Jeff Ketland gave a memorable talk at out recent conference – here. An archived copy of his article for The New England Review, “An Academic Crucible – Part 1”, pulled by the publication, is here.
Month: August 2018
IRELAND: Married boss who told manager she had ‘beautiful eyes’ ordered to pay harassment compensation of 4,000 Euros by the WRC (Workplace Relations Commission)
Our thanks to Sean for this.
The Spectator: What’s the truth about men’s rights activists?
Our thanks to James Innes-Smith, a highly regarded freelance journalist who writes for many publications, for this piece in The Spectator. It’s an example of a vanishingly rare thing, a non-hostile piece in the mainstream media about people advocating for the human rights of men and boys. I’ve posted a few comments, and invite you to do likewise. Thanks.
Paul Elam: “Men and Intimacy – A Final Look”
Interesting (audio, 10:06).
Female detective throttled her policewoman lover and smashed her head into a wall for putting salt in the meal she’d cooked
Our thanks to Mike P for this.
Women are strong. Women are amazing. But if they make you a meal, perhaps you shouldn’t add salt to it.
Daughters with a close bond to their fathers are more resilient and less likely to feel lonely
A piece by Greg Hurst, Social Affairs Editor, in today’s Times:
Every daddy’s girl knows that being the apple of his eye has its benefits in terms of access to his wallet. Now research has shown that daughters with a close bond to their fathers are also more resilient and less likely to feel lonely.
Girls who have a strong emotional attachment to their father are more confident when they start school and more likely to perform well in class, the study suggests. It adds to evidence of the crucial role fathers play in enabling daughters to cope with adversity, especially early in life. [J4MB emphasis]
Girls’ relationships with their mothers, however, had no discernable impact on their experiences of loneliness. The way boys reacted to loneliness was also unrelated to their closeness to either parent.
The US study analysed data from a national study of early childcare involving almost 700 families. Researchers considered the relevance to children’s psychological wellbeing of attachment theory, or the deep emotional bond between a child and parent. Resident fathers and mothers were asked to report on their relationships and conflicts with their children, who were asked at three intervals during primary school about their feelings of loneliness.
The authors, from Ohio State University’s department of human sciences, concluded that the strength of bonds between daughters and their fathers could play a crucial role around the ages of five or six, when children interacted with peers beyond the family home but before they formed lasting friendships.
The paper, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, concluded: “The more slowly father-child closeness declined, the more quickly girls’ loneliness declined. These findings highlight the role of father-child relationships in child loneliness for girls.”
The researchers said that the impact of bonds between fathers and daughters declined once girls began to form close friendships and could be followed by more disagreements or arguments, but the benefit of such relationships did not disappear entirely.
Jia Yan, the lead author, said: “This is a time when children are becoming more independent, developing relationships with friends and spending more time outside the home, so they become less close with their parents and have more conflict as their need for autonomy increases.”
Xin Feng, a co-author, added: “In our society, mothers tend to be responsible for everyday care and stability for their children. Fathers have more freedom to interact with their children in different ways, to challenge them and have a wider range of emotional contact. That may be one reason why fathers had more impact on their daughters.”
The authors added that while the link between parental relationships and child adjustment had been consistently studied, less had been understood about their impact on loneliness.
The findings come amid growing political interest in Britain on ways in which loneliness and social isolation can be reduced.
At the start of the year Theresa May announced the appointment of a minister to develop a government strategy on loneliness. The role was given to Tracey Crouch, minister for sport and civil society, which includes the charity sector. The move was aimed predominantly at tackling loneliness among older people living alone but it is also intended to support younger people who suffer loneliness, particularly new mothers and younger disabled adults.
Ministers are also under pressure to improve the wellbeing of teenagers after research published yesterday by the University of York and the Children’s Society found that more than one in five girls aged 14 had self-harmed in the past year.
In June a survey by The Times found that incidents of self-harm in secondary schools had more than doubled since 2012, with more than 70,000 instances last year alone.
You can subscribe to The Times here.
Air conditioning is a whiny feminist’s issue
Not a Times caption: Cynthia Nixon, a whiny American narcissistic feminist actress
A piece in today’s Times. Cynthia Nixon, a whiny American narcissistic feminist actress, hopes to be elected the Governess of New York (doubtless many silly women will vote for her). The start of the article:
Cynthia Nixon made a simple request as she prepared for a crucial debate in the race for the governorship of New York: ensure that the temperature in the hall is a balmy 76F (24C).
