PARITY was first formed in 1986 as the Campaign for Equal State Pension Ages (CESPA), a wholly voluntary organisation concerned with the equal rights of men and women, and we achieved charitable status in January 2005 making us one of the longest established sex equality charities.
Our objects are currently those set out in the constitution, namely:
to promote and protect the equal rights of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil, political, economic social and cultural rights under the law;
to institute proceedings in the UK or appropriate European Courts for the purpose of establishing or protecting any such equal rights.
Through litigation in the courts applying European Union or European Convention law binding (by statute or treaty) in the UK, PARITY has instigated cases resulting in:
equal qualifying ages for men and women for exemption from NHS prescription charges (1995).
equal treatment for widowers and widows in survivors social security benefits and bereavement tax allowances (2001).
equal qualifying ages for men and women for winter fuel payments (2000).
equal qualifying ages for men and women for local bus travel concessions (2003).
Thirty three years later founder, David Yarwood, produced an excellent twelve page history of CESPA-PARITY in 2019. The history is a PDF file which can be viewed by clicking on the ‘History of PARITY’ button.
Our Organisation:
PARITY is a national non-party charity having no paid staff or public funding.
Because PARITY seeks changes in the law to redress statutory sex discrimination, it has been deemed in the past to be “political” and thus been denied charitable status. Its funding therefore depends entirely on subscriptions and donations from members and sympathetic individuals and organisation.
Since the advent of the 1998 Human Rights Act, however, charitable purposes have been broadened to include bona fide human rights activities and after further application, PARITY was eventually accepted as a registered Charity.
For More Information, Contact:
Rex Bourne, Chair PARITY
6 Foxglove End,
Leiston, Suffolk, IP16 4UT
Tel: 07904 003 947
email: [email protected]
Trustees:
Rex Bourne – Chair:
I am a very experienced Director and Manager with extensive business development, sales and account management experience and achievement in the spheres of health management, education, advertising and marketing, in television, newspapers, magazines, travel consultancy and the charitable sector. I am a leader & team player, self-motivated with a pro-active management style, excellent presentation skills and am well versed in varied client & customer service roles.
I am proud of my consistent record of service to my church and of my adult life-time community involvement and several volunteer roles, which compliment my business achievements. I have been a member of various boards since the 1990’s in non-executive director or trustee roles and have chaired 5 boards.
When the founder of PHASCA, in N14, invited me to become Chair of Trustees at the charity I readily agreed and have had no regrets. After seven years chairing that Charity, I co-founded 4-22 Foundation in January 2019 focusing on young people in areas of deprivation in Haringey N17. I currently share my volunteering time between Parity, the established national equality charity, which we are re-focusing to meet current challenges, boys’ education being just one; 4-22 Foundation where I spend a day a week and participating actively in my local community other Trustee roles, governing body and committees
I am fortunate to have some very committed and well connected and knowledgeable Trustees, all Volunteers, as colleagues, which makes my various jobs much less demanding than they could otherwise have been, which in turn enables me to spend some of my working week interviewing and appraising junior doctors in a lay oversight role, with Health Education England, as well as volunteering with Chicken Shed the eclectic multi-award winning theatre company for children with disabilities and those without, working harmoniously together and now recently with the Old Enfield Charitable Trust.
Currently my personal aim is to network further to help to achieve each of my charities’ objectives of and in building productive partnerships to further our aims and to increase our profiles, working alongside colleagues re-appraising policies, business plans and strategic development.
Andy Butterly – Vice Chair:
I have been a member of Parity since 2022 and was honoured to become Vice-Chair in May 2024. I am committed to advocating for
the rights and well-being of men and boys, addressing the unique challenges they face in society today.
I have recently founded a Community Interest Company (CIC) that provides rites of passage experiences for teenagers, with a focus on
underprivileged boys. Additionally, I volunteer with an organisation dedicated to mentoring young men who have encountered the criminal justice system, guiding them toward positive life paths. Since 2018, I have been actively campaigning for the establishment of a Minister for Men and Boys, believing that focused governmental attention is essential to address their specific issues and promote gender equality.
