Jessica Valenti wins her second ‘Gormless Feminist of the Month’ award

Last August Jessica Valenti, a particularly dim-witted Guardian columnist, won a ‘Gormless Feminist of the Month’ award. Her certificate is here.

Our thanks to Toy Soldiers for spotting an article she wrote yesterday, and comparing the headline with the headline of an article she wrote barely a year earlier – here. We thank Ms Valenti for nominating herself for a second award, and her certificate is below. Because she’s worth it.

Ian McNicholl: ‘We need to help individual victims of domestic abuse, whatever their gender.’

Polly Neate (CEO, Women’s Aid) recently wrote one of her trademark ideologically-driven pieces on domestic violence for the Telegraph. A far better article was written in response, by Ian McNicholl, a survivor of domestic violence, and an ambassador for the Mankind Initiativehere. A link to Neate’s article is early in the piece.

In June 2014 we challenged Neate to retract seven lies and misleading statements made by Franki Hackett, a Women’s Aid spokeswoman, in the course of an online Telegraph debate with Glen Poole. Our blog piece on the matter, with a link to the video footage, is here.

It hardly needs saying that Neate treated the challenge with contempt, and refused to retract the lies and misleading statements. While the mainstream media fail to challenge lying feminists – as they have failed to do for decades – feminists will continue to lie shamelessly.

Ms Hackett’s ‘Lying Feminist of the Month’ award certificate is here.

Our piece on the gender pay gap, and pay transparency, is ‘live’ again on ‘The Conservative Woman’ website

Last Wednesday The Conservative Woman republished my piece on David Cameron’s introduction of gender pay audits. The audits, which feminists have been agitating for over many years, are designed to quantify the ‘gender pay gap’, with a view to eliminating it in time, regardless of the fact that the gap – where it exists, on average, for those over 40 – is not attributable to employers discriminating against women, but to gender-typical life choices made by men and women.

There is no problem to be solved by gender pay audits, or any other feminist-inspired initiatives.

The piece became unavailable during a data transfer between servers, but it was made available again on Saturday morning – here. Unfortunately the lengthy exchange of comments has been permanently lost, but there are 12 new comments, including some of my own, and I invite you to add your own comments. Thank you.

‘Privileged feminists STUNNED by empirical evidence.’ TV discussion between Mike Buchanan and feminists – 490,000+ views.

We’ve had a considerable number of interviews on radio and television since we launched the party in February 2013, and 100+ of them are on our YouTube channel. From the outset we’ve moderated comments on all our blogs, to stop feminists wasting our time, and that of our supporters. Our blogs, other than this one:

Campaign for Merit in Business
Anti-Feminism League (dormant)
The Alternative Sexism Project
Men Shouldn’t Marry

The only downside to comment moderation is that people sometimes have to wait a while for their comments to be published, so it doesn’t encourage lively debate. So we’re grateful to a number of people for featuring our interviews without moderating comments, thereby stimulating debate and views.

Perhaps foremost among them at the moment is Captain Nemo. Our thanks to Chloe for emailing us to say that a number of our videos on his channel have had 60,000+ views, and one has had 200,000+, one of my London Live interviews, in the course of which an entertaining female student (on Skype) said it was important that more young women enter the field of engineering… while she herself was studying fashion journalism. Enjoy.

I’ve just looked again over Captain Nemo’s video library, and spotted that one piece has attracted 240,000+ views, my interview with Frances Finn on Nottingham TV – Feminist Lies Shattered by Men’s Rights Activist. [Update 1.4.16: The piece has now attracted 490,000+ views.]

My thanks to Captain Nemo for all his hard work.

Feminists and progressives – Fabian_Solutions lets the cat out of the bag

Three days ago The Conservative Woman published my piece on how David Cameron’s plans to force large firms (250+ employees) to report their ‘gender pay gaps’ will inevitably inflate the average incomes of women and deflate the average incomes of men, regardless of the merit of individual workers. The piece led to lively exchanges of comments including many from ‘Fabian_Solutions’ and ‘Feminist_Future’, mostly the predictable tired nonsense about the patriarchy, societal expectations, gender stereotyping, blah, blah, blah…

Late that evening, the technical team at TCW were migrating data from one server onto another, and a number of pieces didn’t transfer, including mine. Happily it was republished this morning, but sadly with the loss of the comments stream (hopefully it will reappear at some point).

Fabian_Solutions posted one lengthy and illuminating contribution, in response to one of my comments, and we happened to capture it at the time. It simply confirmed what anti-feminist commentators including Herbert Purdy have long been saying about the corruption and manipulation of institutions by feminists and progressives:

You still don’t get it, do you? You’re trying to fight the culture war, but you don’t realize you’ve already lost it and we progressives have won.

I don’t often say this to people, but I’m so certain of our absolute victory there’s nothing to be lost from revealing a few things to you.

The “Culture Wars” reached public attention in the 1960s, although the philosophical roots of the struggle had been fought for decades earlier. However, the 60s and 70s were the last period when the conservative movement still had a realistic chance to turn the tide, in Britain and the US.

