Men’s issues have been ignored for too long.
By Dan Bell: The past week has seen a perfect case study in the casuistry that underpins much of the public discourse around gender politics. On Tuesday last week, Tory MP Philip Davies went before the Backbench Business Committee, which is tasked with considering proposals for debates in parliament, to call for a debate on International Men’s Day to match the International Women’s Day debate that has been held in parliament for the past decade. Davies said he hoped it would be an opportunity to discuss a raft of inequalities that disproportionately affect men and boys, from educational underachievement and fathers’ post-separation contact with their children to men’s healthcare and the crisis of male suicide (now the UK’s biggest killer of men aged under 45).
As Davies was making his pitch, committee member and Labour MP Jess Phillips was caught on camera rocking backwards and forwards on her chair with derision while clamping her hand over her mouth to suppress snorts of laughter. She listened to Davies outline issues, such as male suicide and male-specific cancers, and then said: ‘You’ll have to excuse me for laughing, but the idea that men don’t have an opportunity to ask questions in this place is a frankly laughable thing…





