Glosswitch is whining about young women’s problems with food, weight, blah, blah, blah, in a New Statesman blog piece today:

http://www.newstatesman.com/magazines/2013/07/young-womens-stark-choice-be-utterly-obsessed-food-or-be-considered-too-fat

I recommend you read at least the comment thread which follows it. Collectively, they say, ‘Women – take responsibility for yourselves!!!’ I imagine most or even all such comments will be ‘pulled’, as will mine – the New Statesman has pulled many of my comments in the past. Mine is a somewhat calmer contribution than many others in this comment thread:

“Maybe – just maybe – women are more interested than men in their appearance (and therefore their weight) because women get a far higher return on attractiveness than men, e.g. attracting and retaining better-off partners? If that’s unfair, it’s arguably a damned sight more unfair on men than women.

All humans have stark choices:

1. Consume more calories than you expend, and gain weight.

2. Consume fewer calories than you expend, and lose weight.

3. Consume the same calories as you expend, and maintain weight.

Young women need to do what everyone else has to do, to take responsibility for themselves. Putting a female spin on the issue of obesity is whining, and weight stories should be directed to Laura Bates’s ‘Everyday Whining Project’ which has – ironically – a limitless appetite for such nonsense.

Will women never stop infantilising women – both others, and themselves?

Have a nice day.

Mike Buchanan

JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS

(and the women who love them)

http://atomic-temporary-215937230.wpcomstaging.com “

My thanks to a supporter for pointing me towards a short but wonderful piece by Jan Moir in today’s Daily Mail, ‘Is Harriet becoming unhinged?’ It’s about halfway down the page:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2378414/JAN-MOIR-Why-DO-Left-sneer-Camerons-bid-block-porn.html

The ‘Harriet’ in question is, of course, Harriet Harman MP. To my mind the woman was already unhinged when she entered the House of Commons in 1982. Dear God, that was 31 years ago. Will the damned woman never stop her assaults on British men? She married Jack Dromey – an MP since 2010 – in 1982. Have you ever seen a more miserable-looking man? I expect he wakes up each morning and mutters softly to himself, ’31 years.. 31 years!!!’, before bursting into tears. Which would be a perfectly rational response to his situation, to be fair.

Professor Jack Scarisbrick is the Life National Chairman of Life, a pro-life charity http://lifecharity.org.uk. Last Tuesday the Daily Mail published a letter from him. The figure of 96.4% of abortions (in the title of this post) is calculated by multiplying the figures of 97% and 99.4% in the published letter. When the 1967 Abortion Bill was ‘sold’ to the British people, the proponents were adamant that the resulting Act wouldn’t result in ‘abortion on demand’. Were they naïve, misguided, or simply lying?

Professor Scarisbrick’s letter:

“The most recent (2012) figures published by the Department of Health show that once again the overwhelming majority of abortions – 97 per cent – were carried out on the grounds that continuing the pregnancy would involve risk to the mental or physical health of the women ‘greater than if the pregnancy were terminated’.

Of these, 99.4 per cent were done on mental health grounds. Just over 180,000 pregnancies were terminated because abortion was judged to be better for the women’s mental health than having their baby.

Only 108 abortions were undertaken to protect physical health. On 180,000 occasions, two doctors gave their professional opinion that giving birth would be more damaging psychologically to the women concerned than ending those pregnancies.

The latest Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (‘RCOG’) guidelines on the care of women requesting an abortion say women with an unintended pregnancy ‘are no more or less likely to suffer adverse psychological consequences if they have an abortion or continue with the pregnancy and have the baby’.

A massive review entitled Induced Abortion and Mental Health was published by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (‘AMRC’). It was compiled by the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health set up by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Psychological Society, and paid for by the Department of Health.

It, too, concluded that ‘the rates of mental problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same, whether they had an abortion or gave birth’. But several factors might result in post-abortion problems, such as a previous history of mental disease, pressure from a partner to have an abortion, ‘negative attitudes towards abortion’, or the women’s ‘personal experience of the abortion’.

