Teaching Fellow in Public Law and Human Rights, Durham Law School.
Comments welcome via Twitter: @KyleLMurray92 or email: k.l.murray@durham.ac.uk
The recent Women & Equalities Committee report on paternity leave, while making welcome proposals, is revealing of a fundamental problem with the way we frame issues of gender (in)equality negatively affecting men. In this post, Kyle talks about the importance of framing the dealing with men’s issues not just as parasitic upon women’s rights, but as valuable pursuits in themselves.
“We should take measures to break the glass ceiling and improve the representation of women in top positions in the workplace – this would relieve the considerable pressures on men, who we know suffer breakdowns and depression from their workload, with sometimes disastrous consequences”.
If this headline sounds as though it misses the point and belittles the harms done to women from the inequality it seeks to challenge, it is because it does. If it sounds as though it risks leaving the attitudes leading to these inequalities unchallenged – and therefore recommends strategies likely to be of limited effectiveness – again, it is argued, that is because it does. If readers are viewing it with a sense of disbelief, it is because it is fictitious. But its problematic framing of the issue of gender inequality is, I argue, not too far from what we have recently seen in discussions surrounding paternity leave and the difficulties faced by fathers. The recently-released Women & Equalities Committee (WEC) report – ‘Fathers in the Workplace’ (20 March 2018) – and its presentation in the media, is a prime example; framing issues of gender inequality and challenges facing men primarily within the paradigm of advancing women’s equality and rights.