In the wake of Caroline Criado-Perez’s inevitable yet pathetic – and Pyrrhic – victory in shaming the Bank of England to put Jane Austen on £10 banknotes in 2017, and the ensuing predictable Twitter storm which played into the hands of feminists seeking censorship on Twitter and other social media – as it was intended to do – let’s consider the issue of the merit of Jane Austen replacing one of the greatest scientists of the Victorian era, Charles Darwin, on the banknote.

Well, feminists aren’t keen on merit as a reason for advancement, so you can see why Jane Austen would be a natural feminist icon. Two excerpts from her letters, cited in ‘Jane Austen’s Letters (1952), in Oxford Book of Quotations:

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)

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.)

As a female author, Austen won’t be criticised by feminists. But what about normal women, most notably those with an in-depth knowledge of literature? That’s another matter altogether. One such woman is clearly Frances Wilson, Literary Critic of the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2381041/Jane-Austen-banknote-So-dull-So-rated-Jane-Austen-doesnt-deserve-10-note.html

A short section from the piece:

Austen, who died in 1817 at the age of 41,  was the daughter of a Hampshire rector. She wrote six novels about well-to-do  families in, for the most part, rural England.

The books are regularly lauded as among the  finest in the English language. Fans find them bright and breezy, charming and  romantic. In fact, they are boring, nasty and superficial.

The virgin from the vicarage is perfectly  placed on a tenner — there could be no better home for her than the comfort of  the cash-register.

 

I’ve written at length about the impact of feminising workplaces, as have others. I see that the government has just given £500 million of taxpayers’ money to Accident and Emergency departments to help them deal with their staffing ‘crisis’. But why is there a crisis in the first place? Because for 30+ years the state has been steadily driving up the proportion of medical students who are women. Today 70% of medical students are women. Two months ago Melanie Phillips wrote of the problems arising from women doctors in the NHS:

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/melanie-phillips-on-female-doctors/

Female doctors are far more likely than male doctors to quit the profession, work part-time whether or not they have children, and are more likely to refuse to work unsocial hours and in the most stressful and demanding departments such as A&E.

It costs £250,000 to train a doctor. So what’s the Conservative-led coalition’s solution to the crisis? To increase the proportion of male medical students? Of course not. The ‘solution’ is to train more doctors, presumably 70% of them still women. Well, it’s only taxpayers’ money being flushed down the drain.

And what of the private sector? The American economist Milton Friedman wrote in Capitalism and Freedom (1962):

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible.

These days major companies are riddled with left-leaning executives and Corporate Social Responsibility (‘CSR’) consultants demanding they honour ever more onerous social responsibilities, regardless of the impact on the bottom line. Perhaps the most egregious practise is the relentless pandering to women in the workplace, whether it’s to increase the proportion of women on corporate boards – despite the compelling evidence that the consequence will be corporate financial decline – or to accommodate women’s needs and wishes to take time out of the workplace for child-related matters. Why should companies be any more accommodating of women in this area, than they would for men who wished to take significant time out of the workplace for other reasons?

And so it is that we have a relentless torrent of nonsensical pieces like this, almost always written by female reporters, male reporters seemingly unable to report on gender-related matters:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23600465

The piece starts with:

“More than a quarter of mothers in the UK feel discriminated against at work, a survey suggests.

A third of 1,975 women questioned for legal firm Slater and Gordon said they found it impossible to climb the career ladder and 54% said their employer could do more to support working mums.

Yet 35% thought they worked harder since having children.

Employers said businesses were better than ever at managing maternity leave and reintegrating mothers.

A total of 35% of the mothers questioned by One Poll in July said their workplace was not supportive of their situation when they were pregnant and 31% felt they were not well treated by their employer while on maternity leave.

Some 27% said they had felt under pressure to return to work earlier than they wanted too.

Once back in the workplace, 29% felt they had been overlooked for a promotion because they had responsibilities as a mother.”

Only from a whining female perspective could these numbers be deemed problematical. Let’s flip the numbers to see why:

“Almost three-quarters of mothers in the UK didn’t feel discriminated against at work, a survey suggests.

Two-thirds of 1,975 women questioned for legal firm Slater and Gordon said they found it possible to climb the career ladder and 46% said their employer could do more to support working mums.

