Times caption: Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull had arranged for the poster to coincide with the Labour Party conference
A piece in today’s Times by Lucy Bannerman (the perfect surname for this story):
The poster featured only six words: “Woman, women, noun, adult human female.” Yet they were still deemed too dangerous by one transgender activist who has branded the poster, which carries the dictionary definition of woman, as hate speech in an “absurd” and “Orwellian” row.
The giant poster in Liverpool quoted the definition of woman, according to the Google dictionary.
It survived for about a week before it was removed under pressure from Adrian Harrop, a Twitter activist and NHS doctor, who complained that it made transgender people feel unsafe.
The poster was taken down by the billboard company, which offered an apology after a complaint from Adrian Harrop, a Twitter activist
He successfully demanded its removal after lobbying the chief executive and senior directors of the billboard company, Primesight, on social media, accusing them of being complicit “in the spread of transphobic hate speech”.
Within hours the company issued an apology to Mr Harrop, who is not transgender. It promised to remove the offending poster as soon as possible, and offered a mea culpa saying that the “copy did not raise a red flag the way it should have done”.
Its decision was lambasted by the feminist blogger behind the campaign, who accused the company of breaching her contract and of showing “cowardice” in the face of social media criticism. “We’re in a new realm of misogyny when the word ‘woman’ becomes hate speech,” said Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a mother of four who blogs under the name Posie Parker.
She raised £700 to put up the poster for 14 days, coinciding with the Labour Party conference in the city. “I wanted it to be a conversation starter but this is a new level of absurd,” she said.
However, critics argue that allowing people to self-declare their legal gender will have unintended consequences, such as distorting statistics and rendering employers’ gender pay gap reports meaningless. They have also warned it will create potentially dangerous loopholes that will be exploited by men, who may or may not be transgender, to gain access to single-sex spaces such as refuges and prisons.
Mrs Keen-Minshull, 44, said the poster’s removal was Orwellian. [J4MB emphasis. A feminist using the term “Orwellian”. Hilarious. Is this a feminist first?] “I find it far more sinister and pernicious than the old-fashioned sexism where the guy at the garage is surprised I know anything about engines. I’d take that guy any day over the Twitter troll who thinks I don’t know what a woman is.
“If the word ‘woman’ can mean anything, then women lose their sex-based protections [J4MB: privileges, not protections] and nobody is protected. Women are getting really, really fed up. [J4MB: Oh no. Things must be done, so women aren’t “really, really fed up”.] Every single organisation that capitulates, [J4MB: She means “capitulates” to groups other than feminists, organisations capitulate to them all the time] paves the way for the next one to do the same. This is what trans activists do. This is how they silence women. I hope this will help people wake up to what’s going on.”
Mr Harrop, 31, a GP registrar who lives with his husband in Sunderland, denied trying to silence anyone, saying he is not an activist. Asked why he found the meaning of the word “woman” so offensive, he said: “It really isn’t the dictionary definition itself, it’s the motivation behind it. That poster creates an environment of hostility for trans women and makes them frightened.
“This is a reminder to them that this transphobic hate group is observing them and scrutinising their presence in public life. It creates an atmosphere that makes transgender citizens of Liverpool feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own city. They walk through life in a state of heightened vulnerability, feeling that people are watching them, looking at their appearance, conduct and every single aspect of their life and this poster only serves to exacerbate and inflame that feeling.”
He denied that he was depriving Mrs Keen-Minshull of free speech: “She has freedom of speech but so do I.”
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My thanks to my partner’s mother for bringing this clip to my attention! Ann Widdecombe on This Morning deftly castigating the “trivial whinging” of modern feminists and their fake issues. Video (6:54).
Our thanks to James for this (article plus video, 2:22).
There’s some speculation that Ms Dovgalyuk – whose preferred skirt is a short one, split at the side – is conducting a hoax, and the men are actors, but what if she is? The thinking behind the actions would still be perverse. Ironically, the fact she doesn’t get her lights punched out by any of the men is a testament to the innate reluctance of men (reinforced by social conditioning) to harm women, which is not a point that a feminist with an IQ in double digits (there are a few) would wish to demonstrate. Extracts:
A law student has embarked on a campaign to stop people from manspreading. Anna Dovgalyuk, 20, is filmed apparently pouring diluted bleach onto men’s crotches across the subway in St Petersburg. She has accused men who carry out the practice as ‘gender aggression’ and calls manspreading – sitting with legs wide open on public transport – ‘a disgusting act’…
Dovgalyuk says that people are fighting against the practice across the world but it is being ‘hushed up’ in Russia. She said: ‘We not only cooled the manspreading down but also marked them with identification spots.
