[Note added 12.5.15: This story was originally published in February 2014.]

[Note added 2.3.14: This story has just been published by A Voice for Men.]

On 24 January 2014 Mike Buchanan was a speaker in a debate at Durham University, arguing for the motion, ‘This House believes feminists are all too often sexists in disguise’. One of the two women opposing the motion was Julie Bindel, a prominent lesbian gender feminist journalist. She publicly accused Mike of having lied in his presentation, and was later shown evidence proving that he hadn’t. She apologised privately to Mike, but declined to apologise publicly despite several polite requests, so Mike published this.

The government is bullying FTSE100 companies into appointing more female directors to their boards, by threatening legislated gender quotas if the companies haven’t ‘voluntarily’ achieved 25% female representation on their boards by 2015. The government’s longer term objective is 50% female representation on FTSE350 company boards, and it won’t stop there. Ever smaller companies will be affected over time.

So what’s known about the impact of increasing female representation on boards? Our associated organisation Campaign for Merit in Business – C4MB – points to five longitudinal studies which show that increasing female representation on boards leads to declines in corporate financial performance. The studies are referred to in a number of their posts, and have been included in a number of their documents. The C4MB briefing paper with the studies’ full Abstracts, along with links to the original studies, can be found here.

Mike Buchanan, the leader of C4MB, gave oral and written evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries, presenting these studies. Not one MP or peer challenged the evidence, nor presented any evidence of a positive impact of increasing female representation on boards – hardly surprising, since no evidence of the latter exists – yet the policy direction remains unchanged. It’s nothing less than an attack on a cornerstone of capitalism – the freedom of companies to appoint directors as they see fit.

Honey Badgers are women who self-identify as non-feminists, anti-feminists, or men’s human rights activists. They include:

Erin Pizzey

Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What)

Alison Tieman (Typhon Blue)

Janet Bloomfield (JudgyBitch)

Diana Davison

Zara Faris

Quiet Riot Girl

Aimee Nicholls

Callakenney

Female Fed Up With Feminism

Emma the Emo

… and many more.

Two years ago I was explaining about Honey Badgers to a relative of the female persuasion, when she laughed and asked if I wanted to see a YouTube video about the animals. I said I would, and it’s here (3:20). It’s been viewed by over 68 million people, more people than live in the UK. I haven’t checked our stats recently, but I believe that might be more people than have ever watched a J4MB video.

I sent the link to one of the senior people at A Voice for Men, the most-visited and most influential men’s human rights advocacy website in the world. She told me this particular video had been the inspiration for terming non-feminist and anti-feminist women ‘Honey Badgers’. It’s a term denoting deep appreciation for them.

We launched a new award in May 2014, ‘Gormless Feminist of the Month’. Our inaugural award was presented to not one gormless woman, but to a whole coven of them at the Fawcett Society. More recent awards:

May 2014: ‘Clean Break’ theatre company

June 2014: Eva Wiseman Observer columnist

July 2014: Yvette Cooper MP Shadow Home Secretary

August 2014: Jessica Valenti Guardian ‘journalist’

September 2014: The ‘Mancheeze’ blogger

October 2014: Laura Bates’s apologists

November 2014: Jo Swinson MP Junior Equalities Minister

December 2014: Scarlet Harris Women’s Equality Policy Officer, TUC

January 2015: Stephanie Laughlin Public Relations student, McGill University, Montreal

February 2015: Natalie Collins Silly feminist

This video attracted 5.2 million views in less than a week, after it was published online in May 2014. It has since attracted 3 million more viewers. Over 98% of the votes have been supportive. It was produced for the good people running one of the few charities in the UK supporting male victims of domestic violence, Mankind Initiative.

[Note added 12.5.15: We’ve introduced a ‘key posts’ bar on the menu, and re-publishing some pieces. This is one of them. We’ll be re-publishing a number of pieces on Laura Bates, aka ‘Special Snowflake’, the genius behind the Everyday Whining Project.]

[Note added 11.10.14: An updated version of this post has been published by A Voice for Men.]

[Note added 4.10.14: A link to the government statistics which prove that Laura Bates’s claim was a lie is here.]

[Note added 11.10.14: Some time after the BBC programme was aired, we discovered the courageous young man who challenged Laura Bates was Owen Davies, a student. We’ve released his name with his permission.]

Two nights ago, on a BBC3 television programme being broadcast live, we witnessed something quite remarkable. Laura Bates – The Everyday Whining Project – lied again about the number of women being killed by partners and ex-partners – the very lie which led to her first Lying Feminist of the Month award. Even more remarkable was that a young man in the audience called her out on her lie, referring to our public challenge of her, to which she still hasn’t responded.

Even by BBC standards, the programme Free Speech Live was very anti-male – ironically, given the title of the debate was, ‘Do we live in a sexist country?’. The panel consisted of four people – three women and a male comedian. One of the women, Angela Epstein, is a non-feminist, while the other three people are feminists. The (male) presenter was feminist-friendly. The vast majority of the studio audience were women. The piece started off with photographs and short video pieces from women only – hardly surprising, given that the BBC had solicited materials only from women. The whole programme couldn’t have been more sexist – anti-male.

We’ve loaded the debate onto our YouTube channel – here. We’ve added some commentary and identified the points when Laura Bates lied (twice, within the section  1:26 – 3:50). The undoubted star of the show was the young man in the audience who challenged Bates about her lie, at 2:39. We take our hats off to him, challenging a prominent feminist in a deeply hostile anti-male environment. Two other young men in the audience made some points, one of them mentioning MGM, but they were both ignored.

The best critique of the programme we’ve read so far is here. It catalogues the many areas in which British men and boys suffer from sexism, none of which were mentioned in the BBC programme.

A moving video interview with Paul Elam, we’ll link to new pieces daily as Dan’s hunger strike progresses. We obviously don’t want Dan to die, but he repeats in this video that he plans to sign a legally-binding DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order which will come into force if and when he falls into unconsciousness through lack of nutrition. Will the Canadian government permit a man (campaigning for refuges for male victims of domestic violence, and programmes to reduce the male suicide rate) to remain on a course slowly leading to his death, in front of a government building, with the progress being filmed and broadcast over the internet on a daily basis? So far, it looks as if the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

We’re big fans of Alison Tieman (TyphonBlue), a Canadian Honey Badger video maker who never disappoints. I met her last year at the Detroit international conference on men’s issues, and she was a delight. This video is typical of her work, in which she outlines the essence of complex issues in readily understood ways.

Another insightful piece from Janet Bloomfield, whose pieces are always worth reading. Her personal blog is well worth subscribing to, and it’s here.

Insightful pieces from Hannah Wallen – Part 1 and Part 2.