Our thanks to Mike P for this. OBEs are the gongs of choice for loopy feminists, ones that come to mind are Jenni Murray, Caroline Criado-Perez. Sometimes they get CBEs, including Professor Susan Vinnicombe, for many years the world’s most prominent academic advocate of ‘more women on boards’. The silly woman has been aware since 2012 of the evidence of a causal link between increased female representation on boards and corporate financial decline. In that year she admitted to a House of Lords inquiry she knew of no evidence of a causal link with corporate financial improvement – here.

Our thanks to G for sending us a PDF of a paper published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists three years ago, Cannabis use during pregnancy in France in 2010. From the ‘Results’ section:

In all, 1.2% of women reported having used cannabis during pregnancy. This percentage was higher among younger women, women living alone, or women who had a low level of education or low income. It was also associated with tobacco use and drinking alcohol. Cannabis users had higher rates of spontaneous preterm births: 6.4 versus 2.8%…

The full ‘Strengths and limitations’ section:

The 2010 survey was the first time that the National Perinatal Survey collected data on cannabis use. The size of the sample, and its representativeness at the national level, constitute the main strength of this study. We have no laboratory tests to validate the women’s self-reports. It is likely that cannabis consumption was under-reported, as its harmfulness is widely suspected by the women. [J4MB emphasis] Such under-reporting would mean that some cannabis users are included in the group considered to be non-users, so that the associations with preterm or small-for-gestational-age births are probably underestimated, compared with the true associations. [J4MB emphasis]

In our 2015 general election manifesto (pp.7,8) we covered the issue of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. FAS is the leading known cause of intellectual disability in the Western world. Women knowingly risk harming their unborn children, and face no legal consequences.

Much is known about the impact on foetuses of women smoking during pregnancy – the Wiki page is here – and now we turn to cannabis, and an International Business Times piece – here. Cannabis is the drug most commonly found in the umbilical cords of foetuses which don’t survive.

Just published. An outstanding critique of just a few sentences in Charlotte Proudman’s recent dire article in the Guardian.

Our thanks to Ian for this.

Our thanks to Danuta for this. The Beam website is here.

A piece in Liberal Democrat Voice. It starts:

As the mother of three girls, I am constantly aware of the sexism they face. It is endemic in society.

Last week, having tea with the family, my 12-year-old daughter asks for another drink, and the waiter says, ‘Right away, young man.’ It happens to her constantly – she has a very short haircut, but that’s all.

Give. me. strength. This isn’t sexism. What should the waiter have said, ‘Right away, young person of indeterminate gender, because we know from feminist scholars that gender is a social construct’?

Your daughter looks like a boy, in part because she has a very short haircut. It’s not the waiter’s problem, or ours. Deal with it. Maybe encourage her to grow her hair, or wear feminine clothes? The woman goes on to laud the ultimate whiner, Laura Bloody-Bates. It’s enough to send a man mad.

Our thanks to Steve for this – a piece about invented domestic abuse by a female ‘journalist’ in The Guardian, what are the chances? An extract:

The chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid, Marsha Scott, said: “Women have been telling us for years that it is emotional abuse that is most harmful.

“This is a unique way to draft legislation that allows for victimless prosecution of domestic violence. Because you don’t have to prove harm to the victim [because of the reasonable person test] it could reduce the [J4MB: ALLEGED] re-victimisation of women in court. [J4MB: And increase the victimisation of men in the court. Win-win!] It’s a shift in the culture to focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim, and concentrating on the key question of how we stop men abusing.” [J4MB emphasis]

Since the introduction of the English coercive control legislation, concerns have been raised that it is not being used enough and has created an unhelpful hierarchy of harms, in part due to a lack of specialist training for police officers.

Committing to funding the officer training [J4MB: Hmm, who will carry out that training? Women’s Aid or Refuge, as usual?] on Thursday, the justice secretary, Michael Matheson, said: “Attitudes towards domestic abuse are changing – it’s no longer seen as a private matter, or no business of criminal law. [J4MB: It hasn’t been seen as either of these things for 40+ years.] We’re doing everything we can to tackle the scourge that is domestic abuse at every opportunity – supporting victims, tackling perpetrators with enhanced legislation, and also tackling the underlying attitudes and inequalities that very often create the conditions for violence against women and girls [J4MB emphasis] to take place. There’s no place for it in Scotland [J4MB: Unlike violence against men and boys, by implication] and this new funding will greatly assist in tackling it.”

It’s a relief to learn from the Scottish justice secretary that in his country there are no female perpetrators of domestic violence, and no male victims. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the UK, where probably a majority of perpetrators are female, the majority of victims male.

Our thanks to Stu for a woeful recent piece in the Independent, once a fine newspaper, but for some years it’s been Guardian Lite. An extract:

The greatest number of femicides occurred within the London Metropolitan, South Wales and Greater Manchester police force areas. [J4MB: Hmm… within police force areas covering large populations. Inexplicable. Definitely a two pipe problem, as Sherlock Holmes would have said. I expect the BBC is working on an ‘update’ of the Conan Doyle Novels, featuring a black lesbian one-legged detective, Shirley Holmes.]

The figures have prompted a renewed call for more to be done to address fatal violence against women by men, and for ministers to “urgently” put the prevention of femicide at the centre of its work to combat male violence against women and girls. [J4MB: There’s clearly no need – “urgent” or otherwise – to be concerned about the fact that the victims of most murders, whether carried out by men or women, are men. Likewise, no need to be concerned about female violence against women, although lesbians are the demographic experiencing the highest rates of domestic violence.]

In light of the census, Katie Ghose, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: “More needs to be done to address men’s fatal violence against women, as once again the Femicide Census reveals fatalities not as isolated incidents but as part of a repeated pattern of male violence against women. [J4MB: There are over 26.1 million women (18+) in the UK today. 113 women were killed by men last year. The chance of an individual woman being killed in the UK today, in the course of a year, is around one in 230,000. Ghose claims this shows ‘a repeated pattern of male violence against women’. Predictably she’s turning out to be as much of an odious liar as Polly Neate, her predecessor, currently ignoring male victims of homelessness at Shelter, a charity for the homeless. 90% of the street homeless are men.]

Words fail me. The start of the piece:

A wheelchair-bound pensioner who married a Tunisian toyboy 36 years her junior has spoken of her heartbreak after he left her after just a fortnight of married life in Britain.

Patricia Hancocks, 64, met Mondher Mezni, when he was 26 on an online dating website and believed at last she had met ‘the One’ – but now fears he ‘only married me for a visa’.

The couple enjoyed a whirlwind romance and got engaged after just 19 days together, on Ms Hancocks’ second holiday to Tunisia to visit her toyboy.

They married in north Africa in November 2012 in a lavish ceremony, which included the ceremonial slaughter of a sheep, and she paid for it by living on toast and butter.

After a brief honeymoon they spent eight months apart while the twice-married retired cleaner secured him a visa.

Mr Mezni, now 29, moved to her home in Leicester where he stayed at home to cook, clean and care for his new wife before he suddenly fled a fortnight later.

Being human, I guess we could all be victims of scams like this. The next time a 20-something lingerie model starts chatting me up in my local JD Wetherspoon public house, The Pilgrim’s Progress in Bedford – outstanding real ale at £2.29 per pint, 10% discount on Mondays – I shall be on my guard.