Issues
Paper No. 15
Edited by
Stuart Birks
CENTRE
FOR PUBLIC POLICY EVALUATION
2005
Issues
Paper No. 15
Published by
Centre for Public
Policy Evaluation
College of Business,
Massey University
Palmerston North
NEW ZEALAND
December 2005
Page Nos
Foreword ..........................................................................................................................................vii
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ix
Chapter One The State of Male Health .................................................................................................1
What can we do? ....................................................................................................10
Bruce Mackie
Chapter Two Trends in Boys’ Education in New
Zealand ....................................................................12
Joseph Driessen
Chapter Three Gender and Power - Myths and Misuses
......................................................................19
Warwick Pudney
Chapter Four Fathers After Separation: Promoting
the Two Home Option ...........................................28
Don Rowlands
Chapter Five Fathers and Fatherlessness .............................................................................................36
Rex McCann
Chapter Six Men and Violence: The Cost to Men ................................................................................46
Warwick Pudney
Chapter Seven New Zealand fathers: Overworked, undervalued,
and overseas? ...................................59
Paul Callister
Chapter Eight Men in Research ............................................................................................................79
Stuart Birks
Chapter Nine Problems in Working with Men .......................................................................................89
Philip Chapman
About the Authors ................................................................................................................................94
Men have always had issues and conditions that have been deeply imbedded in both men’s roles and genetics. Prisons, work, violent conflict, provider and protector disposability, high mortality and low longevity are examples of these. However, recently numerous other issues have been added, such as, males in education, fatherhood, parenting of boys, health, political devaluing, poor social services, negative media images, breakdown of male community, interpersonal isolation, objectification as a gender, poor gender advocacy and research, and the Family Court. Whether they have been around for millennia or just decades, they are still impairments to a full and happy lifestyle and the ideals of equality and respect. With the encroachment of a modern Western lifestyle they are now cross-cultural and intergenerational.
Perhaps the biggest change has been that we have decided to do something about it as a gender. We seek solutions to these problems by a call to action, not victimhood.
It is hoped that this volume adds to men’s consciousness and adds to women’s consciousness of men, and so builds a more equal, understanding and co-operative community.
This collection of papers arose from two Men’s Issues
Summits held in Auckland on 6 May and Christchurch on 5 August. The original
idea was conceived by Waitakere Mayor, Bob Harvey, and Warwick Pudney. The
Christchurch Summit arose due to the support of Mayor Gary Moore, and the
organization for both was by Warwick Pudney. The events were supported by:
AUT University
NZ Father and Child Society
NZ Family Research Trust
Man Alive
Waitakere City Council
Christchurch City Council
Marlborough District Health
Home and Family Christchurch
NZ Violence Prevention Society
Centre for Public Policy Evaluation, Massey University
The motivation for the Summits was an increasing feeling that there are limited opportunities for men’s issues to be aired. Former Labour MP John Tamihere was a keynote speaker at both Summits. He had earlier called for men to be more outspoken, and suggested that government policy was overly focused on feminist issues. At the Summits he suggested that men had legitimate issues, and that they should not be afraid to speak out. In Auckland he said:
“In Public Relation terms we have never turned up to debate, let alone have a conversation about men’s issues and because [of this] there has never been a counter-weight debate. We have not featured in policy, programmes or in resources. It is conferences like this that are important [in order] to have our conversation, to harness, and to organise.”
As John Tamihere suggested, a debate on society that considers the voices of only half the population is unlikely to give satisfactory solutions.
One area that received scant attention at the Summits was the media. There is a certain irony to this. The Christchurch Summit featured on the TV news as a result of a smudged faxed press release. I had said that women now comprise nearly 60 percent of tertiary students, but, in the TV reporter’s fax this looked more like 80 percent. I was therefore prompted to make the claim that “women are taking over the world”. That might make a good news item, but it does not result in informed debate. The media play a large part in shaping opinions, and we should be concerned about the information presented and, perhaps even more importantly, the questions asked.
Some of the papers in this collection are the personal views
of the speakers based on their experiences in the field. Others are from researchers.
It is important that we tap in to both these sources and blend them together
to get a more detailed picture of the issues, their possible causes, and their
significance in the wider policy debate. It is also important in a wider context
that we have a record of current thinking and the influence of currently dominant
ideas.