65% didn’t think they worked harder since having children.

Employers said businesses were better than ever at managing maternity leave and reintegrating mothers.

A total of 65% of the mothers questioned by One Poll in July said their workplace was supportive of their situation when they were pregnant and 69% felt they were well treated by their employer while on maternity leave.

Some 73% said they hadn’t felt under pressure to return to work earlier than they wanted too.

Once back in the workplace, 71% felt they hadn’t been overlooked for a promotion because they had responsibilities as a mother.”

[Update: this is the associated news story:

http://www.timesnews.net/article/9017931/preaching-turns-violent-at-middle-tennessee-state-university-1-female-student-arrested-for-assault ]

My thanks to Reyeko MRA for posting this video, which allegedly shows a feminist making a false sexual assault allegation before seriously injuring an innocent man, then exulting in what she’s done.

http://reyekomra.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/this-is-what-feminism-looks-like/

Reyeko comments:

Notice the crowd cheering.

Notice how proud she looks afterwards KNOWING she just seriously injured an innocent man.

Notice that just in every other instance of history where a target demographic has had a threat narrative levelled against them the most egregious actions towards them become not only acceptable but admirable.

THIS is what feminism looks like.

Would a scene in which a man slapped a woman across the face, after she’d just given him a chicken snack, be deemed acceptable for a fast food advert? Of course not. But what if we do a gender switch? Hilarious, apparently, or so the marketing people at KFC appear to believe:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/kfc-slaps-men-to-sell-chicken/

I urge supporters of J4MB to boycott KFC until and unless the company withdraws this advert. I’ve just signed an online petition which will be sent to John Cywinski, the President of KFC USA, and ask you to do the same. It will take very little time:

http://www.change.org/petitions/kentucky-fried-chicken-stop-making-light-of-domestic-violence?share_id=DheJoEgRRh&utm_campaign=signature_receipt&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

To put this in a ‘real world’ context, let’s remind ourselves of the overwhelming evidence that women are at least as aggressive as men with respect to their intimate partners:

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/women-are-as-physically-aggressive-or-more-aggressive-in-their-relationships-with-spouses-or-male-partners/

Enjoy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/katie-hopkins/twitter-silence-and-twitter-abuse_b_3712865.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

My warm thanks to a lady supporter, JT, for emailing me this a moment ago:

http://www.literaturepage.com/read/woman-of-no-importance-45.html

The most inspired lines on the page are, of course, these:

LORD ILLINGWORTH. The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

The Irish genius wrote these lines 120 years ago. Will the rest of the world catch up with him one day?

My thanks to GM for pointing me to a timely and strong piece by Brendan O’Neill for the online publication he edits, Spiked:

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the_hysteria_over_trolls_is_a_classic_moral_panic/#.UgJnIt5wavF

Brendan wrote another piece we posted not long ago, ‘John Locke v Harriet Harman’. John Locke won, you’ll be relieved to learn.

 

The following is the full text of our proposal on abortion law reform, and associated background information, in the latest draft of our public consultation document.

PROPOSAL

The Abortion Act (1967) should be amended to remove the right to have elective abortions on the grounds of increased risk of injury to mental health if the pregnancy isn’t terminated. There’s no evidence to support the claim that abortion reduces the risk of injury to mental health. These grounds have been misused to offer women ‘abortion on demand’, which wasn’t the stated intention of the Act when it was introduced.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

There’s a growing awareness that 97% of the abortions carried out in England, Wales, and Scotland, are being carried out on grounds which may be illegal. The Abortion Act (1967) permits elective abortions to be performed on numerous grounds, when authorised by two medical practitioners. One of the grounds is to reduce the risk of injury to the mental health of women.

However, there is no evidence to support the thesis that abortion reduces the risk to mental health of women with an unwanted pregnancy, and some evidence to suggest that abortion increases the risk to mental health, so medical practitioners who authorise abortions on mental health risk grounds are doing so in the knowledge that there’s no body of research to support their authorisations.

It’s estimated that by the time of the 2015 general election, approximately 8.2 million elective abortions will have been performed under the terms of the Abortion Act (1967) – more than the current combined populations of Scotland and Wales, or London.

