Our thanks to Dick for this. Intelligent commentary is absent in the article, but plentiful in the comments section.

Our thanks to Sean for this.

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20 years. Post-tax, for full-time employees, the gap has been in favour of women for a number of years.

Our thanks to Mike P for this.

Earlier this evening we linked to a short piece by Sun journalist Kathy Giddins, on a programme fronted by Karren Brady, about the gender pay gap, in which I’ll be appearing (probably very briefly) – 10pm, Channel 5, tomorrow. Kathy writes, in response to the question, “What is the gender pay gap?”, the following. We’ve put the nonsense in bold text.

The gender pay gap is the inequality which exists between the amount that men are paid compared to the amount that women receive for doing the same job.

We need more female journalists.

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20 years. Post-tax, for full-time employees, the gap has been in favour of women for a number of years.

Enjoy (video, 10:48).

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20 years. Post-tax, for full-time employees, the gap has been in favour of women for a number of years.

Kate Andrews is the news editor of the Institute of Economic Affairs. Her piece in the “Thunderer” section of today’s Times:

Like many women, I am sceptical of calling myself a feminist. While I have unending gratitude for the women who fought for my right to vote, my right to work and my right to treat my body as my own, I have little time for the modern-day movement that has zero grasp of the problems women still face.

Feminism today seems more interested in putting the Formula One “grid girls” out of a job than dealing with domestic violence and rape statistics. In its current form, it instinctively aligns with the radical left and for that reason most of us have stayed far away from it. But now I’m torn. As the illiberal nature of fourth-wave feminism creeps into public policy, it may be time to reclaim the ideology from the radicals.

To comply with the government’s new gender pay gap reporting measures, all large companies must file their data comparing men’s and women’s pay by tomorrow. Among their many failings, the reporting measures do not take into account job, background, education level, age or years of experience. Not only do these measures fail to reveal any information about men and women doing comparable work, they are perpetuating misinformation about the gender pay gap.

Companies such as Easyjet and Phase Eight have been lambasted for their respective 51.7 per cent and 64.8 per cent pay gaps. When broken down, these figures are not a result of unequal pay or gender discrimination but rather the mass hiring of women into their largest internal job sectors (cabin crew and retail).

But there is something more sinister than misleading data here. As the gender pay gap has deflated over the years, feminist groups have needed to skew statistics and omit information to keep the victimhood industry relevant. The message they want to spread ignores the accomplishments of working women and tries to recreate the bad old days of outrageous discrimination in the workplace. In other words: forget the official data, which shows positive news, such as women in part-time work earning on average more than men; the pay gap’s worse than before and you need us now more than ever.

The new reporting measures are worse than useless and the government should roll back this botched project immediately. And women should be working to reclaim the better side of feminism, rooted in fairness, equality and truth.

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20 years. Post-tax, for full-time employees, the gap has been in favour of women for a number of years.

You can subscribe to The Times here.

A piece in today’s Evening Standard. The paper has reported an average (mean) gender pay gap of 12.8 per cent in favour of men, and an average (median) gender pay gap of 5.8 per cent in favour of women. Anyone familiar with this subject will be aware that the first figure is utterly meaningless – albeit often used by feminists to demand ‘something must be done’ – while the latter figure is at least an indicator of the pay gap between men and women as classes in an organization, although it says nothing about all the factors that cause the gap.

The paper’s female employees are already earning more than its male employees, by the second measure. End of story? No. Women must be advanced, even when they’re already ahead of men. The end of the article:

George Osborne, Editor of the Evening Standard, said: “We’re working hard to promote more women and create a diverse working culture.

“While our average gender pay gap is lower than most other media organisations, and it’s great news that the median pay of women is actually higher than men here, there’s still lots more work to do. I am confident we’re heading in the right direction.”

Manish Malhotra, managing director of the Evening Standard’s owner ESI Media Group, said: “We are committed to recruiting more women into senior roles and developing an easier pathway for women to progress.

“Initiatives to help us achieve that goal include a commitment to ensuring women are shortlisted for senior jobs, anonymised CVs, improved maternity benefits and more flexible working for men and women.”

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20 years. Post-tax, for full-time employees, the gap has been in favour of women for a number of years.

Followers of this website will need no reminding of the evidence presented by Campaign for Merit in Business since 2012, of the causal link between increasing the proportion of women on corporate boards, and consequent financial DECLINE. The evidence is here. I presented it to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries in 2012, the video (56:50) of the latter session is here.

Long story short? There is NO business case to appoint more women to corporate boards – and, by extension, to senior positions generally.

In the six years since those inquiries, I have tried but failed to get the mainstream media to report on the story. Attempts to engage with politicians in order to end government threats of legislated gender quotas have proved futile. The threats started with The Davies Report, an outrageous report whose author was a Labour peer. Commissioning that report was one of the first acts of David Cameron after becoming became prime minister. The report’s remit was not whether there should be more women on corporate boards, but rather how the government could use its power to make that a reality.

The threats of legislated gender quotas remain, and has moved on from FTSE100 to FTSE350 companies, the government’s goal being gender parity on FTSE350 boards in the next few years. Directors of major companies, along with the CBI and the Institute of Directors, have shown no interest in the issue. Some years ago a collective madness descended on the business community – gynocentrism.

I don’t often buy The Daily Telegraph, but did so today, and was both surprised and delighted to read a piece by Sophie Jarvis, programmes director at The Entrepreneurs Network thinktank, Women won’t appreciate a patronising BBC quota. It’s a Premium article, and you can read one such article a week if you’re a non-subscriber (registration is free). The key words:

Outside the media, where gender quotas have been tried they have backfired. Norway introduced a 40 per cent quota for female directors in 2003. Later research found that the quota led to the employment of inexperienced women who ended up making bad decisions, leading to lower profitability at the companies themselves. [J4MB emphasis]

Caption in The Sun: Karren Brady with men’s rights activist Mike Buchanan

Tomorrow evening, 10:00pm to be exact, I’ll be appearing in a Channel 5 programme on the gender pay gap, fronted by Karren Brady. Five days ago we posted a piece on the matter, titled Karren Brady: “Why Do Men Earn More Than Women?”

A tip of the hat to The Sun for plugging the programme on its website, here. The photograph they’ve used (above) captures Karen’s mood perfectly, from the beginning of the two-hour filming session to the end. I’m expecting only a few minutes will have survived the editing process.

William Collins’s important blog piece on the gender pay gap is here. Spoiler alert:

The median gender pay gap is in favour of women for part-time employees, and has been for 20+ years.

Post-tax, the gap for full-time employees has been in favour of women for a number of years.

Our thanks to Mike P for this.