I speak to a lot of women during the course of my day and I’ve been telling them about what I do on facebook and on the street when talking to lots of different people.
I like talking to people, like debating with people and just generally shooting the shit.
I like asking questions of people to gauge their responses to things.
For example I recently asked a women if husbands are at the mercy of their wives and she said, “My husband has nothing to fear”.
So I asked if you decided to make him leave, could you and she said no she’d never do something like that.
So I said so if you really really wanted to you could.
I suggested if she went to An Garda Síochána and made a complaint of domestic abuse would she be believed?
Then asked if he did the same thing would he be believed?
So I got from that that her husband was at her mercy.
I’ve asked others as well and the response is always the same, yes husbands/boyfriends are at the mercy of their partners.
Thus far I have a 100% track record at getting the response I expect, which is that men have no privilege which can be determined at any stage.
I’ve even spoken to a 16 year old girl about this and she agrees that men have far far fewer rights than women do.
Men in Ireland are committing suicide at 5 times the rate of women in Ireland today. Three hundred and eighty six confirmed male suicides took place in 2010 and the number has not decreased since. The 2011 figures saw a rise in male suicides, which accounted for 84% of all suicide deaths.
Men don’t feel welcome in our society today, because their issues are treated as second class problems and they generally get no sympathy for these problems.
Our SOS campaign is going around the streets of Ireland attempting to raise awareness of the damaging nature of Irish society which has left men without a real identity, and hopefully helping people to recognise that many of these troubled voices aren’t being heard.
We want to target crisis points in the lives of men, whether that be divorce, experiencing domestic violence and intimate partner violence against them, unwanted sexual experience, or other environmental factors involving high stress and low support. These are the times when men need help the most, and that help isn’t there. Suicide counselling is a valid, proven and very valuable approach but a far better one is to remove those factors which cause suicidal tendencies in the first place, coupled with a robust outreach and activity programme centred on mens issues. The Irish University Times called the number of male youth suicides an epidemic last year, but the country continues to not care. It’s time for that to change, we’re going to make noise about it and we’re not going to stop until people are listening
Well be out again shortly to push our SOS campaign which is related to the lack of men’s rights in Ireland.
Anyone who’s be in Dublin and willing to stand beside us please contact us at info@menshumanrightsireland.org
