JibJab2010

Did you know that the government health insurance program, OHIP, doesn’t cover prostate cancer tests?

Men have to pay for prostate tests out of their own pockets, while not only are mammograms covered, but reconstructive breast implants are covered, too.

Imagine the uproar if prostate tests were covered, but not mammograms. How do you think the public and governments would react if the sexes were reversed?

Selected quotes from Statistics Canada, Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2005:

“Rates of spousal violence by a current or previous partner in the 5 year period were 7% for women and 6% for men,
representing an estimated 653,000 women and 546,000 men. While there was no statistically significant change in the
level of spousal violence against men since 1999 (7% versus 6%), there was a small but statistically significant decline
for women during this period (8% versus 7%).”

In spite of that, the federal Department of Justice Canada only focuses on violence against women: http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/fm/familyvfs.html

... and the provincial government funds programs that specifically only discuss women as victims and men as perpetrators…

http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/owd/english/news/b220606-2.htm

There are over 300 shelters available to women, and zero available to men. What do men do when they are being abused by women? Where can they go with their children if mommy has a screw loose?

In case you’re wondering about the strength parity issue: Women level the playing field by using weapons.

“While women were more likely to say that they had been
bruised than men (96% versus 82%), men were more
likely to have been cut (56% versus 35%). These results
are consistent with police-reported data that reveal that
women in cases of spousal violence are more likely to
rely on weapons than men, while men are more likely
to use physical force against their spouse (Brzozowski,
2004).”

Comments welcome and encouraged.

Might as well get this out of the way, to avoid any sort of flame war…

Glenn Sacks says it well…

“Why fight for men’s rights? Aren’t men the privileged sex?

Some men are privileged. Some women are privileged.

When we say ‘privileged’ we are only looking up, at the leaders of our society, who are mostly male.

If we look down, at the bottom of our society, we’ll see that most of the people down there are male, too: the homeless, the imprisoned, the suicide victims, those who die young, the school dropouts, etc. While many of women’s issues and concerns are certainly still unresolved, women’s issues have received enormous publicity and attention.”

This entry is about a struggle for equality. No more, no less.

This is about men whose lives have been left in the fray. Men whose children have been taken from them by malicious moms with no legal recourse; men who have been abused by wives and girlfriends (nearly 50% of victims are men [Statistics Canada, 2005]) only to discover that there are no services for them; and men who have suffered at the hands of government programs designed to explicitly or systemically discriminate against them.

I have no qualms whatsoever about the women’s movement. It think it has made some great leaps forward and I applaud many in the movement for the changes that they have made happen.

Now it’s time to precipitate change for all men: gay and straight, black and white—to deliver equality in virtually every part of life: family law, children’s rights, domestic violence, the military draft, work and housework, and health to name just a few. To raise awareness men’s issues, change the polical landscape, and most importantly to take action to impove the lives of men and women around the world.

Comments welcome and encouraged.