Our thanks to Martin for this. How appropriate it is that an actress who played a fictional character was selected as the UN ‘ambassador for women’s empowerment’. Better choices would have been Julia Hartley-Brewer, Kathy Gyngell, Laura Perrins, Belinda Brown…

In 2012, the year before the launch of J4MB, I sent written submissions to a House of Commons inquiry, ‘Women in the Workplace’ – here (35 pages) – and a House of Lords inquiry, ‘Women on Boards’, here (3 pages).

Susan Vinnicombe, a British ‘professor’, has been for many years the leading academic proponent of ‘more women on boards’ in the world. She made a remarkable admission to the same House of Lords inquiry, when giving oral evidence. Her exchange with Lord Fearn (I’ve put in bold text, the most relevant section):

Lord Fearn: Is there a strong business case for improving the gender diversity of boards? If so, does it follow that there is also a strong business case for increased gender diversity on boards across the EU?

Professor Susan Vinnicombe: Yes. We believe that there is a very strong, compelling and comprehensive business case for gender diversity on boards, and it is a case which stands not only in the UK but across the EU and indeed globally. It sits on several broad platforms.

One is talent management. In all the developing countries of the world, 60% of the graduates are now women. We have a tremendous number of women coming in at graduate level to our big corporates. So the fact that we are seeing so few women at the top on our corporate boards is a sheer waste of talent. Talent management would be our first point concerning the business case.

Secondly, if corporates are to serve their markets well, it just makes sense that they need to be able to represent those markets. In many of the markets, women are the consumers, so it makes very good business sense to have women on the corporate boards of those companies.

Thirdly, there has been quite a push in the past – indeed, we ourselves have engaged in such research – to look at the relationship between having women on corporate boards and financial performance. We do not subscribe to this research. We have shared it with chairmen and they do not think that it makes sense. We agree that it does not make sense. You cannot correlate two or three women on a massive corporate board with a return on investment, return on equity, turnover or profits. We have dropped such research in the past five years and I am pleased to say that Catalyst, which claims to have done a ground-breaking study on this in the US, officially dropped this line of argument last September.

However, there are broader, non-financial performance indicators, such as corporate social responsibility, employee involvement, innovation, philanthropy and good communications, which have been seen to be connected to companies that have women on their boards.

The original blog piece on Susan Vinnicombe’s admission is here.

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Our thanks to M for this. The start of the piece:

Social workers let a mother raise her young son as a girl because they were in thrall to ‘transgender equality’.

The boy, who was made to wear a pink hairband, dresses and nail varnish, lived ‘entirely as a girl’.

He was registered as a girl with his doctor’s surgery and was referred to as ‘she’ in official documentation from the age of just four.

But despite the alarm being raised by officials and the boy’s father, council staff failed to intervene.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

Our thanks to Martin for this, from The Washington Post. The start of the piece:

She was a 24-year-old substitute teacher.

He was a 17-year-old high school student.

And over the course of an illicit, months-long relationship during the 2015-2016 school year in Cedar Rapids, she admits, the pair had sex “hundreds of times.”

Mary Beth Haglin was charged in July with sexual exploitation by a teacher.

But now, Haglin claims that not only is she innocent of committing any crime, she’s actually the victim in the relationship.

Haglin appeared on the “Dr. Phil” show this week and accused the student of hatching an elaborate plan of romantic seduction, then threatening to “burn her life down” if she ended the relationship.

In recent months, Haglin claims, she’s been fired from her job and forced to work as a stripper [my emphasis] using the nom de stage “Bambi.”

“The student twisted my brain into accepting this relationship,” she told Dr. Phil McGraw. “He did so with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary that I was completely duped by the whole facade.”

“Many people see him as the victim and me as the perpetrator,” she added. “From a psychological standpoint and from every other standpoint, I feel like I am the victim.

“He did burn my life to the ground.”

An interesting tale. A 24-year-old female teacher asserts she had less moral agency than a male minor for whom she was professionally responsible.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

Family Reunion is an American organization. Our thanks to Rod for pointing us to their video (5:30) on the role of false accusations of domestic violence in denying access to children in divorce proceedings.

Our thanks to Jeff for this. If you happen to own any BHP Billiton shares, you really need to sell them NOW.

In 2012 – a year before the launch of J4MB – we launched Campaign for Merit in Business (‘C4MB’). C4MB was then, and remains to this day, the only organization in the world campaigning against government initiatives to bully companies into increasing the proportion of women on their boards, primarily for two reasons:

• the initiatives are deeply anti-meritocratic; and
• evidence clearly shows a causal link between increasing female representation on boards, and corporate financial decline (link below)

In 2012 I presented written evidence to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries. Along with the renowned sociologist Dr Catherine Hakim (the originator of Preference Theory, in 2000) and Steve Moxon (author of The Woman Racket, published in 2008) I gave oral evidence to the House of Commons inquiry on 20 November 2012, four years ago to the day – here (video, 56:49).

I presented some of the evidence of a causal link between increasing female representation on boards, and corporate financial decline – five longitudinal studies – to both inquiries. The MPs and peers didn’t dispute the evidence, had no counter-evidence (many witnesses to the inquiry were mis-representing correlation as causation, as they do to this day) but pressed on regardless with the government’s bullying of large companies to ‘improve’ gender diversity on their boards, through the threat of legislated gender quotas.