However, your key error was to fail to understand the bigger picture. You concentrated on the superficialities, like explicit pop lyrics and sex on TV, without realizing that the real underlying battle was taking place behind the scenes in the media, academia and political structures of the land. That is where we Feminists and progressives concentrated our efforts, with the long term in mind.

By the 1980s and 1990s, the effects of this were gradually being seen, as the pre-war generation retired and the baby boomer generation, which we had been able to reach out to with our radical ideas, began to take over positions of influence. Social conservatism was still widespread, in the shape of Thatcher and Whitehouse, but the tide was in our favour.

By the 2000s, the progressive baby boomer generation was in charge and before long, virtually every former bastion of social conservatism was under our control. Even the Daily Telegraph and the military have fallen. The ease with which gay marriage was passed is proof of how powerful we progressives had become and how completely we now dominate every institution.

I don’t mean to sound triumphalist, but I actually feel excited about the next 50 years. With the reactionary and regressive force of social conservatism now expunged, the generation now at school will be the first one to live their lives with virtually no conservative influence whatsoever – with no prejudice about gay marriage, who are used to mothers working and earning more than men. The possibilities are endless.

Karen Straughan: Why MRAs attack feminism

It’s always a treat to encounter new content from Karen Straughan (‘GirlWritesWhat’) and this video is no exception. An edited transcript has just been published by A Voice for Men.

If you’re not familiar with Karen’s output, you need to change that. I don’t know an MRA who hasn’t learned a good deal from her work, and it was a delight to meet and socialise with her at the 2014 Detroit Conference on Men’s Issues. Her YouTube channel is here.

Herbert Purdy responds to a comment by Fabian_Solutions on ‘The Conservative Woman’ website

One of the reasons we moderate our blog comments is to minimize the time wasted by feminists posting nonsense. But sometimes I (and J4MB supporters) engage in exchanges with feminists on other websites, not to persuade them through rational arguments to reconsider their positions – that would be impossible – but to inform other readers of some of our arguments and sources of information.

Earlier today an excellent new piece was posted on The Conservative Woman website, Laura Perrins’s Women must do as they are told. Study science, forget children, and earn a lot. Into the comments stream (predictably) stormed two jack-booted FemiNazis, ‘Feminist_Future’ and ‘Fabian_Solutions’.

Fabian_Solutions posted a lengthy series of comments, which were ludicrous even by her woeful standards:

A List of Men’s Rights Issues That Feminism Is Already Working On

Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children. The assumption that women are naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not like commercials in which bumbling dads mess up the laundry and competent wives have to bustle in and fix it. The assumption that women are naturally better housekeepers is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments. Alimony is set up to combat the fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties over professional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their “traditional” marriages end. The assumption that wives should make babies instead of money is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to get raped in prison. Permissiveness and jokes about prison rape are part of rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want anyone to be falsely accused of rape. False rape accusations discredit rape victims, which reinforces rape culture, which is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be lonely and we do not hate “nice guys.” The idea that certain people are inherently more valuable than other people because of superficial physical attributes is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to have to pay for dinner. We want the opportunity to achieve financial success on par with men in any field we choose (and are qualified for), and the fact that we currently don’t is part of patriarchy. The idea that men should coddle and provide for women, and/or purchase their affections in romantic contexts, is condescending and damaging and part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be maimed or killed in industrial accidents, or toil in coal mines while we do cushy secretarial work and various yarn-themed activities. The fact that women have long been shut out of dangerous industrial jobs (by men, by the way) is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to commit suicide. Any pressures and expectations that lower the quality of life of either gender are part of patriarchy. The fact that depression is characterized as an effeminate weakness, making men less likely to seek treatment, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be viewed with suspicion when you take your child to the park (men frequently insist that this is a serious issue, so I will take them at their word). The assumption that men are insatiable sexual animals, combined with the idea that it’s unnatural for men to care for children, is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want you to be drafted and then die in a war while we stay home and iron stuff. The idea that women are too weak to fight or too delicate to function in a military setting is part of patriarchy.

Feminists do not want women to escape prosecution on legitimate domestic violence charges, nor do we want men to be ridiculed for being raped or abused. The idea that women are naturally gentle and compliant and that victimhood is inherently feminine is part of patriarchy.

Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.

If you really care about those issues as passionately as you say you do, you should be thanking feminists, because feminism is a social movement actively dedicated to dismantling every single one of them. The fact that you blame feminists—your allies—for problems against which they have been struggling for decades suggests that supporting men isn’t nearly as important to you as resenting women. We care about your problems a lot. Could you try caring about ours?

I limited myself to this short reply:

Your comments are too silly for words, they’ve been discredited countless times, and I won’t waste my time on them. But I particularly enjoyed this gem:

‘Feminists hate patriarchy. We do not hate you.’

Cue the legendary video of the Canadian feminist ‘Big Red’ in full flight, which ends with those exact words, and a final choice one. Enjoy.

