Division between men and women is stirred up by “militant feminists” and overzealous “politically correct males”, Conservative MP Philip Davies has said in a parliamentary debate to mark worldwide Men’s Day.
Advertisement
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of men worth celebrating and we have Father’s Day and anniversaries to thank our Dad’s or other halves. “These do not necessarily conflict with women’s rights”.
Maria Miller, the former Conservative culture secretary and now chair of the women’s and equalities committee, told Davies that striving for equality “isn’t a competition between men and women”.
“I don’t believe there is an issue between men and women”.
With the gender pay gap barely narrowing, the number of women in high-powered positions flatlining, a lack of female political representation and the persistent problems of rape and domestic abuse, many argue that setting aside a day for men is both irrelevant and offensive. That is a shocking fact… “And I am concerned that this discussion is straying down a slightly misogynistic streak”. She told Davies he “does not do his case much good at all in an attempt to try and belittle that”.
Earlier, Mr Davies said he would prefer, in many respects, not to lead a debate on worldwide Men’s Day. The honourable lady is part of the problem.
He spoke about how the breakdown of relationships could lead to suicides – and said it was “quite clear” that family courts were more likely to place children with the mother rather than the father.
“If she doesn’t think that’s a problem then I think she needs to get out more, perfectly frankly”.
Mr Davies replied: “I’m sorry you feel like that”.
He added: “Short of a child-swapping disaster in hospital, women know for sure that their babies are theirs, but fathers can never know 100% for sure that this is the case, without formally having a DNA test. Many are sure because of their trust in their partner, but there are also plenty who will be unsure because of their partner’s behaviour or because they have been deliberately tricked”. Women in prison do not.
While the average sentence length is 17.7 months for men, it is 11.6 months for women, he claimed.
Mr Davies said statistics show that more than 4,500 men took their own life in 2012 and almost 5,000 in 2013, adding that the total number of lives lost in the last 30 years is more than 130,000.
Tory MP Amanda Solloway told how her cousin took his life at the age of 36.
Mr Davies clashed briefly with Labour’s Madeleine Moon after he used the phrase “committed suicide”, which activists oppose because it was decriminalised in 1961.
“Again, this is part of the politically correct culture we have in this place, that the moment anybody raises anything that affects men, people are accused of being misogynists”.
Advertisement
But she said: “Language does matter”.
