Dominic Raab is no more keen on the Equality Act than he is on the Human Rights Act
Esher and Walton MP Dominic Raab has just been made justice minister alongside Michael Gove.
Raab is a longtime critic of the Human Rights Act – this appointment looks like David Cameron’s way of saying he is serious about scrapping it. In January 2014 Raab voted to allow human rights grounds to be used to prevent a foreign criminal being deported only in cases where there would be a breach of right to life or the right not to be tortured.
In 2013, he voted to remove the duty on the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to work to support the development of a society in which people’s ability to achieve their potential is not limited by prejudice or discrimination.
And in 2013 he also voted against making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of caste.
Raab also took an unusual stance on gender equality in 2011, when he expressed his fears that ‘from the cradle to the grave, men are getting a raw deal’. He attacked the ‘obnoxious bigotry’ of feminists and complained that men work longer hours than women (no mention of pay gap etc).
“While we have some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the world, we are blind to some of the most flagrant discrimination – against men.”
Seeming to have fallen at the first hurdle – assuming that feminism is anti-men – Raab also suggested that men start ‘burning their briefs’, presumably as a long- overdue retaliation against the feminists of the sixties (who did not, in fact, burn their bras.)
Raab’s diatribe continued:
“Britain’s not perfect, and we will never eradicate all human prejudice.”
This is especially true when we do not understand that prejudice. Another interesting choice from David Cameron.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
398 Responses to “He thinks feminists are ‘obnoxious bigots’: meet the new justice minister”
Rex Duis
Steven has pretty much covered everything I would have said already, but on the point of pensions, please explain where the inequality is? Are you referring to women now having to wait a further 5 years before they can enjoy retirement?
If this is the case, then I thank you for making yourself a wonderful example of the stupidity and hypocrisy and unchecked privilege which characterises so many in your movement.
Since the welfare state was created in 1945 till about 2012 women have had to work 5 years LESS than men, to pay taxes into the benefits system for 5 years less, when women claim a disproportionate amount of said benefits and enjoy a 5-7 year greater lifespan (perhaps in part because they didn’t spend as many of their twilight years at the grindstone).
You see, you are so blind to your own privilege that when a genuine act of ‘equality’ takes place, where it doesn’t directly advantage women and simply levels the playing field you now consider that prejudice hahahaha.
Matthew Yeo
“No its not even 30%. And that’s considered amazing. I consider it dire. When it become 50% I will be happy.”
It should roughly mirror how many people apply to be candidates, if all the candidates are roughly equal in quality.
You do know, for example, that there’s actually very few women that apply to be candidates, right? That most parties have to consciously turn down men in order to pad up their quota of female candidates?
karen straughan
“no one else is trying to stop it.”
Give me a break. No one but feminists think FGM is a barbaric practice that should be banned? FGM ended up banned in the West almost the same afternoon we heard it existed. That wasn’t “because feminism”, it was because FGM has never been a normalized cultural or religious practice among white westerners. At most, it was performed as a treatment for various mental illnesses in the West between the 1850s and the 1930s–it was never something doctors recommended at birth to “prevent problems”, and many doctors who performed it were considered quacks by their peers.
Because we didn’t generally do it to our own girls, the entire idea of FGM felt like a backward, barbaric, oppressive practice, while at the same time, we’ve been cutting newborn boys as a “prophylactic health practice” and an aesthetic norm since the late 1800s, “meh, it’s just a little snip, and we wouldn’t want any of the other boys to make fun of him in the change room…”
One could argue that yes, our introduction as a wider public in the 1980s and 90s to the alien (to us) practice of FGM, and how shocking and appalling we found it, might have led some people to take a second look at our own cultural practices when it comes to cutting boys. But in the grand scheme of things, FGM has never been as widely practiced as MGM (anywhere in the world), and plenty of people on both sides of the feminist aisle backed the ban.
Further, people have been objecting to male circumcision since the 1890s, using words like “barbaric”, and Drs began seriously questioning the practice in medical journals in the 1940s.
1980: anti-circumcision protest march at the California State Capitol
1985: The National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), was founded by a nurse, M Milos
NOCIRC have consistently criticised the American medical community’s circumcision guidelines.
Intactivist groups have been around for a long time, and oddly enough, NOCIRC advocates for the genital integrity of ALL babies, male, female, intersex, etc.
When the UN defined FGM as “violence against women” in 1993, it essentially declared it a human rights violation rather than a medical issue. However, “violence against men” does not exist as a legal/human rights concept, and “male” is not a protected group under most HR legislation. As such, MGM continues to be defined as a religious/cultural practice, a medical issue, a parental rights issue and an aesthetic procedure. Anything but a violation of an individual’s human rights.
Meanwhile, the UN and the WHO are spending millions of dollars to reduce FGM by 40%, while simultaneously running a massive, costly campaign to circumcise 28 million men and boys in Africa, based on studies done on poor men in poverty-stricken African nations that would not have passed an ethics committee were someone to suggest running them in a “whiter” region.
But yeah, you’re right. The only reason anyone has a problem with circumcision is because we hate feminists. Or something.
Bee Sharmaine
Firstly, in relation to the legislation you cite under UK law, this was implemented as a direct to response to the illegal and unregulated acts of FGM as there was nothing in law that prevented it. British medical law has never permitted FGM on the basis of cultur, religious or hygiene reasons – although there may be exceptional cases where some form of medical surgery is required that would not be considered as FGM due to the difference in purpose.
Secondly, UK legislation does not contain such provisions for male counterparts because MGM is a long established practice that has been both carried out and regulated by British medical law. It is only recently in the wake of the FGM campaigns that the what was commonly referred to as circumcision and seen as the norm in some circles is now referred to as MGM – Hence, why there are no explicit statutory provisions prohibiting it.
Thirdly, it is however, regulated by British medical law and is illegal to carry out by someone who is untrained, this is underpinned in statute.
Also, your argument about FGM being carried out not because women are considered ‘lesser’ falls in on itself.
‘It was because men couldn’t control whether the child that the woman birthed was his or not biologically speaking if she did become promiscuous.’
You said it yourself, FGM is about exercising male dominance and control over their female counterparts for their own benefit. In what way is this women not being considered as ‘lesser’ if there is already the presumption that there is a right to exercise control over their behaviour by violating their personal autonomy?
Rex Duis
Chelsie – if what you say is true and you are exactly equal to these men, then you may well have a legal argument for discrimination, in which case there is a legal framework there to support you in getting fairness. What job exactly is it you do?