Herbert Purdy delivered an altogether more substantive riposte to Fabian_Solutions, which takes up the remainder of this blog piece:

Having watched and read your comments in this and other fora with increasing disgust (for example your triumphalist assertions of a feminist progressive infiltration of our entire society and that you have now ‘won’), I cannot allow your ravings to go unremarked any longer.

You seem to have no vestige of understanding that simply pouring out words expressing ideas that are so far removed from people’s empirical observation is not going to work. What you are saying is nothing short of raving, frankly. You are denying the truth, and that makes what you say naked propaganda. Who on earth do you think you are kidding? You are clearly irretrievably radicalised by feminist sophistry to the extent that you have lost touch with reason.

Just a few days ago, Dean Esmay from A Voice for Men in the United States said something that speaks directly to what you have said above. I can do no better than quote him to you:

“In the 1970s friends of mine were facing bomb and death threats, censorship, and harassment. It has not changed in the 40 years since then–please stop lying and saying it’s different now, because it isn’t.
Feminism as a movement has taken billions of dollars and still runs on billions of dollars; this is why constant comparisons to the cash-poor, grassroots MHRM is stupid. (Well, it’s one of several reasons why that’s a dumb comparison, anyway.)
Feminism lies about domestic violence. It lies about rape. It lies about families. It lies about fathers. It lies about little boys. It lies about girls. It lies about women. It lies about history.
Feminism bullies. It bullies women who won’t toe the line. It bullies men who won’t toe the line. It bullies children who question its precepts.
Every time a feminist repeats racist hateful lies about “patriarchy” or “rape culture” and you don’t identify both those ideas as toxic pseudoscience based on hateful, bigoted preconceptions, you enable that toxic, bullying, pseudo-scientific hate movement.”

(I invite anyone reading this to read his full text here.)

Your attack on patriarchy is an attack on fatherhood. You must know this. Patriarchy is the rule or authority of the father in the sanguineous family: that central unit, which, for centuries if not millennia, provided the building blocks of stable society. Patriarchy is what has allowed society to grow and achieve what it has. It has ensured protection of the realm and the passing on of private family assets to children without the interference of the state. And it provided a moral rule in the private household, which gave children a framework in which to learn how to function in society as adults. And you and your bigoted, totalitarian like are intent on bringing all that to an end, reaching out to men as friends. Don’t make me laugh.

You call yourself “progressive”. I know what that means, but to those who are rather less well informed, it is a double meaning, because what you want is not progress, it is an attempt to take society back to a primitive, tribe-like state, along the lines of Friedrich Engels’s ideas and it is utterly against progress.

What feminist “progressives” like you are trying to do is overturn centuries of social development so as to install your deeply left-wing vision of society: a Marxist/communist form of society in which the private family is abolished in favour of the collective; where all women work rather than stay at home and nurture their children, obtaining deep fulfilment from playing their vital part in the never to be repeated opportunity of equipping those children for later life. There are only a brief few years – the early years – in which only a mother’s undivided, selfless, loving, caring attention can give the child the security, significance and self worth it needs to grow up to be an effective, contributing member of a stable, progressing society, and you and your fellow travellers think all that can be replaced by a creche. You would rather see women working and paying all their earnings to a child-minder rather than do the job themselves, just to fulfil your ideological ideal for women’s “equality”.

Your “progressive” society wants to get all women out of the home, out of the sort of mothering I have described, and into the workforce, leaving child rearing to others, or to the state: effectively nationalising children and replacing the father as protector and provider. That is Socialist Communism, and it is intended to deprive children of their rightful, human familial inheritance, which is cultural as well as financial.

Germaine Greer disclosed this 45 years ago when she said, “Women’s liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let’s get on with it.” You say you don’t want children. That is your choice, but it does not confer on you the right to seek to impose that on all women (let alone men who you so arrogantly patronise), and to shame them for wanting to be nurturing mothers rather than fitting childcare in to an otherwise busy life, as though that was all right. That is totalitarianism.

Neither does it give you the right to undermine the lifestyle choices of men. Or to patronise them and enlist them in their own destruction as fathers and husbands. You want to bring about a society in which men are neutered: where they become nurturers so you can free women from all but the actual act of childbirth. You are an iniquitous bigot, who is verging on the insane. Your simpering sophistries, which you seek to pass off as empathy and alliance with men are despicable snake oil.

Who do you think you are kidding? Your attack on patriarchy is an attack on men, and their proper role in being responsible providers and protectors of their children, exercising their human right to guide and teach their children as well as love them. You and your “progressives” are intent on bringing all that down and people like me, who are far more rational, more intelligent, better educated, more balanced, more mature, more experienced, far more far-seeing than you – and a man – can read you like a book.

Yours are weasel words. They show you up for what you are: not only inhumane, but also inhuman, and egregiously duplicitous.

That is all I have to say to you. Be advised, I shall not respond to anything you might say in response. Contempt – deep, inexhaustible contempt – is all you deserve, and all you will get.