Durham Men’s soc refused ratification after criticism from Femsoc

No one was there to represent them

| UPDATED

Durham Men’s Issues Awareness Society has been refused ratification by the DSU Assembly after members of Durham Feminist Society stood up to criticise the group.

The society, who raised £850 for a homeless charity last year, were previously refused ratification on the grounds of having aims “too similar to Femsoc”.

However, this time around the activities officer had recommended them for ratification.

The President of the Men’s Issues Awareness Society, Adam Frost, suggested that he had never received any communication from the DSU in response to his second ratification submission, and had thus not turned up to the assembly to defend the group.

While it’s unclear to what extent he could have foreseen the need to defend the group at the assembly, he told The Tab:

“The Union did not inform me that the society was up for ratification; I received no communications regarding the subject after I submitted for ratification. As a result I did not turn up to defend it.

“This is the result of an ideological opposition to our society and amounts to nothing more than an attempt at censorship.”

The Tab contacted the DSU for comment:

“On Tuesday morning the below email was sent to Adam’s email address, as provided on the society application –

“Hi Adam,

I’m contacting you regarding your society application for Men’s Issues Awareness.

The society has been recommended for ratification by myself and an Engagement Facilitator, however some students have raised concerns over the application so I believe it would be very beneficial if you could attend Assembly on Thursday 5 May (7pm in ER148) and answer any questions that members of Assembly may have. The Assembly papers can be found online here.

Best wishes,

Kara-Jane Senior

Activities Officer

Durham Students’ Union”

“This was following on from an email sent to all the applicant societies at the end of March letting them know the next steps in the process, and that their society ratification would go before Assembly on 5 May.”

It is unclear why the group were up for ratification at all, given that the NUS Women Student’s Campaign has live policy which dictates that men’s societies should be directly opposed, and states that “Men do not suffer substantial discrimination directly as a result of their gender”. Although, admittedly, the DSU is not bound by NUS policy.

Due to human error, an earlier version of the article said the DSU provided no comment with was corrected on 11th May 2016.