Her argument is that some women are cold when air conditioning is set at (say) 20C, while she gives not a thought to the fact that men will be uncomfortably warm at 24C, many of them wearing suits and ties (women, of course, having greater freedom in how to dress). Now which would be easier, making women warm when the aircon is set at 20C, or cooling men when it’s set at 24C? The former, of course (clothing can be very helpful in this regard).
Is Ms Nixon also not being inconsiderate towards fat women? I can’t help but note fat women sporting bare arms outdoors when the weather is cool or even cold, what would happen if they had to sit at length in a temperature of 24C? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Cynthia Nixon is only displaying female narcissism, of course – “The world must be changed so I feel comfortable. It’s all about ME! ME!! ME!!!”
The remainder of the piece:
Ms Nixon was thinking not only of her own comfort. The actress seeking the Democratic nomination was striking a blow for women shivering at their desks in office environments designed around the metabolisms of men.
Rebecca Katz, her top strategist, said that the temperatures of working conditions were “notoriously sexist” in an email to the television station that was hosting the debate.
This was not just about the temperature in one particular room but rather an entire system of air conditioning that creates chauvinistically frigid workplaces.
A study in 2015 suggested that office thermostats were generally set according to the metabolism of a 40-year-old man who weighs 11 stone.
Ms Nixon’s campaign team expected that the debating hall on Long Island would be frosty. Her opponent, Andrew Cuomo, the governor who is expected to be a presidential contender, agreed to take part in only one debate.
“CBS management has acknowledged that the only way to get Governor Cuomo to show up is by giving him everything he wants,” Ms Katz said in a statement. The governor is known to like the cold. State senators attending his first State of the State speech in 2011 complained that the chamber was freezing. Some wore hats and scarves: one reporter saw a guest in a wool-trimmed ski jacket.
He is not the only man accused of chilling his workforce. Jeff Immelt, who headed General Electric until last year, was said to keep his boardrooms so cold that his staff wore fleeces. Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, keeps his offices at 59F (15C), according to Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer.
Margaret Thatcher was another cold air ruler, defying the standard for her sex. “One should always be a little bit hungry and a little bit cold,” she said, according to Matthew Parris, the Times columnist who was a clerk in her office before she became prime minister.
Mr Cuomo’s campaign team mocked Ms Nixon’s plea for hot air. Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the governor, said that his opponent, best known for her role as Miranda in Sex And The City, thrived on “melodrama”. She wrote on Twitter that the temperature in New York was in the nineties. “Forecast: extremely feminist,” she posted.
The email request, reported by The New York Times, won immediate support from women who complained of lugging their own heaters into the office each summer. Ms Nixon, 52, also had several male scientists on her side.
George Havenith, a professor of environmental physiology at Loughborough University, east London, said that she was right. “Females need a higher temperature than males,” he said. “The average female is smaller than the average male. They generate less heat and they lose heat a little easier.”
We need more women in politics. Women are strong. Women are amazing. Women can’t adapt to the temperature of their surroundings.
You can subscribe to The Times here.
We’re all real-life FAIRIES: These three women are smart, successful… and claim they ‘sparkle’ with magical energy
Daily Mail caption: Marina (pictured right with her son) claims working in a corporate environment would be incompatible with her new life as a fairy who spreads and receives love. A friend was able to capture a fairy sparkling on the back of her shirt shortly after her encounter in Glastonbury
Daily Mail caption: Kristine Ivan (pictured), 37, from Wimbledon was doing an online course in magical energy when she had the revelation that her true self is as a fairy. She separated from her partner of three years as their misery went against her fairy experiences
Our thanks to Mike P for this. Words fail me.
Sydney Watson: What really happened at the March for Men Australia
Very good (video, 16:29).
Alex Salmond resigns from SNP after harassment claims
Our thanks to Steve for this. An extract:
Mr Salmond set up a crowdfunding page to raise £50,000 for his legal case, raising more than his target within four hours. [J4MB: The page is here.]
Mr Salmond’s SNP colleagues defended him asking the public for money to pay for the judicial review in his resignation letter but Scottish Labour accused him of “abusing his power and dragging Scotland into the gutter”.
Justice for Men & Boys 