A piece in yesterday’s Times:

The French actress Catherine Deneuve provoked an apoplectic reaction this week when she criticised the #MeToo movement. In a letter for Le Monde newspaper, she and dozens of other women argued that the latest form of feminism “takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality”, and has become too puritanical in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Critics were quick to dismiss Deneuve, the Twitter mob crying that she was elite and out of touch. Clearly it’s unthinkable that one of the world’s most beautiful women might know a thing or two about predatory men.

What Deneuve and other women who question the legitimacy of #MeToo have discovered is that feminism has become more of a cult than a social movement. Increasingly it demands that women think and read in the same way, and worship the same idols as #MeToo, the Lenny Letter (the online feminist newsletter) and the ridiculous Women’s Equality Party. [J4MB emphasis] Actresses have even been asked to congregate in uniform, as they were at the Golden Globes, to show their allegiance to the cause. We non-believers are often made to feel we’re in denial, or waiting to be saved.

Journalism has long been a prime career choice for manginas, and Robert Verkaik is a prime example. In today’s iNews his piece Critics warn that measures forcing firms to reveal gender pay gaps do not go far enough was published. Excerpts:

Maria Miller MP says: “Gender pay gap reporting is only one step forward… Most of the businesses in this country are SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] and they will not be affected by this legislation at all. Our report recommended including companies that are a smaller size and that would be more in line with other countries in the EU.” [J4MB emphasis]…

Last year the UK’s biggest private-sector equal-pay claim came to court in a case that could eventually lead to around 15,000 predominantly female Asda workers recovering well over £100m in pay. Judges have already ruled that lower paid shop workers – mostly women – can compare themselves to higher paid workers in Asda distribution centres, who are mostly men, because their jobs are of roughly equivalent value to the company. [J4MB: This is nonsense on stilts. Most of the women wouldn’t last a day in a busy warehouse, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to do the heavy lifting often involved, driving costly capital equipment such as fork lift trucks, working unsocial hours, often in warehouses with chilled or frozen goods. No, what they they want is equal pay for sitting on their backsides passing goods over a scanner, something I’ve been doing for some time at my local stores, saving time in the process. They should be ashamed of themselves, but will instead be jubilant because vagina.]…

Miller adds: “There are long-standing reasons why there is a gender pay gap and that is because historically women have taken time out of the labour market and then not been able to find the high-quality [J4MB: In plain English, highly-paid jobs in comfortable surroundings] flexible work [J4MB: Flexible for the women, not the employers] that enables them to rejoin the labour market after they have had children or after they have finished their caring responsibilities. [J4MB: Possibly they can’t find these jobs BECAUSE THEY DON’T EXIST? With several children, what does ‘after they have finished their caring responsibilities’ mean? A possible 20+ year gap in employment? Why should that disincline an employer from paying her the same as a man who worked through those 20+years? Sorry, I forgot. Because mangina, as always.]

“And that is not a historical problem. That is a current problem today which my select committee report on the gender pay gap said will not be resolved in a generation, which is the Government’s objective. Unless those labour-market barriers [J4MB: WHAT barriers, you dingbat?] are addressed, particularly around more high-quality, flexible, part-time working, women have to downgrade their jobs below their abilities so they take jobs in other lower paid sectors.”

It’s time Maria Miller took on a job more suited to her intellect. Holding a sign pointing to a golf merchandise store in Oxford Street comes to mind. Maybe she could job-share with Robert Verkaik, the ‘journalist’ of this woeful article.

Our thanks to Keith for this. Extracts:

A woman who stabbed her husband multiple times and left him bleeding in the street said she did it to “protect herself”.

Jodie Owen, 33, stabbed her partner six times at an address in Coulby Newham on Boxing Day and told police she did it because she was “frightened of him.”

Teesside Magistrates’ Court heard that police attended an address in Crossfields after reports of a man bleeding heavily on the street.

Lynne Dalton, prosecuting, said: “On arrival he was unconscious but breathing on the footpath.

“A person approached the police who said he had been stabbed by his wife – who was standing next to him…

Ms Dobson, defending, said Owen’s husband “doesn’t give any details whatsoever in relation to this incident and didn’t want to give a statement”. [J4MB: Clearly he’s frightened of her, and with very good reason.]

She added: “It’s impossible to say there are serious injuries here, but she accepts there has been a wound, several wounds.

“He went to hospital but there is nothing to say they are particularly serious injuries. This was not a person who was vulnerable.” [J4MB: A man faced with a knife-wielding women isn’t vulnerable? What an astonishing claim.]

Our thanks to Ken for this. Of course bigamy has something in common with monogamy – it’s having one wife too many.

Our thanks to James for this. Hilarious. The man in the article deserves a medal.

A tip of the hat to Bettina Arndt for this piece (video, 6:16) recorded at the Pink Test in Sydney cricket ground, an event aimed at raising funds for more breast cancer nurses. She asks people why there isn’t a Blue Test, given more men die of prostate cancer than women die of breast cancer. There are already 10x more breast cancer nurses in Australia than prostate cancer nurses.

