Our thanks to Chloe for this. The start of the article, on the website of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD):
Professional services firm PwC is the latest in a line of employers to launch a returnship programme to help people back into work after an extended break.
The 12-week scheme ‘Back to Business’ is open to all applicants, however, it is predominately (sic) aimed at women wishing to return to work.
So, PwC is less interested in supporting men who take career breaks – sometimes of several years’ duration – to do things which are of not the slightest value to their employers? Might that gender bias be related to the fact that Human Remains departments have long been staffed largely by women?
The final paragraph in the absurd article is a gem:
Women’s fears about being frozen out of the best career routes are not unfounded, with research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggesting that more than 50,000 new mothers are forced out of work every year, with 11 per cent reporting that they have been either shut out at work or treated so poorly that leaving was their only option.
Put another way (altered text in bold):
Women’s fears about being frozen out of the best career routes are not unfounded, with research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission [a reliable body of people when it comes to gender matters, virtually all the commissioners being female] suggesting that more than 50,000 new mothers are forced out of work every year, with 89 per cent not reporting that they have been either shut out at work or treated so poorly that leaving was their only option.
Our thanks to Jane for informing us the Women’s Equality party has just published its first policy document. We haven’t gone through it in detail, but a ‘speed read’ shows plenty of predictably absurd content e.g. on ‘equal pay’, p6:
Forty-five years after the Equal Pay Act, for every hour they work, women still earn just 81p of every pound earned by men. There are many ways of measuring the pay gap – pay for each hour worked, pay for each worker, total pay for all women, and for all men – but however you measure it, the story is the same: women earn less per hour, less per job and less overall.
In total, women earn just 52% of what men do every year because not only do they earn less, they are more likely to sacrifice the opportunity to earn a wage for the sake of their family.
The contribution of women to our economy and our society is undervalued, both in paid work and at home. The OECD has shown that if we unleashed the true potential of women the economy could grow by an extra 10% by 2030 – adding an extra £180 billion to growth.
WE will ensure all women who want to work can do so and are paid fairly for it. WE will work to end the bias in pay for occupations perceived as ‘male’ or ‘female’ that means caring work is paid less than manual labour. WE will be ruthless in the fight against direct discrimination that sees women pushed out of work or held back because of their gender.
Then there are downright lies, such as the one I’ve highlighted in the following (p.20):
The Women’s Equality Party’s work will not be complete until violence against women because of their gender has been ended. It is a stain on our society that women can be murdered, violated, assaulted or oppressed because of their gender.
No woman is free until she is safe: by diminishing women’s freedom to participate in their societies, violence against women and girls acts as one of the most pervasive barriers to gender equality.
To end this violence we have to recognise what it is: structural violence, overwhelmingly carried out by men. It is both a cause and consequence of gender inequality.
Ally Fogg’s excelled himself with this piece. Thankfully it’s a fairly short one, but if I had to select one paragraph as being particularly idiotic, it would be this one:
What is most gratifying in that panel, however, is the inclusion of the phrase ‘man up’ which is a particular bugbear of mine. It not only polices masculine gender norms in a very restrictive and damaging way (no surprise to see the wonderful mental health and suicide prevention charity CALM tweeting their praise this morning), the phrase also serves to exclude women and girls from certain levels of attainment.
How is it that anyone (male or female) telling a boy (or man) to ‘man up’ in the course of time ‘serves to exclude women and girls from certain levels of attainment’? We aren’t told. It just does, right? Because Fogg has said it does, and he writes for the Guardian, so we can be sure he’s not wrong.
It’s predictable that Fogg would term CALM ‘wonderful’. It’s been led from the outset (2006) by Jane Powell, the most obnoxious radical feminist I’ve ever met. Within seconds of meeting her – her expression, suggesting she’d just chewed on a thick slice of lemon, led me to assume she was a radfem – she informed me she was a ‘fervent feminist’ whose greatest life achievement had been protesting at Greenham Common.
As you’d expect of an organization led by a radfem, the majority of the staff members are women – six out of seven, in fact – here. The sole man in the outfit is the Web Developer. Hey, isn’t CALM reinforcing gender stereotypes there? Couldn’t they have found a woman to do the job, to ensure 100% gender purity in the organization?
