Sex Discrimination
Non-statutory sex discrimination
Widespread discrimination or inequality arises also from policies, priorities, and prejudices, again much of this being against men. Examples include:
- An almost institutionalised bias against fathers in family law and in the ‘closed ’family courts [see Equal Parenting].
- Often punitive treatment of fathers who do not strictly obey court orders, eg. the separated father who was jailed for waving at his daughter across the street, but usually no punitive measures against mothers who regularly defy court orders
- Greater difficulty faced by men than women in obtaining non-molestation orders or occupation orders against the other partner in situations involving family conflict
- Except for drug offences, more lenient treatment generally of women by the criminal justice system, including a higher proportion cautioned, a lower proportion charged, and for those convicted a higher proportion receiving non-custodial sentences, and a lower proportion actually imprisoned
- Average prison sentences longer for men than for women for similar offences
- Particular offences for which women tend to be treated more leniently than men include: domestic homicide, child abduction, flouting of court orders (as above), sexual abuse of children, and as perpetrators of domestic violence
- More sympathetic treatment of women in prison, including wearing their own clothes ‘as of right’ (whereas male prisoners have to earn the right), and general recreational amenities
- Minimal public funding of research into male specific diseases compared to funding for research into female specific diseases.
Women also suffer discrimination or inequality, but in other ways, such as higher premiums for life assurance.
Gender conflict issues
In gender conflict issues, such as family breakdown, sex offences, harassment, and domestic violence, there appears to be a disturbing trend, both in legislation and the criminal justice system, towards a radical form of feminist jurisprudence, now already well established in North America. Indeed, as one English woman journalist has put it, in such matters “the state is taking the side of women against men”.
Despite a numerical male dominance in our parliament, it is most unusual for men’s issues to be raised, let alone properly debated. Legislation hostile or discriminatory to men therefore does not get the scrutiny or critique that it deserves. Without their own champion, therefore, men are at present at considerable disadvantage in gender conflict issues. Whilst it is thought appropriate for government and opposition parties to field a women’s spokeswoman, it seems that the existing imbalance between equitable and effective reconciliation of men’s and women’s issues, can only be redressed by also fielding a comparable men’s spokesman.
