asked for a full investigation into third sector groups, such as Womans Aid due to complaints from males.) This issue came to a head, when Annie Campbell from Womans Aid, launched a personal attack. Terms such as parachuted in, feeding men this rubbish were two. She then went on to highlight how Womans Aid have assisted young men and boys, and are the sole provider of support to such. I was not permitted to response, instead spoken down to and quite clearly offended when she retorted that Womans Aid deal with the emotional children who suffer due to fathers playing games with contact. Eileen Sung at no time stopped her from launching such an attack on me as an individual, and once Annie Campbell had finished, I was made to feel as if I had done something wrong in highlighting the true facts of Gender Inequality. Eileen Sung passed the blame of my attendance at the door of OFMDFM which totally offended me. To give an excuse regarding someones presence at a meeting is a very very insulting thing to do.

It seems to me that the true inequalities will never be addressed. This can be seen via the Gender Equality Strategy itself. Instead, this so called meeting descended into Domestic Violence and female victims, totally ignoring that men actually suffer the most inequality in this area.