From the CALM website:
Why are the stats (on suicide) for men so high?
We believe that there are social and cultural barriers that prevent men from speaking out. From feedback we’ve received, and research conducted, men often say that they don’t feel comfortable expressing how they feel if they’re having a shit time, as they’re expected to be strong at all times, and not being so equates to weakness or failure as a man.
This is outrageous victim blaming, essentially saying that if men acted in a way typical of women, the problem of male suicide would be solved – a radical feminist perspective. When I met Jane Powell I challenged the perspective, asking what her helpline staff would offer men denied access to their children, denied support as victims of domestic violence, and more. She stared sullenly at the table, and had nothing to say in response.
The principal reason the male suicide rate is so high is perfectly simple – reactive depression. There’s a link to my article on the matter for the International Business Times in this piece, which ends with a reference to Fogg.
Our thanks to Elizabeth for this.
Brother K is a high-profile American intactivist. I’ve just spotted this recently-published interesting video (4:00) on his website.
Special Snowflake BEM, winner of two Lying Feminist of the Month awards, will be giving a talk and book signing at the Oxford Union tomorrow, details here. From the website:
REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT HAS NOW CLOSED DUE TO REACHING OUR MAXIMUM AUDIENCE CAPACITY. PLACES ARE STILL AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS OF THE OXFORD UNION.
As part of our Back to University celebration and to welcome new students to Oxford, we will be hosting a free talk in the philosophy department of the Norrington Room with Laura Bates, author of ‘Everyday Sexism’. Laura is a feminist writer, whose work appears in the Guardian, the Independent, TIME, The New Statesman, The Finanacial (sic) Times and Red magazine among others. She won the Georgina Henry Women in Journalism award at the 2015 press awards. ‘Everyday Sexism’ is her first book.
DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND, THIS EVENT WILL NOW TAKE PLACE AT THE OXFORD UNION. DOORS WILL OPEN AT 4:30PM FOR A START TIME OF 5PM. BOOKS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO PURCHASE AND THE TALK WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A BOOK SIGNING WITH LAURA.
Would you like to join me in handing out flyers outside the Oxford Union, Frewin Court, Oxford OX1 3JB, tomorrow? If so, please email me mike@j4mb.org.uk by 11am tomorrow.
Almost exactly a year ago, I bought a ticket for Special Snowflake’s talk and book signing in Waterstone’s Hampstead branch, details here. The flyer I handed out on that occasion is here. I shall have to update it for tomorrow, given that the following month, she won her second Lying Feminist of the Month award – here.
My thanks to Konrad Dobson – he’s given permission to me to include his real name – who left a comment in response to the video on our campaigning against MGM at the recent Conservative party conference:
Well done! There’s a big need for more education on this subject. Everyone who is pro-circumcision should be forced to sit through his one and not turn their heads away at any point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceht-3xu84I
It’s a remarkable video (33:32), titled, ‘Child Circumcision: An Elephant in the Hospital’. The speaker is Ryan McAllister PhD, Assistant Research Professor, Physics and Oncology, at Georgetown University. The video was posted in July 2011. He is the founding co-ordinator at NotJustSkin.
Bad Girl Bex is a young anti-feminist who lives on the Isle of Man, and she’s just started following this blog on Twitter. I’ve posted these details – and her Twitter hashtag – with her kind permission. I checked out her Twitter page, and enjoyed these images:
Four weeks ago we posted a blog piece about the lack of response of Theresa May, Home Secretary, to our letter containing FOI requests on MGM. Public bodies are required to respond to FOI requests within 20 working days, and 20 further working days – four calendar weeks – have elapsed since the deadline of 21 September. We’ve emailed the Home Office FOI team each week about the response being overdue, and had no explanation from them.
Ms May appears to be struggling with our perfectly simple FOI requests, despite MGM being unquestionably illegal:
Given that MGM demonstrably results in bodily harm, and often mental harm, on what grounds are the police declining to press charges against those carrying out the operations?
Regardless of those grounds, will the government commit publicly to introducing legislation in this parliamentary term (i.e. before May 2020) to make non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors illegal?
With the benefit of hindsight, we should have made the deadline for introducing legislation much earlier. That apart, we look forward to Ms May’s response.
Justice for Men & Boys 