In 2012, in England and Wales, 185,122 abortions were carried out on women residing in the two countries.³⁹ 180,117 of them (97%) were carried out under grounds ‘C’ of the Abortion Act, ‘the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman (section 1(1)(a)).’

Of the 180,117 abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2012 under these grounds, 180,008 (99.94%) were carried out on the grounds of reducing the risk of injury to the women’s mental health.

There is no evidence to support the thesis that abortion reduces the risk of injury to the mental health of women with unwanted pregnancies. In December 2011 The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health published a 252 page report for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, ‘Induced Abortion and Mental Health: a systematic review of the mental health outcomes of induced abortion, including their prevalence and associated factors’.⁴⁰

Among the key findings of the report (p.8) was:

The rate of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy were the same whether they had an abortion or gave birth.

In April 2013 the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry published a report, ‘Does abortion reduce the mental health risks of unwanted or unplanned pregnancy? A re-appraisal of the evidence’.⁴¹

The full conclusion of the report was:

There is no available evidence to suggest that abortion has therapeutic effects in reducing the mental health risks of unwanted or unintended pregnancy. There is suggestive evidence that abortion may be associated with small to moderate increases in risks of anxiety, alcohol misuse, illicit drug use, and suicidal behaviour.

REFERENCES

³⁹ https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/211790/2012_Abortion_Statistics.pdf

⁴⁰ http://www.nccmh.org.uk/publications_SR_abortion_in_MH.html

⁴¹ http://anp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/04/02/0004867413484597

 

We’ve just added proposals on MGM, along with background information, to our public consultation document, which is downloadable through this link:

https://j4mbdotorgdotuk.wordpress.com/our-public-consultation-exercise-2/

The full text of our proposals and background information:

PROPOSALS

As a party we respect freedom of conscience, however, the government should work with those in various faith communities (Jewish, Muslim, some Christian traditions, and others) who oppose MGM, or who advocate for far less extreme versions of the practice, and shape policy in this area to be sensitive to religious sensibilities but work to reduce or eliminate the practice.

Only medical practitioners should be permitted to perform MGM, and only in registered medical premises. All MGM operations should be registered, the reason(s) for them being carried out recorded, and the related information passed to the Department of Health. Key data to be made available to the public, including aggregated figures for the number of operations carried out on males for different reasons (e.g. medical reasons, a faith requirement…), by age band, for each of the  different faith traditions.

MGM must only be performed after the application of local anaesthetic.

Taking males under the age of 18 abroad to have the operation performed in other countries should be a criminal offence.

Men may choose voluntarily to have MGM performed any time after their 18^th birthdays.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The law in the UK doesn’t permit any form of female circumcision – female genital mutilation ‘FGM’. We believe men and boys should enjoy the same legal protection as women and girls.

In the vast majority of cases, MGM is performed solely for cultural or religious reasons. MGM frequently leads to complications – sometimes resulting in death, from bleeding – and it’s now widely accepted that at least in developed countries, MGM doesn’t have the health benefits (for males or their partners) which were at one time widely claimed. The practise is increasingly being opposed by people in religious traditions which have long required or recommended it.⁴²

Quite apart from potential adverse physical and mental health consequences, a number of authorities are strongly opposed to MGM on ethical grounds.⁴³

The British campaigner Glen Poole, who leads the ‘Helping Men’ organisation⁴⁴ also runs the blog, ‘Ending Unnecessary Male Circumcision in the UK’.⁴⁵

There’s clear medical evidence showing that one consequence of MGM is a marked reduction in the sensitivity of the penis, reducing circumcised men’s pleasure during sex.^46,47

REFERENCES

⁴² http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/62011NewsRelease.htm

⁴³ http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/07/podcast-the-ethics-of-infant-male-circumcision/

⁴⁴ http://helpingmenblog.blogspot.co.uk

⁴⁵ http://endmalecircumcision.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.html

⁴⁶ http://www.avoiceformen.com/updates/news-updates/proof-its-mutilation/

⁴⁷ https://j4mb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/3acd5-130726-paper-on-male-circumcision.pdf

It’s just come to our attention that the security of our Facebook page was breached last night. We’re investigating the matter, we’ve deactivated the account, and we’ll only reactivate it once we’re sure it’s fully secure. We apologise for any inconvenience.