Our thanks to John for this, a complaint to the BBC by Mark Brooks of the Mankind Initiative, about an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys, a weak comedy shown on the BBC. The corporation broadcasts no other types of comedy these days, unless it’s 50+ year old episodes of Dad’s Army. The section showing an abusive woman winning a ‘Mammy of the Week’ award, is over 42:11 – 45:28, the key section 44:10 – 44:30. A mark in the wall is shown, where a knife thrown by the woman at her husband had struck the wall. Hilarious, apparently.

A tip of the hat to Mark Brooks of the Mankind Initiative for complaining about the issue to the BBC. We wish him well, but the BBC is infamous for rejecting complaints about their coverage (or non-coverage) of male victims of domestic violence. The BBC’s general anti-male bias is scandalous. A small selection of our pieces on the BBC’s anti-male bias can be found in our Key posts section.

In January 2014 we submitted a lengthy complaint to the BBC about a Newsnight piece on domestic violence, which breached 50+ of the BBC’s own editorial guidelines – details here. Their response was contemptuous, and we decided that complaining to the BBC was utterly futile, and therefore a waste of our limited time. We haven’t filed a complaint since. We are, nonetheless, pleased that other people and organizations complain to the BBC.

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Our thanks to the supporter who forwarded to us an unsolicited email he received from the Magdalen Marketing Agency (‘MMA’). He was understandably furious at the casual misandry at the heart of the email. The content of that email, which had in its subject line the words we’ve included in the subject line of this blog piece:

Dear <name redacted>,

MMA are delighted to welcome you back to the second issue of Contender, our monthly newsletter [my emphasis] loosely based on recruitment marketing but generally just an excuse to say hi.

As ever, there’s two free packs of biscuits (pink wafers and party rings) to the first non-googling guesser of the film quote in the subject line, [my emphasis] always from a classic…

Lots of love,

All the team at MMA

The ‘key people’ in the ‘team’ at MMA are here. Five are men, two women. One of the women is Chelsea Battle, Head of Marketing. Her profile:

Chelsea graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 in Marketing. She has worked in a number of industries including travel, education, property and the not-for-profit sector. With a range of experience under her belt she is excited to transfer these skills to a marketing agency.

At MMA, Chelsea handles all things marketing such as social media, email campaigns, newsletters [my emphasis] and much more. Away from the office, she lives with a group of friends and can be found watching a film or spending time on the cultural filled Cowley Road. She has a keen interest in traveling with her latest adventure taking her to Thailand.

It is to be hoped that none of the five men in the company gave their clearance for the use of the misandrous film quote at the heart of the newsletter.

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From time to time people send donations to our London office, either a cheque or cash. Sometimes people send us cash anonymously, and today was such a day, in a card with a handwritten, ‘Donation enclosed’. Our thanks to Donor X for the £5 note – one of the new polymer ones, so still legal tender after today. A local store had signs saying they would no longer accept the old notes after today.

Should you be minded to send us a cheque or cash, rather than donate directly into our bank account or donate by PayPal, herewith our London office address:

Justice for Men & Boys
Kemp House
152, City Road
London EC1V 2NX

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Our thanks to Mike P for this.

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Interesting. Only the Green Party (predictably) have stood down their candidate to give a boost to Sophie ‘Doughnuts’ Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party.

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Appalling. One of many high-profile women who are parasites on the BBC, for many years an organization run mainly by women, for women.

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An excellent new piece on TCW.

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Yesterday we posted a link to a piece on our YouTube channel, a recent interview of Philip Davies MP and Sophie ‘Doughnuts’ Walker by Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4. Robinson introduced the section with the absurd question, ‘Do women have too many rights?’, when the replacement of ‘rights’ by ‘unearned privileges’ would have made far more sense.

A follower of this blog started his comment with a typo, ‘Do women have too many tights?’ (U.S.: Pantyhose). Needless to say it’s started to lead to some amusing responses, enjoy.

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There have been persistent rumours that Theresa May is keen to increase the number of female Tory MPs, an assault on meritocracy which would have been unthinkable during Margaret Thatcher’s term as prime minister.

