Get all the very latest news in Dublin straight to your email every single day Sign Up! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The organiser of a conference promoting men’s issues has dismissed critics who accuse the event of promoting sexist attitudes.

David Walsh, the chairman of advocacy group Men’s Voices Ireland, says he is seeking to provide a much-needed platform for topics that are otherwise not being discussed.

Speaking to Dublin Live ahead of this weekend’s annual Conference on Men’s Issues, he questioned why the event is labelled misogynistic.

Walsh said: “How is it that any time a group like us stands up to discuss men’s issues, we’re accused of sexism? It’s crazy.

“We haven’t mentioned anything about other people. All we are saying is that there are neglected issues as far as men are concerned, and we think they need attention.”

The one-day event, which takes place on November 18 in Dublin, will feature talks from Mr Walsh, Andy Hinds of Men’s Voice’s Ireland, author and journalist John Waters, and Matt and Nadine O’Connor of UK advocacy group Fathers4Justice.

On the agenda will be the high rate of male suicide, rulings against fathers in family courts, and what Walsh calls “the neglect of fatherhood”, all under the heading ‘Challenging Misandry’.

He explains: “Misandry is dislike of or contempt for men, which we see examples of in society all the time.”

Walsh highlights the Tory leadership contest in 2016 as an example, citing much-criticised comments by Andrea Leadsom that claimed it would be “sensible” to avoid hiring men to care for children because they might be paedophiles.

“That’s a great example of the outright hatred for men that’s out there”, he says.

He also points to the societal perception of domestic violence, one of six issues Men’s Voices Ireland campaigns on.

“Whenever you see domestic violence on television”, he says, “it’s always the man threatening a woman, never the other way around.

“We’re not saying it’s 50/50, but men still constitute a significant proportion of the victims.”

While data shows that less than one third of Irish domestic abuse victims are male, Men’s Voices Ireland takes particular aim at the Istanbul Convention.

He says: “That in itself says that violence against women is of such huge importance that it has to be tackled by a separate bill, as opposed to other forms of violence.

“Why isn’t it about violence, full stop? That would be inclusive.”

“This is a convention on violence against women and domestic violence. But here’s the thing; it’s never been discussed in the media or debated in the Dail.

“It’s about giving certain lobby groups for women like the NWCI what they want. They’re the ones who want it, and the Government don’t want to stand up and question it.”

In response, Cliona Loughnane, Women’s Health Coordinator with NWCI said the Istanbul Convention is “widely acknowledged as the blueprint for best practice” and that while “both men and women are victims of gender-based violence, the majority of victims are women”.

Walsh also campaigns against what he calls the “feminisation” of education, linking the increasing number of female teachers in Ireland to poorer performances among male pupils.

“Boys are underachieving in education”, he elaborates. “It’s a major problem, but there are issues surrounding education that people don’t want to debate either.

“One of them is the feminisation of the education system. The majority of teachers in primary education in Ireland are female, and the number of male teachers in secondary education has been falling rapidly.”

One 2013 study by the University of Kent suggests the problem may be down to in reinforced gender stereotypes, where men perform worse academically than women because they believe they will.

Walsh is critical of the Irish government for its perceived lack of willingness to look into the issue further.

He says: “We don’t have enough resources to investigate these things in Ireland, but they do deserve to be looked at with far more intent. And you won’t find any Government studies into why this is.”

But Walsh says that the Men’s Voices Conference won’t discuss what he admits are such controversial issues.

He says: “The views that we are talking about on Saturday are probably less contentious than domestic violence and the Istanbul convention.

“Matt O’Connor from Fathers4justice will be talking about his campaign and his experience of years campaigning for father’s rights in the UK, where the laws are much the same as those here.

"And John Waters will talk about what he considers to be the attack on fathers and family. He’s been writing about that for many years, but his views were never much taken into account.

“He’ll be talking about fatherhood, how it’s been neglected, and how fathers struggle for access to children largely when judgements are made in law courts.”

The disproportionate rate of suicide - where Irish men outnumber women by a ratio of four to one - will also be discussed.

Walsh says: “This is an issue which still has never been properly looked at. There has never been an investigation as to why it’s so much higher among men than women. It has never been looked at.

“We want to know the reasons why, and it’s quite extraordinary that this has never been properly investigated. We have our own suspicions as to why that is, although I'd prefer not to get into them now.”

When contacted by Dublin Live, a spokeswoman for a leading suicide-prevention charity said much work on the subject had been done by the National Suicide Research Foundation.

She added: “We have a much higher rate of completed suicide in men then we have in women, although women present to Emergency Departments with self-harm more regularly then men.”

Ultimately, the conference is just one way that Walsh is hoping to make Men’s Voices Ireland a counter to women’s lobby groups who, he claims, “just get what they want at every juncture”.

He says: “It’s okay for people to scream about women’s issues until kingdom come in the papers week in, week out, and there’s nothing said about that.

“But as soon as men raise a clamour about their issues, they’re accused of sexism. It doesn’t stand up. It’s completely threadbare.

“We’re saying that there are issues out there that need to be considered far more carefully.”