An interesting recent piece in National Review.

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Enjoy (video, 4:20).

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Our thanks to Mike P for this (audio, 0:50, with an associated brief article).

I’ve been interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer on three or four occasions, and each time she was impressively well-informed, far more so than any other radio or TV interviewer I’ve encountered since we launched the party over four years ago. My favourite interview with her is this (audio, 7:50) recorded less than a month after the party’s launch. She’d gone to the trouble of reading our manifesto consultation document beforehand, and her comments on it were welcome.

When Julia appears on Question Time, she invariably speaks more sense than all the other panelists combined.

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George, a major donor to J4MB, recently bought two tickets for two evenings of talks given by Steve Biddulph, a 64-year-old Australian psychologist and ‘gender expert’, in East Grinstead. In the end an unplanned business trip meant he couldn’t attend the talks, so he offered me the tickets, and I gratefully accepted.

The start of Biddulph’s Wikipedia profile:

Steve Biddulph (born 1953 in Saltburn, England) is an Australian author, activist and psychologist who has written a number of influential bestselling books; and lectures worldwide on parenting, and boys’ education. His books argue for a more affectionate and connected form of parenting, and the importance of role models in children’s lives. They acknowledge gender differences but do not see these as immutable.

His effect on schooling has been to increase the number of parents delaying school-starting, especially with boys, and the increase in single-sex classes in co-educational schools, particularly in the early puberty stage, around age 12-15.

The two evenings’ talks were, ‘Raising Boys’, and ‘Raising Girls’. I sent George my impressions of the talks, and he suggested I post them online. Here they are:

George, thanks again for the Steve Biddulph tickets. I took a long-standing supporter (another Mike) along with me, he was very appreciative too.

Biddulph permitted a Q&A on neither night, so I couldn’t raise the points you did in your document. Suffice to say he simply didn’t cover any of that territory.

80-90% of the audience on both nights were women, and there was no criticism of women for destroying their families or denying children access to their fathers. On the first night he spoke at length about the importance of teaching boys to respect women, not a word on the second night about teaching girls to respect men.

Maybe because of the primarily female audience, the content on both nights was anecdote-rich and evidence-light – he was largely telling women what they wanted to hear, not what they needed to hear, and of course they revelled in the flattery.

Numerous anecdotes about the negative impact of fathers not spending more time with their kids, without recognizing many would love to spend more time with their kids, but are unable to do so because of work commitments, often to keep their wives in the style she demands.

There was some good content, but overall it was lightweight and casually misandrous all too often, while never being misogynistic. Bizarrely, he ended the second talk with the statement, ‘Third wave feminism will sort out the problems facing men and boys’ (or words to that effect).

Both Mike and I made our views known to him on our way out the second night (he was by the exit door, signing books for a queue of people). Mike made an impromptu but impressive loud attack on feminists as the destroyers of families.

Biddulph alluded to not doing such tours for too much longer.

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Ken writes:

Hey Mike,

Thought I’d share my disappointment with you. I follow your work closely and am a big supporter!

I just graduated University last year with 27k in debt. I believe networking and attending conferences is a great way for young graduates to get out into the market and advance one’s career. I was looking at the Web Summit event which is held in Lisbon this year, which has a ticket price of 850 Euros, or 85 Euros if you happen to be a woman – here. Last year they let women in for free, but most of the ones who claimed a free ticket didn’t go, so this year they’re giving them a 90% discount.

How is this in any way fair? I fail to see any logic in this differential pricing…

Thanks for your work.

All the best,
Ken

Maybe the men wishing to attend the event should claim they self-indentify as women?

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After the three conference days last June, many speakers and attendees socialised in various nearby watering holes. One was the main conference hotel, where Steve Brule filmed this (video, 19:27). Our thanks to Steve for all his filming and editing in relation to the conference. A playlist of all his 19 videos from the conference, mostly consisting of interviews with speakers, is here.

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Our thanks to Mike P for this.

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Our thanks to Tim for this. An extract:

The party leader, Siv Jensen, told the Aftenposten newspaper that she was against forbidding circumcision.

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Mark Latham, the former leader of the Labor party in Australia, will be speaking at the coming conference on the topic, ‘The Myth of White Male Privilege’. He’s just announced he’s joined the Liberal Democratic Party, details here.

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Our thanks to Rob for this (audio, 23:44), a sympathetic interview of Cassie Jaye by Chris Smith for the Australian radio station 2GB, recorded about 10 days ago. It’s the best interview of Cassie I’ve heard to date, a tip of the hat to both her and Chris Smith.

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