The Abortion Act requires that the doctors who give their assent or carry out the abortion are acting ‘in good faith’. If all these doctors ignore what the specialists of the RCOG and AMRC are saying about the mental health outcomes of what they’re doing, are they really acting in good faith? If not, those abortions aren’t protected by the Abortion Act. [My emphasis]

It looks as though 98 per cent of all abortions don’t meet the requirements of the law. So what is the Department of Health doing about it? Why has no Minister for Health or law officer taken any action?

The law is being made to look an ass, and profound damage is being done to women’s minds and sometimes their bodies. We should wake up to what the Abortion Act has done to our society.”

About 18 months ago Campaign for Merit in Business http://c4mb.wordpress.com was launched, with the aim of campaigning against the government’s initiatives to drive up the number of women in senior positions in business and elsewhere, regardless of the number of women with sufficient merit to perform those roles as well as the best available men.

Soon after coming to power in May 2010, David Cameron appointed the Labour peer, Lord Davies of Abersoch, to prepare a report recommending how – not whether – the proportion of women in senior positions in major organisations could be increased. The infamous Davies Report was published in February 2011, and we doubted at the time if Harriet Harman could have objected to a single sentence in it. One of its key recommendations was that if FTSE100 boards didn’t have 25% female representation by 2015, the government should consider introducing gender quotas to force them to do so.

The consequences of this recommendation were predictable. In 2010, the year before the report was published, just 13% of newly-appointed FTSE100 directors were women. In 2012, the year after the report was published, 55% of newly-appointed FTSE100 directors were women. Nearly all these women, in common with nearly all the existing female directors in the FTSE100, were appointed as non-executive directors.

Our concerns over the government’s initiatives – and the capitulation to them by big businesses, the CBI, and other organisations – stemmed nor only from the initiatives being anti-meritocratic, but from the growing evidence base which shows that increasing female representation on boards leads to declined in corporate financial performance. Specifically, we pointed to five longitudinal studies, and here’s our briefing paper on the matter, with links to those five studies:

http://c4mb.wordpress.com/improving-gender-diversity-on-boards-leads-to-a-decline-in-corporate-performance-the-evidence/

Not one longitudinal study, from anywhere in the world, provides evidence to support the formerly commonly stated assertion that there was a business case – a case based upon improved financial results – to increase the proportion of women on corporate boards. Such claims were routinely made at one time by David Cameron, Vince Cable, and others, but since Campaign for Merit in Business engaged with House of Lords and House of Commons inquiries, such silly assertions are no longer being made.

I invite anyone with an interest in the campaign’s work, and wishing to learn more, to email me at mb1957@hotmail.co.uk.

I was very interested to read an article written by Godfrey Bloom, a UKIP MEP, published today on Michael Klein’s website, ‘Science Files’. Of all the British political parties with a high profile, UKIP is by some distance the most committed to meritocracy (e.g. it calls for an expansion of the grammar school sector, and its leader, Nigel Farage, is on record as opposing gender quotas for boardrooms, and elsewhere). Godfrey Bloom’s article is titled, ‘The absurdity of gender quotas for boardrooms’. Enjoy:

http://sciencefiles.org/2013/07/26/godfrey-bloom-the-absurdity-of-gender-quotas-for-boardrooms-a-politicians-view

 

Female circumcision – ‘female genital mutilation’, or ‘FGM’, as feminists invariably term it – is illegal in the UK, and across most of the developed world, which the vast majority of people, including everyone at J4MB, agree is ‘a good thing’. So why isn’t male genital mutilation (‘MGM’) also illegal? Wouldn’t that also be ‘a good thing’? A short but illuminating article on the subject:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/updates/news-updates/proof-its-mutilation/

In the Jewish community, at least, voices of reason are starting to oppose MGM:

http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/62011NewsRelease.htm

An academic paper, published in 2007, on the impact of MGM:

130726 paper on male circumcision

The paper’s Conclusions:

The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.