So everyone can immediately understand which body part controls the behaviour of these men.’ ‘This solution is 30 times more concentrated than the mixture used by housewives when doing the laundry…
Calling herself a ‘social activist’, Anna has previously achieved worldwide attention by flashing her underwear to commuters to raise awareness for upskirting laws in Russia. Critics asked how she was helping counter the menace of up skirting by flashing her underwear. She said: ‘I am a social activist who advocates for women’s rights and against discrimination in any form.’ [J4MB: So, another loopy, narcissistic feminist. But I repeat myself.]
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The article suggests that another leading Linux developer is already being targetted. He made the mistake of criticising rape statistics as being based on faulty methodology and for being inflated. His misdemeanour was this statement on the infamous Koss study:
‘…. over half of [a report’s] cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercion. And if you asked the women involved, only 27% of the people categorized by Koss as being raped called it rape themselves. Also found in the Koss study, although not widely reported, was the statistic that of the women whom she classified as being raped (although 73% refused to self-classify the event as rape), 46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant…
Please note, I am not diminishing what rape is, and or any particular person’s experience. However, I am challenging the use of statistics that may be hyperbolic and misleading’
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At last, some hilarious comedy on the BBC, albeit unplanned. Thank goodness for live television, otherwise we’d never have seen this gem.
Politics Live is the female-dominated successor to Daily Politics. Yesterday a BBC TV team was reporting from the Labour party conference, and needless to say much of the programme was occupied by the news of John McDonnell’s statement that the next party leader “must” be a woman. Some genius working for Politics Live came up with the idea of talking to conference attendees, asking them to select one cupcake from a selection, each bearing the images of one of the following – Rebecca Long-Bailey, Emily Thornberry, and Angela Rayner. People with a BBC licence can watch the exchange covered by this blog piece, on iPlayer, from 35:10, here.
The following conversation took place outside the Momentum stand, with a (female) interviewer and one of two young black women:
Interviewer: “Hi guys! We’re just asking people – it’s a very scientific survey – if the next leader is going to be a woman, which of these three candidates would you go far? (Two assistants displayed the range of cupcakes) You can have Emily Thornberry, Angela Rayner, or Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Priceless. Simply priceless. A strong candidate for a Labour all-women shortlist, we feel.
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Disgraceful. Laura Smith was elected with a majority of 48 votes at the 2017 general election, her first. We can but hope she leaves it at the next general election. The start of the (BBC) piece:
Laura Smith, the Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, has called for a general strike to help bring down the Conservative government – if there isn’t a general election.
Rebecca Long-Bailey, Shadow Business Secretary, was asked on BBC television this morning if she supported the call for a general strike. She said it wasn’t official party policy, but she “really liked” Laura Smith, and thought she was a “great public speaker”. Long-Bailey is tipped as a leading contender to become party leader after a female leader is made compulsory once Corbyn steps down. Predictably, she was selected from an all-women shortlist.
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Our thanks to Steve for this substantial piece, on the BBC website, amazingly. They can do it if they try. An extract:
After sixty years of controlling behaviour and physical violence, Jim changed his blood-stained shirt and walked back to his wife who was making them a coffee after smashing him in the face.
He had asked her to let the cat in while he cut the grass outside.
But instead of turning left to the kitchen, he turned right, walked out the door and kept on walking away from his life of abuse.
With only the clothes he wore, he didn’t look back, and at the age of 78, he started his life again.
Jim is one of a growing number of men telling other men it is okay to admit to being abused by women.
According to official figures, almost 20% of reported cases of domestic abuse in Scotland involve male victims, but charities and victims believe the actual number is much closer to 50%, due to the reluctance of men to speak up. [J4MB emphasis. A remarkable admission for the BBC.]…
Jacqui (the man’s daughter) credits the charity Abused Men In Scotland (AMIS) for saving her father.
Iris Quar works for the charity. She explained why men find it difficult to come forward.
She said: “The gender role men are given in society means they find it hard to understand and recognise what is happening to them and when they do it is very difficult for them to talk about it.
“Regularly they begin with: ‘I am not an abused man’, but then go on to tell the most horrendous stories of domestic abuse.
“Once men go into that downward spiral of control they are robbed of everything – their home, their job, their self determination.”
The AMIS website is here, you can make a donation here.
Our thanks to Steve for this tragic story. Suicide is already the #1 cause of death of men under 45, in all age groups, and the rate is rising in men over 50.
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Madness. A token woman as prime minister. What could possibly go wrong? Men’s and boys’ rights would be assaulted even more gravely than they are now.
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Justice for Men & Boys 