Bettina wrote an article which will be published in the Australian edition of The Spectator next week:

It’s just not cricket

Well, what about that sea of pink at the cricket last Saturday?  So many men in pink showing their support for breast cancer. What a wonderful display of men’s natural chivalry and kindness. But also a brilliant virtue-signalling effort destined to win brownie points from their female companions.

Too cynical? Well, perhaps. Obviously it is very touching that so many people are throwing their support behind the McGrath Foundation’s efforts to raise money for breast cancer. The tragic death of Glenn McGrath’s young wife Jane resonated throughout the cricketing world and it is laudable that so many people are working so hard to save other women from this fate.

But we are now ten years into this fund-raising effort and every year it gets bigger. Not just a pink day anymore but rather a pink test. Five days of fundraising and an amazing $1.3 million extra to support breast cancer nurses around Australia. That’s to add to the $20 million donated by the Turnbull government for the same cause last year. That means plenty of funds to support the 119 McGrath breast cancer nurses now working across Australia – adding to the hundreds funded through government and other sources, now likely well in excess of the 257 cited by a McGrath Foundation 2015 report. Wonderful news for the many women dealing with this confronting issue.

But perhaps not such great news for the huge numbers of men gathered around the cricket ground, including the many older men likely to fall prey to cancer. Fifty seven per cent of cancer deaths are male. The risk of dying from cancer before the age of 85 is 1 in 4 for males and 1 in 6 for females, according to the 2017 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Cancer in Australia Report.

There’s something very odd about all the men in pink, given that most people realise that if there was a level playing field men rather than women would be receiving the greater slice of the cancer health funding dollar.

People know that but just don’t dare say it. Last Saturday wasn’t exactly a thrilling day at the cricket so I wandered around asking people why they were dressed in pink – it made for an entertaining YouTube video – It’s just not cricket.

Yes, it’s probably true we should be wearing blue today, sheepishly acknowledged two brightly dressed men in blushing hues. The one in the pink wig and matching hat knew where his bread was buttered:  “I’ll stick with pink… it’s safer, yeah it’s safer.”

“It could be a men’s thing, burying their head about the situation. And mother nature to look after the women,” explained a younger man who admitted it was proof that women’s lives matter more than men at the moment. And was that fair? “That’s the way it is,” he said. He and his mate are allowed to go away once a year to spend a week at the cricket – so there’s no way these two were complaining.

Then there was the woman who talked about her elderly father who’d died of prostate cancer.  He would have hated seeing the sea of pink, she said. “He didn’t understand why breast cancer got so much more exposure… and why prostate cancer is any less important” she said.

Why indeed? Prostate cancer is actually more likely to end the lives of the men in pink than the chances of breast cancer striking down their female companions. In 2017 there were 3,452 deaths due to prostate cancer compared to 3,087 breast cancer deaths in women.

There’s always been incredibly few prostate cancer nurses in Australia. There were only 28 last year when the Federal Government promised just over $13 million over the next three years which will bring the number up to 43 for the whole country. Currently available figures suggest there will be  probably ten times as many breast cancer nurses even when those new numbers click in.

It just doesn’t make sense for men to be given so much less support. It is a national disgrace how few men are being given proper help to regain normal functioning following the debilitating effects of prostate cancer treatments. Incontinence and erectile dysfunction are problems which desperately require the care and education that only specially trained professionals can offer. Teaching a man to inject his penis is not an easy business.

Maybe it is just that men are too squeamish to even think about such things. But women have done such a great job convincing us all to talk publicly about breasts and their care that surely we can make a bit more effort to look after men’s nether regions and protect their lives in the process.

Ok, you cricket followers. Who’s up for lobbying for a blue test next year?

We’ve just announced on the conference website details of a new speaker, Dr Jeffrey Ketland, formerly of Oxford University – here.

Dr Ketland’s original description for the speaker page was as follows:

Dr Ketland is a professional logician, mathematician and academic philosopher, whose research is in mathematical logic, paradoxes, the foundations of mathematics and science. He was the victim of Charlotte Coursier, a Borderline Personality Disordered stalker and psychopath, for more than two years. She committed suicide when her boyfriend ended the relationship. He was then the victim of a feminist vigilante lynch mob and witch hunt of false accusations, harassment and intimidation, which ran him out of his job at Oxford, and ran him and his family out of their home. He was reinstated when he proved that these allegations were fabricated lies distributed by vigilantes.

A piece by Dr Ketland, linking to materials on his experiences, is here. His account of being stalked by Charlotte Coursier is here.

Our thanks to Mike P for this triumph of male ingenuity. It makes one proud to be a man.

In the summer I was interviewed briefly by RT (formerly Russia Today) in connection with Swayne O’Pie’s campaign for the appointment of a Minister for Men. The video (3:58) was published today, here. It features mainly Swayne, but also Elizabeth Hobson and myself. The associated article on the RT website is here, and it’s headed by the following image, for reasons which are unclear:

Oprah Nailed.