University of York Cancels International Men’s Day

According to The Yorker, the University of York has no 

plans this year to celebrate International Men’s Day 

on November 19th. This comes after a highly publicised incident last year when 

the university was forced to cancel the event under pressure 

from feminist academics and members of the York Student’s Union.

A University of York spokesperson released a statement 
detailing their decision:

There are no events planned for International Men’s Day (IMD) 
on 19 November. We are, however, addressing some of the issues 
highlighted by IMD, including men’s mental health, with a series 
of events over the academic year. 
This term we launched an integrated campaign to highlight the 
positive steps all students can take to look after their mental health 
and the support available for those who need it. 
Further information on student health and wellbeing is available at:   https://www.york.ac.uk/students/health/. 
We remain strongly committed to the principle of gender equality 
and to the creation of a positive environment which is fair, 
welcoming and inclusive and where everyone is treated with 
dignity and respect.

This is the second year in the row that the university will not hold 
anything to mark International Men’s Day. 
Last year, 200 feminist student activists and professors signed 
an open letter demanding that the university cancel their planned 
events because of apparent “misogynistic rhetoric.” 
The administration quickly caved, saying that “the main focus of 
gender equality work should continue to be on the inequalities faced 
by women, and in particular the under-representation of women in 
the professoriate and senior management.”

The day after the university had kowtowed to the regressives, 
it was discovered that a male student at the university had unfortunately committed suicide less than 24 hours before the decision was reached. 
Even though male suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 
in the UK, and a key issue that IMD concentrates on, 
the University held fast. A petition that was launched to reinstate the 
event eventually collected over 4,000 signatures, 20 times the amount 
on the original open letter.

One student at York told Breitbart News that the refusal for York to mark 
IMD this year showed that the university “had learned nothing” 
from the previous incident.

Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular 
contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter 
@ToryBastard_, on Gab @JH or email him at jack@yiannopoulos.net.

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