Gender issues campaigning – should this take place through joint campaigning between men and women?

To a great extent the feminist movement appears to have become effective in improving the status of women in society across all social classes and across all divides. This is a rather bold generalisation and may require some criticism for refinement. However, there has as a general trend been a significant increase in the numbers of women in work, sharing of household duties which were largely understood to be the role of women to undertake and increases in the salaries that the average woman earns.

Whilst there tends to be a range of feminist action ranging from the conservative to the radical there is possible scope to examine issues of gender in conjunction with the opposite sex rather than be carried out by women, perhaps to give the indication that either men are not necessary for gender issues campaigning or would perhaps aim to take too much control and dominate the proceedings. Feminist research and feminist action may be so geared to the issues that women may face that men’s interests may entirely be disregarded to a point where it is counter productive for women’s interests in general.

Perhaps some gender issues campaigning could be done more effectively and support the well-being of both men and women if it was done through the collective action of both men and women. Deciding an agenda for action would be an interesting as there would need to be some means of trying to separate out issues which would be best dealt with by women alone, those perhaps best dealt with by men and those that would benefit both genders being dealt with in conjunction with each other.

There may not be an enormous need for minor campaigning groups like ‘Fathers for Justice’ rather than a broad change across the whole of society, however, representation in the media does tend to be important on some levels for improving cohesion between otherwise disparate groups and indicating the overall changes that are perhaps desirable for many in society. I could hardly say there is a vacuum left by the disbanding of fathers for justice, but I would state that the types of Mr. Blair, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg all appear to be suitable candidates to take a gender equality agenda into the mainstream of party politics even further.

Each of them appear to be polite, sensitive and intelligent enough to lead on this type of agenda but there tends to be an attempt not to deal too directly with gender issues overtly as it may get them labelled as ‘politically correct’ or out of synch with public needs. One issue that tends to suggest that they may be refined is a facial characteristic, they lack big noses. I do wonder if there is covert semi-racial discrimination against men who have big noses, like myself. It may contribute to an image of someone who is unrefined and not fitting within the Aryan stereotype that is generally still adored in the West despite it’s links with Nazism. Perhaps each of them fulfils a preferable white racial stereotype and the media do not wish to challenge – the Euro-Indian hybrid. The continuation of Nazism in the west goes uninterrupted.

While it may seem like an unnecessary aside, I do feel discriminated against – I bought a nose clip for swimming and it was too small for my nose – because, I presume, JJB Sport is run by a Nazi cartel who want people of part Jewish origin and other people with big noses to die of heart disease. Maybe I should try to organise a campaign – to highlight what Nazism there is in Earlsdon. JJB are anti-semetic through and through. Nazis go back to Bolton or whatever small northern town you are from. In the mean time will the main political party leadership examine what form of coordination of gender issue campaigning can be legitimately undertaken for more substantial progress to be made sooner in the interests of both men and women.

Mental illness – How heavily gendered should the diagnostic frameworks be?

Following a brief discussion with a psychiatrist who refused to put anger into a diagnostic framework I have considered exactly how the mechanisms operate which lead us to see women report more mental illness and men die younger, statistically speaking because of alcohol related diseases. It was a point made continually through the M.Sc. course I did that women may tend to get depressed, report symptoms and then get diagnosed with depression, thus elevating the statistics of women and mental illness – probably to a level they may be classed as accurate. While on the other hand, men presumably during medical examinations, may report that they have been drinking heavily and this not necessarily be converted to a statistic in relation to mental health. It will be a rather clumsy discussion to deal with such a nebulous terms as mental health, especially in relation to gender; while it may almost not be worthwhile raising these points, I do think some generalisations need to be questioned.

The frequency of reported mental illness does almost invariably indicate more frequent reporting than with men which may reflect how gender appropriate it is to report the symptoms of depression etc within the consulting room of a GP. If the information on the increase in male suicide in the UK is also considered – especially with regard to the increase in rate of suicide for young men. It is approximately twice as high as for women despite the implication that men have better mental health than women by the less frequent reporting of mental health problems.

