No men's issues in the Labour party's manifesto

iptba

Labour Party Election Manifesto 2011 One Ireland - Jobs, Reform, Fairness
is at:
http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/labour_election_manifesto_2011.pdf


The only mention of fathers is in "A zero tolerance approach
to welfare fraud" section.

Some mentions of "equality for women" measures and the like:

Fairness and equality for women

Women continue to be underrepresented
– if they are there at
all – in the decision-making arenas
at all levels of politics, and on state
boards. Labour will make it a legal
requirement that 40 per cent of
either gender is represented on state
boards and committees, and we will
ensure that other nominating bodies
are bound by the same target.
Public funding for political
parties will be tied to the level of
participation by women as public
representatives those parties
achieve. Demanding targets for
all political parties will be set out
in legislation.

Labour is committed to tackling and
eradicating domestic violence. We
will protect funding for frontline
services, such as family refuges, and
draw on best international practice
to reform the way the courts system
deals with domestic abuse cases.
Most urgently, we will tackle the
delay in hearing domestic abuse
cases in the courts, and provide
national consistency of access to the
courts for urgent applications.
Labour supports updating the
Constitution to reflect the role of
women in 21st century Ireland, which
we will be recommending to our
proposed Constitutional Convention.

A Fairer and More Equal Ireland Time for change

[..]

The first steps
• Bring more women into politics by
tying funding for political parties to the
participation of women representatives

Putting equality back into government decision-making

Fianna Fáil systematically filleted
state bodies which criticised its
record on equality, human rights
and poverty. The Labour Party will
put fairness and equality back at
the heart of government decisionmaking.
A new Equality and Social
Inclusion Authority with a mandate
to promote social inclusion and
equality, and combat poverty
and discrimination, will replace
the Equality Authority and the
National Disability Authority. It will
incorporate the policy and research
functions of the Combat Poverty
Agency, which was dismantled by
Fianna Fáil.

Labour will establish an Oireachtas
Committee on Equality, Women
and Human Rights, charged with
progressing legislation in these
areas.

Labour favours a European competitiveness strategy based on high skills, effectiveness, gender equality, productivity and innovation in a knowledge-driven economy.

(?agrees with gender quotas e.g. on boards of companies?)

Are all Labour supporters happy with this approach?

Their approach to gender puts me off voting for them.

Wolfe Tone

Equality for women? How about equality for men, with regards to parental rights specifically?

colly10

Labour will make it a legal requirement that 40 per cent of
either gender is represented on state boards and committees, and we will
ensure that other nominating bodies are bound by the same target.

People are given positions based on their ability to do the job, policies like these guarantee they will not be getting a vote off me

Son Of A Vidic

It's a pity their manifesto hasn't a zero tolerance policy in dealing with the surge in male suicides.

Sulmac

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Equality for women? How about equality for men, with regards to parental rights specifically?

Page 54:

Labour will undertake other anti-fraud measures, including a public services card with photo ID, the automatic registration of fathers on birth certificates, and better sharing of data across government departments and agencies.

Page 74:

Labour favours moving to a paternity leave model, where parents can share paid leave when a new baby is born, as resources allow. More immediately, Labour will introduce a legal right to a career break, subject to reasonable conditions, which would allow parents to take time out of the workplace without risking future benefits or job security. This would have the added benefit of creating mobility in the labour force. We will also explore the option of introducing a right to part-time work, subject also to reasonable conditions.

Labour will legislate to guarantee that the State respects family life, whether based on marriage or not, by passing our Guardianship of Children Bill (2010).

And here's the link to the bill itself.

In order to ensure that the child's rights are vindicated, the Bill will confer an automatic guardianship role on natural fathers in respect of children born after the passing of the Act (with specified exceptions) and will give the parties or the court a power to terminate that role in specified circumstances.

The Bill will also provides that the registration of the father's name on a birth certificate will be compulsory in all cases after the Act would come into effect.

iptba

Sulmac wrote: »

Page 54:

Labour will undertake other anti-fraud measures, including a public services card with photo ID, the automatic registration of fathers on birth certificates, and better sharing of data across government departments and agencies.

which is in the "A zero tolerance approach to welfare fraud" section

Page 74:
Labour favours moving to a paternity leave model, where parents can share paid leave when a new baby is born, as resources allow. More immediately, Labour will introduce a legal right to a career break, subject to reasonable conditions, which would allow parents to take time out of the workplace without risking future benefits or job security. This would have the added benefit of creating mobility in the labour force. We will also explore the option of introducing a right to part-time work, subject also to reasonable conditions.

Labour will legislate to guarantee that the State respects family life, whether based on marriage or not, by passing our Guardianship of Children Bill (2010).

Apologies. Missed that. I only used some search terms.

I have heard feminists say they like such measures (paternity/parental leave) as they feel it without it, it disadvantages women in the workforce.

Those are not the only issues with regard to father's rights of course.

randylonghorn

colly10 wrote: »

People are given positions based on their ability to do the job ...

