Dear Jess,
Can I call you Jess?
It seems a little over-familiar, but for someone that has been so cavalier in her attitude towards my life and that of other men it seems fair. Right?
About a year ago now, you became somewhat ‘Internet famous’ because of hashtag-Sniggergate. This came about because, in a meeting to discuss the marking of International Men’s Day in Parliament (as International Women’s Day had been for many years prior) your response, was to laugh. You even trotted out the tired old joke that ‘Every day is International Men’s Day’.
If that facile dismissal had even a grain of truth to it would men be killing themselves at a rate of three-quarters to four-fifths of the total suicides?
Would intimate partner violence against men (perhaps as much as forty percent of all intimate partner violence) go unaddressed with its charities de-funded and there being virtually no shelters for battered and abused men?
Would the rate of homelessness be so high amongst men if this were true?
Would boys be the ones failing at school and failing to gain access to university and would these problems go so unaddressed for so long?
Even if we entertain the idea that the world is run by men (not a secure thing to assert in a free democracy) it certainly does not seem that it is being run for men.
Would we ignore or laugh at these issues if they afflicted women and girls? I don’t think so.
When you laughed at our pain and problems last year it was deeply affecting for me. It ‘red-pilled’ me, as Internet slang would have it. It finally brought home to me how little anyone cares about men’s pain and problems, even in government – where you are supposedly beholden to care about and care for all the people of our nation.
I suffer from severe depression Jess.
I have been suicidal.
I have seen the problems in our mental health system first hand.
Your contempt for that helped drive me closer to that state another time and I have no doubt it helped push some men over that final, fatal edge at a fragile time in their own lives.
I tried to reach out to you at the time, over social media and elsewhere. I was respectful, even though many were – justly – angry at you. Your response was to block and demonise those you had upset, and you would go on from this to advocate for Internet censorship without acknowledging what you had done or why people might be upset at you.
I hope you’ve changed your mind.
I seem to recall you, at least, admitting that the suicide problem is a serious one. A problem which needs addressing. That’s a small, glacial change, but I’ll take it. Even a crumb of hope, even a tiny shift in attitude. That’s how desperate we all are to be taken seriously, we’ll clutch at straws.
Today we finally see a full and proper discussion of men’s issues in Parliament, an improvement upon the small and unsatisfying examination we had last year – against your protests. Meanwhile, elsewhere, it’s still hard to get the day marked in institutions, universities, schools and the public mindset. So great is the stigma and misrepresentation, even men scoff and undermine it.
I hope you’ll be present for it and I hope you shan’t try to hijack it to talk about women’s issues. Again. You have your own day, your own initiatives; often the full power of the state watching out for women’s problems. Men do not have that. Give us one day.
I hope you’ve learned since last year Jess. I hope you’ve grown, been humbled, and I hope you have remembered that you are supposed to speak for and provide support for everyone. I hope you’ve remembered that Labour is supposed to be the party of equality, fairness, and progress – not a haven for bigotry and sexism – against anyone.
I’m on the left Jess. That’s why I care about men’s issues, my egalitarianism. I would care about the issues of men and boys quite apart from my own experiences with mental health provision for men.
That’s also why you should care. These are beliefs we are supposed to share.
Philip Davies, a Conservative, is not the advocate I would choose for myself – as a leftist – but I’m glad he’s there. Very glad. People like you have made it so that even raising men’s issues is such an unnecessarily contentious and difficult issue that we must choose our allies from rather slim pickings.
I’m still alive Jess, no thanks to you or people like you. Perhaps, in the future, if I should be on that edge again, I’ll still be alive because of people like you fighting for me rather than against me.
I hope you’ve changed.
I hope you’ve learned.
An apology would be nice, to the men of our nation, but even better would be a commitment to take men’s issues seriously. All of them. Not just the undeniable horror of our suicide rate.
Hopefully,
James
The Dude's Abode 