Arguably, there could be more gendered concepts of mental illness relating to male and female forms of anxiety, depression and other well-being states which increase service use to a suitable degree. At present the diagnostic frameworks may make additional problems emerge and as a nation we could look towards more gendered and more appealing concepts of well being and mental health problems which encourage greater participation in health services that everyone in Britain is paying towards.

At present the use of existing concepts tends to continue an element within our culture which ensures that we are operating in the rules of the asylum and other institutions that we have not been able to make a clean break from over several centuries. There are possibly methods of social management that may be nearing an end in the next few decades which would require – it may simply be a change in nomenclature and make minimal difference but if managed across the whole of society as a significant period of change it could alter things for the next generation.

Whilst there may be some significant differences between Britain and Europe there could be adequate common ground in order to make this a European wide movement coordinated by the EU – this I think is wishful thinking but it could be an area for possible development – would most young men prefer different terminology applied to their life experience which puts them in a position to alter the way they live so they feel better? It may also be a particularly important step for the improvements that could take place for women and reduction in problems with their mental health as well.

This actually arose out of a discussion I had with someone who I knew who worked in the psychiatric profession. She tended to degrade some very intense feelings that had been reported to her of anger because they were not clinically relevant and wanted to home in on issues that were in the diagnostic manual. It strikes me as interesting that anger does not figure as part of the diagnoses that are made when it is to a degree expressed as being a socially appropriate emotion that men may express – are there other instances of men reporting feelings and these being ignored by clinical staff because they aren’t adequately stated in diagnostic manuals? It would be wholly unwise to suggest this outside of a blog in a more formal context as this is not based on a great deal of qualitative information, however, it may be interesting to form a corpus as is termed by Fairclough and to examine the discursive practice around this particular issue.

Whilst staff in mental health services may be committed to what they do, be willing to endure certain maltreatment which most people would be wholly intimidated and offended by there does need to be a strong commitment to the frameworks that psychiatric professional works within. There is a strong belief that the actions of staff who participate in such systems are going to result in significant improvements in the well-being of the patient. Unfortunately, the standards theoretically and procedurally that psychiatric professionals work to are not high and there isn’t a very strong explanatory framework for exactly why interventions work when they do. This is beyond the control of the vast majority of psychiatric staff – contributing further to the difficulties that they have by offering inadequate conceptualisations of how mental illness may be experienced within a culture only may serve to restrict the ability of the staff.

There are a great many concepts within the realms of mental illness, psychiatry and well being that may require significant review at present and while there are so called random attacks that mental health services appear to lack any understanding of why they take place this may be one area that could prove pivotal. Many of the diagnostic categories that are used to tend to exacerbate the mental distress that an individual may experience – for instance if there were action taken against an individual and they were classed as being paranoid for reporting it within mental health services many people would acknowledge that this could cause frustration and lead to anger, especially if there were a willingness only to employ mental health services as a result as a means of protecting the public at large, when there are individuals in the public who were causing such problems. This action of mental health services to have a negative and damaging effect upon the well being of the person reporting ‘mental illness’ could be classed as psychiatric iatrogenesis. It will be a long time until the staff within health services, politics and relevant sections of the Police acknowledge this term and its significance in terms of reducing the so called random and violent attacks.

Mens' rights and abortion - should there be a clearer level of ‘personal responsibility’ within relationships when there are no legal rights?

Disclaimer – I can’t recall who expressed what views within the context of the group meeting and if I have absorbed your views within my own and you wish to claim some authorship for them then please comment upon what I state. I wasn’t comfortable at the time but I think it was an involved and stimulating discussion…
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At an Amnesty International meeting last year which was used to discuss the issues of abortion before Amnesty was willing to back the notion of an international women’s right to have abortions, I felt particularly comfortable. I tend not to be able to think very clearly within group situations and there was a great deal of tension for me personally because of the experience I'd had with an ex-girlfriend, then girlfriend who had an abortion stating it was my child to be. I had made the mistake of not enforcing influence that I had and supported her through what I believed to be the right thing to do which was to support her individual decision not to keep the child. This may have been largely through what I thought was the best course of action for both of us – she was about to turn 21 and I was merely 19.