... or should be (which is I suspect what you meant anyway).

My mother was a highly intelligent professional woman and a strong feminist, and she vehemently opposed the idea of gender quotas.

Firstly, for the same reason as you have given, that people should be appointed to positions entirely on merit and absolutely without regard for gender or other irrelevant issues.

Secondly, she would argue that as soon as you introduce gender quotas for women, *every* woman appointed, regardless of merit or whether she would by rights have been at the top of the list anyway, will be perceived and dismissed as having been appointed solely to satisfy the quota requirement.

I would agree however that there is still a culture of "jobs for the boys" in politics and in the state boards etc. This culture does need to be tackled, but it is a wider issue than gender ... it is, at bottom, an issue of "jobs for the boys" vs. meritocracy. Tackle / change the culture in a meaningful way, rather than insult women by implying that the only way they will get fair representation in the decision-making process is by introducing a mandatory quota system.

iptba

I'm not sure how many people will remember Labour's focus on gender quotas when they were last in power e.g. the president of Students' union in UCG/NUI Galway for 9 (?) months wasn't let be on the board of the college as then the gender quota wouldn't be reached.

This is one of the problems with gender quotas - one can sometimes be picking only one or two people from individual sections (in this case the Students' Union) rather than a group together.
For example, there are a lot of noises at the EU level to have gender quotas for directors - which may be what the manifesto is referring to (given their enthusiasm for gender quotas in other areas, I'm not sure they'll object anyway) - directors can come from different departments so in effect, one may need to make women head of some departments to have gender quotas in the board room.

rolly1

Sulmac wrote: »

Page 54:



Page 74:



And here's the link to the bill itself.

Oh you mean the bill that endorses "parenting by committee" whereby any tom, dick or harry can apply for custody, guardianship and access of a child; regardless of whether two fit parents are already caring for the child? (Section 5 (b)(c))

Which of course has the effect of causing "legal outvoting" when it comes to decisions to do with the child e.g. mother and new partner vs separated father.
It also increases the number of players to cause legal conflict in separated situations. As a general rule every political party should be aiming to decrease the amount of litigation for families as the adversarial nature of family courts often brings about massive stress's on families.

If giving out rights, such as automatic guardianship for unmarried fathers, involves a parallel process of completely undermining them by throwing open these rights to non-parents then no thanks. Both unmarried & married separated fathers along with their children would be vastly more screwed over in that scenario than they are at present.

And of course thats not to even mention the fact that these supposedly automatic rights can be blocked by the mother if she makes an allegation that the father had "sexual intercourse with the mother of the child without the consent of the mother"(Section 6 (2)(a)). No criminal burden of proof required, no innocent till proven guilty, just the hidden kangaroo family courts coming up with their own rules of legally castrating the man again.

No thanks Labour Party making one step forward and five back is simply not good enough. Using automatic guardianship to undermine the rights of all parents and increase litigation for families is absolutely scurrilous.

irishh_bob

iptba wrote: »

Labour Party Election Manifesto 2011 One Ireland - Jobs, Reform, Fairness
is at:
http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/labour_election_manifesto_2011.pdf


The only mention of fathers is in "A zero tolerance approach
to welfare fraud" section.

Some mentions of "equality for women" measures and the like:





(?agrees with gender quotas e.g. on boards of companies?)

Are all Labour supporters happy with this approach?

Their approach to gender puts me off voting for them.

and your surprised by this why

iptba

irishh_bob wrote: »

and your surprised by this why

No, not surprised by it. Pointing out what it said. I remember looking at a previous manifesto of theirs (think it was the 2007 manifesto) and there were a couple of dozen (?) references to women; the only time men were mentioned was in the phrase "men and women".

Overheal

Does their 40% mandate in their manifesto require competency or just feminism?

I'd think a candidate - any candidate - for any job, or position, would want to know they were appointed because they were the best qualified for the role, not because they were a woman, or black, etc. I can see why you'd want an equal share of men and women on a parent council but it doesn't help if some of those appointees are unsuitable for the role.

If it should come to pass that Women in a few years make up 65% of the political process where is the protection in the mandate to also secure 40% appointment for men?

James Jones

Labour favours moving to a paternity leave model, where parents can share paid leave when a new baby is born, as resources allow.

Why should paternity leave be shared? Why not grant fathers paternity leave? By sharing such a right requires a father to be allowed take the leave by THE MOTHER!!! If she says “No”, then he can’t take the leave.

In order to ensure that the child's rights are vindicated, the Bill will confer an automatic guardianship role on natural fathers in respect of children born after the passing of the Act

The automatic granting of Guardianship to unmarried fathers is a joke given that the Guardianship of married fathers is ignored anyway. Why exclude men who are fathers already?

Either this is an ill thought out policy or it is purposefully discriminatory.

Frogeye

Certainly won't be voting for Labour.

Anybody know the percentage of women members in each of the parties? I can't find any data on their web sites?