New ‘Ministry’ to open at parliament
The Ministry of Men’s Affairs, an NGO set up to advance the welfare of men and fathers, will be opened at Parliament
grounds this week. The Ministry invites men and women to attend and to describe their own experiences of misandry
(hatred of males) and discrimination against men, from 1:00pm on Friday 31 August, the weekend of Fathers Day.
Chief executive Hans Laven accused successive governments of damaging NZ society by failing to honour men’s
contribution, to ensure men’s wisdom was utilized in the shaping of social policy and to protect men’s interests and
welfare.
“Men and women contribute to the nation in equally important ways, but the principle of gender equality has been lost in
law and social policy. Men are subjected to all manner of abuse and men’s reputation is damaged by all manner of
misinformation, none of which would be tolerated by women.”
Hans Laven estimated that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs had cost the nation over $100 million since its inception, but
almost nothing had been done over the same period to protect and forward men’s welfare or contribution. He claimed that
other government departments had also directed much of their resources to support women’s issues, ignoring and/or
deliberately demeaning men.
“Men still commit suicide at about four times the rate of women, die in their workplaces and work roles over 100 times
as often as women, die earlier from all leading causes of death, are sentenced much more heavily than are women for the
same crimes, frequently lose meaningful involvement with their children through our feminist family laws, achieve
inferior educational achievement under feminist-dominated schools, and are disadvantaged in many other spheres of life
as a gender.”
“It’s high time men were given a fair go in New Zealand” he said.
ENDS