On reflection, I should have stated what I thought was suitable in the context of the relationship. Whilst I don’t blame the ex-girlfriend concerned for wanting an abortion especially when the circumstances were not particularly good I do not feel content with what happened. She had fallen pregnant before going away for a few months (the actual man who got her pregnant does cross my mind from time to time) and had returned after months of heavy drinking – with the potential that this could have caused all manner of deformity to the unborn child. Having issues like that to deal with does mean that I’d like time to prepare for a discussion on abortion related matters.

See - http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17378

At it’s worst, discussions on abortion can raise harsh social divisions and tap into longstanding Catholic – Protestant divides in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. At best the discussion on abortion is not likely to be pleasant. Having said that, that it is not most people’s idea of a leisure activity to discuss such things, it is a very important issue area – perhaps a barometer of our times. There does seem to be a tendency within the west to conceptualise abortion almost as a late form of contraception, without regard for the unborn child.

I state this and there could be much clearer conceptualisation, say through the arts of this particular process. There tends not to be frequent, open and frank admission of what the experience is like for women, nor for men for that matter, and neither would-be-siblings of the unborn child.

What was striking about the discussion was that it was quite heavily biased towards the group forming the conclusion that a woman having a legal right internationally to have abortions was the right thing to do. This may be owing to the nature of the political and legal establishments worldwide having failed women in so many respects. The cases that were used as examples within the discussions did lead to a conclusion that this may be a suitable goal for a human rights organisation; however, the specifics will always be debated by political leaders all over the world. One person did say she regarded it as her right to have an abortion and while I don’t disagree with the individual having this ‘right’, there are a number of issues which precede this that may need to stated before the ‘right’ is recognised.

With regard to men and their lack of rights to stop a female partner having an abortion, if this is the case then this needs to a matter that men are fully aware of prior to any consenting sex: in a position where there are no legal rights there is a duty to self to ensure that no risk is taken. If this is considered, it may become appropriate for men to be in control of contraception to a large extent. This is not to disempower women but rather to control for factors which will be beyond the control of the man in the relationship.

One other major element in relation to the discussion and its breadth was that there were no Muslim men present. How ‘Muslim’ the perspective I expressed may have seemed, of wanting men to have some form of legal right to contest abortion or even force a woman to give birth to a child if she were to become pregnant during marriage, I can’t say. I guess there is the issue that men are generally deemed as being in the ascendancy in society and there being a need to offer a few token gestures to women - including rights to legal control their own bodies through abortion. When this takes place and there is no reference to the need to change the multitude of issues of relationships which may restrict the progression of women in employment, rather than aiming to introduce an international human right for abortion, I must state that there needs to be a great deal supplementing the project of introducing an international human right for abortions to take place. To a large extent it seems that there was some lip service to the unborn child did not figure in what was presented – these seem to be very ill supported rights in Britain at present.

It is the 21st century and I do find abortion to be a barbaric act which shouldn’t be taking place in society today. If there are major restrictions on men or women from using contraception or if they are not able to participate in relationships without the ability to assert themselves to a point where they feel comfortable to do so, then there are other factors which need to be considered in relation to abortion before the relatively thorny issues that were presented to the Amnesty group are dealt with. Maybe amnesty is slightly outstretching itself on this matter as some seem to state:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2006_21_thu.shtml

There are risks to women overseas who do not have the freedom to have an abortion which most of us don’t want to see, irrespective of views on abortion generally. For women to die during the course of abortions carried out by non-medics is extremely saddening. It is perhaps that many issues need to take precedence to the abortion freedoms that we were asked to discuss – will we be asked to discuss these? It is perhaps, ironically, only within the context of a bold international strategy to irradicate abortion altogether that there will be success in establishing an international right to abortion – this should only be a short term aim. The longer term aim of reducing the need for abortions tends take precedence altogether and without emphasis on this Amnesty will be unsuccessful.

In respect of the issues of contraception, men and the lack of legal rights to ensure that a pregnancy results in an attempt at child birth, if this is what were desired by the partners, there is a pressing need to ensure that all men are willing to assert their views. It is a position where the politics of persuasion need to operated by men because this is one area where their rights are vastly less than women’s are and in the absence of rights or legal power other forms of power and persuasion need to be drawn upon – hopefully personal expression will be the strongest of these.….