The proportion of Tory MPs who are women already considerably exceeds the proportion of prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) who are women. Ms May’s demand for more Tory female MPs is being implemented by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), where I worked as a consultant over 2006-8.

A year or two ago Caroline Spelman MP, Conservative party chairman in 2007, admitted during a BBC Radio 4 interview that during her term as chairman, men had outnumbered women as PPC applicants by a ratio of 10:1 – then cynically proceeded to tell her interviewer that the party ‘needed’ more female MPs.

I resigned my party membership in 2009 when David Cameron announced his intention to introduce all-women PPC shortlists for the approaching general election, and set to work on my first feminism-related book, David and Goliatha. The front cover featured a drawing I commissioned from Martin Honeysett, the legendary English cartoonist and illustrator, who I chose because of his talent at depicting grotesque women – Hattie  Harperson was ‘Goliatha’:

Extracts from an article on p.8 of today’s Times:

Conservative activists have hit out over the party’s attempts to block local hopefuls and impose candidates in a number of winnable seats in Wales and the Midlands.

The party has forced local associations in four Welsh seats to accept female candidates without letting members in the constituency make a choice…

Yesterday, the Conservatives confirmed that their candidate in Bridgend would be Karen Robson, who previously stood for the party in Cardiff…

Female candidates have also been imposed in other Welsh target seats including Newport West, when Angela Jones-Evans [possessor of the most Welsh surname in history?] will run for election…

Tory activists in the constituency of Alyn & Deeside were forced to accept Laura Knightly, who fought the seat at the last election, as their candidate this time round…

Natasha Ashgar will contest Newport East for the Conservatives, having lost the seat by more than 4,700 votes in 2015…

Several members in Wales said they believed the interventions were part of an effort to ensure the Tories secure their first-ever female MP in Wales. [Clearly a more important objective than appointing the best candidates.]

Mrs Thatcher would have been appalled by such a feminist social engineering exercise.

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A ridiculous piece by Rebecca Marston, Business Reporter, BBC News. Who does Ms Marston ask to comment on the number of women in the senior reaches of the Bank of England? Why, the obvious choice, an acknowledged expert on the financial sector – Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society. The start of the piece:

Despite being an Old Lady, few real senior women seem to find the Bank of England’s company congenial.

Friday marked deputy governor and Monetary Policy Committee member Charlotte Hogg’s last day there. She’s the second woman deputy governor out the door this year. And it’s only April.

Another executive director, Jenny Scott, is also leaving and in June, fellow MPC member Kristin Forbes goes.

Fair enough, Ms Hogg’s departure is not a sign of mutual antipathy. She resigned for failing to stick to the letter of the rules on disclosing family connections within the industry. [Note: the ‘letter’ of the rules, implying a trivial breach. Not just the ‘rules’, then? Apart from which, Hogg authored those rules!]

But these departures will leave no women at all on the nine-member MPC – arguably the most public of the Bank of England’s faces as it sets interest rates – and only one woman on its three main policymaking committees.

There will be none among the five deputy governor ranks and just four among 16 executive directors.

Goodness, what will happen to interest rates if the Bank has no women on the nine-member MPC? The risks to the country’s financial stability don’t bear thinking about.

Three months ago we posted a piece, Two more blithering idiots: Mark Carney (governor, Bank of England) and Rebecca Hilsenrath (chief executive, Equality and Human Rights Commission). Ms Hilsenrath leads an organization with 11 Commissioners, nine of whom are women. Gender equality is a fine thing.

Campaign for Merit in Business has been reporting on the Bank of England for almost five years, starting with a piece in June 2012, Positive discrimination for women at the Bank of England.

The governor, Mark Carney, is a mangina, and you can be very sure the next senior appointment will be a woman, even if there are 100 men who are notably better qualified. In feminist terms, appointing an incompetent woman is infinitely preferable to appointing a competent man. None of the men passed over for promotion will complain about the matter publicly, all being turkeys who vote for Xmas.

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