I don’t know how to think about this. I can see where it’s good for fighting misogyny and encouraging young men t to consider traditionally female careers, but is it also a terrible idea? Is it needed? I know what I think, but I want to see other people’s opinions.
Never given it any thought but at a first pass I don’t see anything wrong with it in principle (there are some very problematic issues that effect men specifically and young men in particular). Probably far better for it to be a joint brief with the minister for women and better still if it were given a general brief that spoke to the issues that both groups suffer from (though I don’t know what it would be called…social cohesion? )
There’s a lot to be gained by jointly addressing sex-specific issues that are of mutual benefit to both men and women.
While men don’t face a glass ceiling, they also frequently have poorer socioeconomic outcomes than women. Fewer men go to college, more men turn to crime and are incarcerated, more men sleep on the street, more men commit suicide.
The system seems to favor men, but it really favors powerful men. Men without power get ground up and spit out.
They are far, far more likely to be murdered as well as having worse outcomes in terms of custody and marital breakup outcomes. The worst performing group in education are boys (white and working class to be more specific but the working class bit is most important in that equation I suspect)
It seems like the real portfolio is Minister for Socializing Otherwise-Feral Boyz-2-Men.
While a worthy goal, I think that all too quickly it would fall prey to gleeful sneering sniping from the right, and perhaps even capture by the boosters of toxic masculinity. Almost as likely, it’d be utterly ineffectual. As are most social reformation efforts that run counter to the commercial interests of the Establishment.
Every group has their problems, but men as a group generally have it pretty good by relative comparison. It seems like the resources would be better spent on helping minorities or oppressed groups.
I find it interesting that giving men better, happier, healthier lives isn’t seen as sufficient on its own; it has to be justified by saying that it makes women’s lives better, too.
I don’t know if a Minister for Men is necessary, or as necessary as a Minister for Women, but if you’re really trying to push for equality, seems like you ought to have both.
A notable difference is that the NAACP is a private organization; it’s allowed to advocate for only a segment of the population. There’s no obligation to be fair, or even appear to be fair.
The government of the UK, on the other hand, should serve the needs of all of its population equally.
Better option: Rename the Ministry of Women and Equalities to just the Ministry of Equalities. To the extent that men face injustice, they can fight for equality there, too.
I’ve just found an interesting slant on this in an IFS report on inequality released today.
In short, although white boys eligible for free school meals do have the lowest educational attainment this doesn’t translate to economic outcomes, where they are firmly in the middle of the pack. Whereas white girls eligible for free school meals are the lowest earners of all groups.
Indeed, White British men are lowest ranked in terms of educational attainment across all groups, one of the reasons for recent policy interest in ‘White working-class boys’.5 Yet while the low attainment of White British women translates into very low earnings ranks in Figure 5, the low attainment of White British men does not appear to hold them back in the labour market – they end up at around the middle rather than the bottom of the distribution of mean earnings ranks by ethnicity. Whereas white women who were on free school meals not only earn less than their brothers (despite doing better in school), they also have the biggest gender disparity of any ethnicity.
So if you look at education, you would want to put some effort into raising the attainment of White and Black Caribbean boys on free school meals; but if you look at incomes you’d be asking about the opportunities that don’t seem to be available to White and Pakistani girls on free school meals. For a Ministry of Equality, which is the most important metric?
It is a mixed bag and a complicated issue for sure and I’ve never thought dividing it by race is a helpful way of proceeding, nor even necessarily by sex. As can be seen by the very mixed messages and outcomes seen by the report you refer to.
Too late to edit, I realise I’ve screwed up that post - the italicised sentence isn’t from the report, it’s my commentary and I didn’t mean to add it to the blockquote.
I haven’t looked at this in any depth, but my first reaction is that I’d prefer to see a Minister for Equality across the board, addressing issues of women and the glass ceiling, workplace (and pay) inequality, and encompassing equality, diversity and inclusion.
Encouraging men into traditionally female roles should be tackled at the same time/intensity as encouraging women to take up traditionally male roles. And can we also have a minister for teaching men appropriate behaviour around women?
I don’t think there are particularly mixed messages in the report. It’s quite useful to disentangle the difference between educational attainment and future earnings. There is good empirical reason to believe that structural factors in UK society will produce differential outcomes based on innate characteristics such as sex, race and socio-economic class - an analysis which doesn’t take this into account is going to mislead.
Whether that leads to solutions oriented around race, sex or SES is a different question. E.g if you find that the reason for poor educational performance among white working class boys is that they are disproportionately likely to be affected by factor X, is the solution in fact to tackle factor X and therefore disproportionately help white working class boys but also everyone else affected? But of course if factor X is directly tied to race or sex, then the solution has to be too. So it’s good to know!