International Men’s Day

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) and to be in the Chamber with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who made a truly extraordinary speech.

I want to reassure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I will not be making a dad joke, not least because my father—a brilliant man—inspired in me the love of a deeply filthy joke. I suspect that such jokes are probably not parliamentary language, especially the one about the Bishop of Birmingham, so you will be relieved to hear that I am not going to tell it.

I am also proud to be speaking in this debate, and that it is taking place in this Chamber. In previous International Men’s Day debates that I have participated in, we have been relegated to Westminster Hall, so I am proud that we are here today. There are people who want to suggest that campaigners like myself, who have worked on women’s rights, do not care about men—that we do not know about men and do not understand them. I did actually put “Tell me facts about men” into ChatGPT. It told me that men have less sense than women—what it meant was less sensitive tastebuds and smell receptors. It also told me that men’s beards can house more bacteria than dog fur, although different types of bacteria; that most men own three pairs of shoes; and—my favourite one—that men are more likely than women to have an extra nipple.

I am not sure that looking to the internet to tell us about each other is the way forward, but from talking to men and boys in my constituency and across the country—and with pride in my colleagues in this place—I do know the challenges that we face in raising a generation of men and boys who can be happy and content with themselves. That is why I very much welcome the new men’s health strategy being introduced by the Health Secretary. This is not about trading off between the sexes. There is not a battle of the sexes; there is a bafflement about how we can help each other, because we are being pitted against each other in the very environment described by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough.

I take great hope that the evidence shows us that young men in this country are rejecting Andrew Tate, but they are crying out for something else—for alternatives. Samaritans tells us that 70% of men would live differently if they were free from social judgment, and I know many women for whom that would strike a chord. That is the challenge we are facing. We are putting the men and the boys in our lives under a huge amount of pressure. Nearly 40% of men say that contributing less than their partner makes them less of a man, and more than three in four Britons say that a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man. Yet men are so unhappy; that tells us that we can and should do things in this place to change that dynamic.

Men are not a homogenous lump. Women used to get mad about being treated in that way. We have a multitude of problems and challenges, and so do men. We see the rates of suicide, but we also see the variation. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for highlighting the difference for black men when it comes to prostate cancer, and the importance of developing a strategy that does not just see men with prostate cancer, but sees those challenges. I also look at the experience of disabled men in our society, who often find that they are being denied their own sense of identity in services.

In the time left to me, I want to add my voice to those calling for us to support men to be able to build positive relationships with their children from the get-go. Frankly, we missed the boat with the Employment Rights Bill and, as a result, we have reinforced the gender stereotype that it is ladies who do babies and men who need to go out to work. We must not make that same mistake again. I pay tribute to the work of Elliott Rae, Joeli Brearley, Pregnant Then Screwed and all the campaigners now making that case. Frankly, we have got the evidence that doing at least what the Women and Equalities Committee said to do—pay at 90% for six weeks of paternity leave—would be a step forward, both for our young boys and men to have each other at that critical point in life from the get-go, and for them to be there with the women who love them. I think of the latest young man in my life—Marlowe Jay, born last week, who is just starting his fight in life—and of his parents. I want better for him, like I want for every child in my constituency.