Professionally, I am a Management Consultant specialising in the healthcare sector, delivering efficiency improvements, increased
capacity and enhancing service delivery.
My work is rooted in a deep commitment to achieving sexual equality under the law and ensuring that all individuals, regardless of sex,
have the opportunity to thrive.
Chandrakant Vaghela – Hon. Secretary:
Chandrakant was born in Mombasa, Kenya in 1951. After completing his secondary education, he moved to Rugby, England and took up an apprenticeship with a large local employer. He graduated with honours in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and started his career in Quality Management, with responsibility for Quality Management Systems auditing.
He moved to London in 1984 to be employed by a newly formed certification body, a wholly owned subsidiary of a charitable association. He became a Lead Auditor of Quality Management Systems and gained Chartered Engineer status with the Institute of Marine Engineers. He had the privilege of leading the first independent assessment of a UK Certification Body that became the first UK accredited body. He provided consultancy in Quality Management Systems and led independent assessments world-wide in sectors – manufacturing, offshore, civil construction and even UK Government (HM Treasury). He held senior management roles in the company and had responsibility for staff recruitment and certification, including for the UK Medical Devices Directives.
Later he joined as a Quality Manager in charitable association providing approval of electrical contractors and domestic installers. He had responsibility for the consumer complaints against approved electrical contractors and domestic installers.
In the not-for-profit sector, he held secretarial role with the Indian Community Association in Rugby and later was the founding secretary of an Indian Community organisation in London for a number of years. He also had a role as a Schools Appeal Panel member for three years after which he was co-opted as Hon. Secretary of PARITY and then elected at their AGM in 2016.
John Mays – Ex-Officier Previous Chair Trustee:
I was born in 1932 in North London. My father died early and I together with my sister and mother lead a peripatetic existence during World War 2 landing up in Bristol. We endured a period of bombing but that’s where my formal education started.
I later went to a Grammar School in Bournemouth and from there to Merton College, Oxford. I graduated in 1954 and was promptly conscripted into the forces (as was every male in those days). I was commissioned and served in Hong Kong.
Upon demobilization, I joined an insurance company and returned to Hong Kong. I then worked in the Far East for 12 years (Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand) before returning to Europe and spending six years in Denmark.
I worked in London for some years before a period in Dubai. I finally returned to UK in 1990. I had become a Name at Lloyds and in the following six years until 1996 was Chairman of various action groups pursuing claims against the Lloyds hierarchy for financial misconduct. This involved extensive litigation but eventual great success.
I retired in 2004 and have been actively engaged in charity work since then (Parity, caring charities, and civic societies).
David Hyatt – Trustee:
I am proud to say that I am a feminist in the original sense of the word. That men and women are equal but not the same. That women deserve to be treated with respect, kindness and fairness. That men deserve the same!
I am a linguist, translator and teacher and spent 2 years as a student in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Societies with zero “feminism” in the political sense but with genuine gender equality and healthy social relations between the sexes. Women achieved great things – cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova who went into space decades before her western equivalent. Heroic women snipers who struck terror into the Wehrmacht. Outstanding women poets like Anna Akhmatova who challenged Stalinism.
International Women’s Day first took off in the Soviet Union and it was a great success. Devoid of toxic man-hating western feminism, it was a national festival of femininity. A sweet and romantic humanist celebration where men and women come together at all kinds of events to celebrate what it means to be human.
The “feminasties” are trashing and infantilising our society. Whether trying to destroy Alex Salmond’s career because he dared to flirt with work colleagues. Or hijacking and exploiting the tragic death of a young woman in order to push a spiteful misandrist agenda. Or now lying that schools are hotbeds of rape culture (sic!) because teenagers fancy each other……
I am involved with Parity because I wish to see the kind of idealistic genuinely feminist society that I observed years ago behind what was then the Iron Curtain. Now the feminasties are erecting a gender iron curtain of their own, as they herd us towards an orwellian, gender-supremacy nightmare world.
Organisations like Parity hopefully will play their part in helping to prevent this.