JB is a genius.

We’re about to email this letter to Sam Beckett. We’ve given her a deadline of 2 October to respond.

Our thanks to Brent for this:

Some months ago we sent a public challenge to Sajid Javid MP, Business Secretary, concerning the government’s bullying of FTSE100 companies into appointing more women onto their boards, despite unequivocal evidence (from longitudinal studies) of a causal link between driving up female representation on boards, and corporate financial decline.

The response from his department was ridiculous in the extreme, and I took many hours to critique it. I included that critique in a letter to DBIS, asking for an internal review. Our blog post with the associated documents is here.

We’ve just received an email with the outcome of that ‘review’. The letter was signed by Samantha Beckett – ‘Sam’ – Director General, Economics & Markets. She could not have engaged less with the substantive points we’re making. The letter is nothing short of contemptuous. She repeats some of the points made in previous communications, which we’ve shown to be demonstrably wrong.

She ends the letter with this:

In compliance with the Act, I have conducted an internal review of the original response. In performing that review I have considered whether the original response to your request was correct.

I have carefully considered the scope of material held by the Department (BIS) which potentially falls within the ambit of your request i.e. the “evidence base”. The Act gives you the right to request information held by BIS. BIS is not, however, required to create new information (e.g. by producing new synthesis of reports) in order to answer a request. Nor is it required to reinterpret information which has been published or which it does not hold but which is available commercially elsewhere.

BIS is also not required to release information which will shortly be published if, in the department’s views, the public interest in disclosing the information is outweighed by the public interest considerations in favour of withholding the information.

Having considered the information provided in the response and in the light of your request for an internal review, I have concluded that the response met the requirements of the Act.

We shall be taking the matter to the Information Commissioner, and hope to get some engagement there.

Looks like they had a good time!

Patriarchal typhoons are disproportionately impacting on the lives of women and girls, it would seem. Maybe after their homes are destroyed, the first thing on men’s minds is how they can harm women and girls, and maybe rape them. Odd, because reports of the aftermath of natural disasters invariably show men supporting women and children, often at the cost of their own lives. I’m reminded of the article, ‘Women affected most by global warming’.

Our thanks to N for pointing us to this DfID report. The start of the document’s Summary:

This document summarises the recommendations and discussions from a workshop hosted by the Department for International Development (DFID) on 9 June 2014.

The purpose of the workshop was to build consensus on what did and didn’t work to help prevent and respond to violence against women and girls in the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan hit in November 2013.

N’s comments take up the remainder of this blog piece:

“This is interesting. Apparently the Philippine Typhoon was the first time there has been an organised attempt to implement a VAWG [Violence against Women and Girls] approach to disaster relief. The report highlights that trying to get the VAWG elements in the disaster relief plan delayed its implementation. As the relief agencies were pressed into rectifying “The MIRA [Multi-Sector Initial Rapid Assessment] did not disaggregate data by sex and age, making it impossible to differentiate the protection needs of women & girls and from those of men and boys.”

Unsurprisingly there was then a “backlash” against the “protection personnel” from those organising and giving aid because:

The presentation highlighted that in natural disasters like Typhoon Haiyan, the term ‘survivor’ referred to the entire community, rather than (as in other crises, especially conflicts) specifically those that had survived violence, sexual or otherwise.

There was a certain attitude among non-protection personnel that the GBV [Gender Based Violence] concerns were formulaic and baseless, because there wasn’t hard data behind them.

The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) guidelines on GBV note that programming must start without waiting for evidence that violence is taking place – this is due to the sensitive nature of reporting GBV incidents. But non-protection personnel were not convinced of the need to act without evidence.

It is actually quite a gem of a report because it shows:

a. That the VAWG protection personnel actually delayed things.
b. The Filipinos in particular were insulted by the suggestion that they were a society dangerous to women and girls particularly without any evidence for the accusation.
c. That the aiding agencies respond to survivors of disaster as people first rather than immediately decide there should be a differential response based on gender.
d. Unsurprisingly the Protection Personnel advise that they and their programme are needed even without evidence!

Overall pretty much a microcosm of the whole VAWG thing.”

The reason why Anne Longfield has won this month’s award is outlined on her award certificate, well deserved:

Last Thursday Belinda Brown was on Woman Sour and gave another strong performance on the programme, despite facing a feminist presenter (Jane Garvey) and a feminist commentator – the 2:1 ratio which is customary in this relentlessly feminist propagandising programme. Our thanks to K for loading the piece onto our YT channel, where it has some background and links to various materials. Please leave comments on the YouTube page, rather than here. Thank you.

Invaluable.

A tip of the hat to MrShadowfax42 for his latest impressive video (3:59).