This poses an obvious question – should we add MGM to our public consultation document? Email me at mb1957@hotmail.co.uk with your thoughts. Thank you.

An interesting perspective on the ‘Jane Austen on banknotes’ story from a leading American lady blogger:

http://judgybitch.com/2013/07/25/appease-the-shrieking-feminists-and-they-will-still-piss-and-moan-jane-austen-is-the-wrong-sort-of-woman-to-grace-a-bank-note-she-liked-men-and-she-understood-economics-obviously-jane-sucks/

We recently posted a link to a video of contestants in the Miss USA (2011) competition, in which they were asked, ‘Should maths be taught in school?’ The video’s a gem, and just 2:15 long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QBv2CFTSWU

The video is – of course – a spoof, otherwise you’d have to feel very sorry for men living in Vermont. It was inspired by genuine interviews of the 51 contestants, who responded to the question, ‘Should evolution be taught in schools?’ Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkBmhM0R2A0

An interesting new article by Della Burton, a men’s rights activist, on the phenomenon of Men Going Their Own Way (‘MGTOW’):

http://www.avoiceformen.com/sexual-politics/m-g-t-o-w/you-asked-for-it/

[Note added 25 July – for an alternative perspective on the ‘Jane Austen on banknotes’ story, I recommend the following piece by one of my favourite American lady bloggers:

http://judgybitch.com/2013/07/25/appease-the-shrieking-feminists-and-they-will-still-piss-and-moan-jane-austen-is-the-wrong-sort-of-woman-to-grace-a-bank-note-she-liked-men-and-she-understood-economics-obviously-jane-sucks/ ]

The inevitable has come to pass. In response to the simulated outrage which whiny feminists – Laura Bates (The Everyday Whining Project) and Caroline Criado-Perez among them, inevitably – felt over the replacement of Elizabeth Fry by Winston Churchill on banknotes, and their highly organised whinefests, the Bank of England has caved in and declared that from 2017, £10 notes will feature the authoress Jane Austen. Need we point out that without Winston Churchill, British feminists would now be whining in German, which must surely be far more difficult than whining in English?

The BoE’s capitulation should come as no surprise to anyone. It’s riddled with feminists, as we revealed over a year ago:

http://c4mb.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/positive-discrimination-for-women-at-the-bank-of-england/

A ‘crowdfunding’ appeal to seek funds for a legal challenge against the BoE raised a lot of money. Given that there isn’t now going to be a legal challenge – quelle surprise – the money will be handed over to whiny feminist campaigning organisations, including the Fawcett Society, to finance yet more whining. Joy. The feminist strategy of ‘winning through whining’ isn’t going to slow down any time soon.

So, what should we make of the choice of Jane Austen for the £10 banknotes? Is there a covert anti-feminist at the BoE, laughing his socks off tonight? Let’s consider the following gems:

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. (Letter, 11 December 1815. ‘Jane Austen’s Letters’ – 1952)

One of Edward’s Mistresses was Jane Shore, who has had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy and therefore not worth reading. (‘The History of England’ – 1791)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can. (‘Mansfield Park’ – 1814)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. (‘Pride and Prejudice’ – 1813)

How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them! (Letter to Cassandra Austen, 31 May 1811, after the Battle of Albuera, 16 May 1811. ‘Jane Austen’s Letters’ – 1952)

Julie Bindel tweeted her disappointment over the choice of Jane Austen an hour ago. One of my literary heroes is Mark Twain. Here are some of his comments about Ms Austen:

Jane Austen’s books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.  ‘Following the Equator’ (1897)

To me Edgar Allan Poe’s prose is unreadable – like Jane Austen’s. No, there is a difference. I could read his prose on a salary, but not Jane’s. (Mark Twain’s Letters)

It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death. (Letter to W. D. Howells, 18 January 1909.)

So has the whiny feminist campaign to put Jane Austen on £10 banknotes been a Pyrrhic victory for feminists? Of course it has. Haha.

My thanks to Emily for making me aware of this excellent video library:

http://www.youtube.com/WomanAgainstFeminism