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Q: You’re best known for your work with the Centre for Inquiry, an organization that focuses on human rights, science and education. Are you worried at all about the optics of being involved with this centre, considering how men’s issues are portrayed these days?

A: With any new organization there’s a certain sense of suspicion. Until it’s understood what its motives are, people are often afraid of something new, afraid of change. Specifically dealing with gender issues, I do think there tends to be a mentality of a zero sum game — if one isn’t focused on women’s issues, if one isn’t looking at gender through a feminist lens, if instead one is looking at men’s and boys’ issues not through any particular ideological lens but not necessarily in the same way feminists would, that that’s going to somehow detract from the important gains of girls and women. I’ve always been a human rights advocate, really, and that’s what ties my interest in CFI to men’s issues. And to me, human rights isn’t a zero sum game. It is possible to get activist for all kinds of human rights issues without, in any way, taking away from anybody else.

Q: So what are the human rights issues for men today?

A: Largely they pertain to the marginalization of men’s health and well-being. We’ll be looking at rates of male suicide, which are quite high, looking at male victimization in terms of domestic violence, in terms of sexual assault and other kinds of trauma. These are areas that get under-reported. We’re also looking at boys in education — boys are just not doing well in schools and the trends are in the wrong direction. And we’re looking at the consequences of fatherlessness and at the legal system with respect to how we deal with custody issues and whether there are some issues there with the family law courts which make it harder for fathers to be part of their children’s lives.