The government’s bullying of FTSE100 companies to appoint more women to their boards – starting with the publication of the ridiculous Davies Report (2011) – led to FTSE100 companies doubling the proportion of women on their boards between 2011 (12%) and 2015 (25%). 96% of the new female director appointments over the period were as non-executive directors, giving the lie to feminist claims of a ‘glass ceiling’ keeping able women out of boardrooms.

Today the government is driving FTSE350 companies to have gender parity (50/50) on their boards. To their eternal shame the business sector – along with the CBI and Institute of Directors – have been complicit in this feminist-driven social engineering exercise. I cannot recall one FTSE350 director ever publicly criticising the initiatives.

As a result of frustration at the government’s refusal to engage with rational arguments, I launched J4MB in early 2013, and I’ve devoted little time and effort on C4MB since then. The government’s refusal to engage with rational arguments is, of course, apparent in other areas relating to state actions and inactions concerning men (and boys) and women (and girls).

It is with a heavy heart, then, and a deadline of 26 October, just six days away, that I’ve started work on our written submission for the new inquiry, having put it off for some weeks. The scope of the inquiry:

The Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS) Committee has today launched an inquiry on corporate governance, focussing on executive pay, directors duties, and the composition of boardrooms, including worker representation and gender balance in executive positions. [my emphasis]

The BIS Committee inquiry follows on from the corporate governance failings highlighted by the Committee’s recent inquiries into BHS and Sports Direct, and in the wake of commitments from the Prime Minister to overhaul corporate governance. [my emphasis]

We knew it wouldn’t be long before Theresa ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ May reinvigorated the ‘women on boards’ initiative. The inquiry’s terms of reference include the following ones relevant to ‘composition of boards’:

• What evidence is there that more diverse company boards perform better? [Answer: none, at least with regards to gender. The only evidence of a causal link is that when more women are appointed to corporate boards, financial performance declines. ]
• How should greater diversity of board membership be achieved? What should diversity include, e.g. gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, disability, experience, socio-economic background? [The assumption is that greater diversity should be increased, when to my knowledge no evidence supports the assumption, at least with regards to gender. And it is only the gender issue which will achieve traction, because it’s women who have historically and shamelessly pursued self-advancement onto corporate boards.]
• What more should be done to increase the number of women in Executive positions on boards? [Again, the assumption that ‘something should be done’, only ‘what’ should be done being up for debate. The obvious answer to the rhetorical question – to increase the number of women in Executive positions on boards, more women will need to work harder in the relevant disciplines e.g. Finance – isn’t even considered as an option.]

Extracts from the same web page:

Chair of the BIS committee, Iain Wright MP, (L, Hartlepool) said:

“…The Prime Minister has spoken of workers representation on boards. We want to examine what this might look like in practice, how would this work, how would workers be selected? It’s all too clear that there is significant under-representation of women in executive levels. We’re interested in hearing about the barriers to women achieving senior positions, the measures being taken to remedy the situation, and what action Government might take to improve the gender balance.

Simon Walker, Director General of the Institute of Directors, said:

“The UK has long been a leader in promoting high standards of governance, with our Corporate Governance Code being copied across the world. But the reputation of corporate Britain has not recovered from the financial crisis, and there are important questions that need to be addressed on issues including transparency, executive pay and board diversity. The Prime Minister has made clear that company boards are in her sights, so directors must fully engage in this debate.” [my emphasis]

Inquiry background

Composition of boards

Following the Davies Review, which successfully focussed on increasing the number of non-executive directors, [note: this is a naked mis-representation of what happened. At no time was it ever stated that the objective was to increase the number of female non-executive directors. This is a post-hoc rationalisation of the fact that virtually all the female director appointments were as non-executives, such was the shortage of suitably able women for executive positions] the BIS Committee wants to examine what more should be done to increase the number of women in executive positions… The inquiry also wants to consider how greater diversity of board membership could be achieved.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

The London conference was only possible financially because some amazing people offered their time and expertise at no charge. Top of the list was Tom, who filmed all the presentations, about which we’ve had excellent feedback. He worked crazy hours during the conference, and crazy hours in the following weeks, editing the video and audio files. Everyone found him a pleasure to work with.

One reason he was able to work without charging us in London was that he lives nearby. The same will obviously not be true for the next conference, in Australia, in June 2017. So Tom has started a crowdfunder for contributions towards his travel and accommodation costs in Australia, and we’ve donated £100.00. Please join us in supporting him, his crowdfunder is here. Thank you.

Our thanks to Kevin for pointing us to an utterly shameless petition launched 7 months ago. It’s attracted 318,000+ votes.

At the recent Tory party conference the loudest protest was by a group of women protesting against the equalisation of the state pension age, apparently totally the wrong sort of gender equality. I spoke to one of the (middle-aged) harpies, who defended the historically low state pension age for women (60) compared with the pension age for men (65). She said it had historically been lower for women so they could care for elderly parents. I asked her:

Do you agree men are more likely than women to be employed doing physically onerous work, so a relatively higher pension age is disproportionately unfair to men?

Should men’s lower life expectancy mean they should retire earlier than women?

Should women who didn’t look after elderly parents still have got the state pension at 60?

Should men who were looking after elderly parents have been able to get the state pension at 60?

She had no intelligent responses to any of these questions, and shrieked that I was a misogynist. Women are relentlessly privileged, yet ‘feel’ oppressed. It doesn’t say much for women as a class. My firm prediction is Theresa ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ May will cave into women’s demands for a longer period to introduce state pension age equalisation. Because heaven forbid any woman should ever suffer from gender equalisation.

If everyone who read this gave us just £1 – or even better, £1 monthly – we could change the world. Click here to make a difference. Thanks.

An insightful piece.