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Our thanks to Mike P for this. The start of the piece:
The Army is to introduce ‘gender and age-neutral’ fitness tests, the Ministry of Defence has said.
They will replace the current assessments, which make allowances based on sex and age and see soldiers completing tasks including push-ups and sit-ups.
The new tests, which will come in next year, aim to ensure all close combat soldiers are physically prepared for the rigours of modern battle, said the MoD.
Field Army Sergeant Major Gavin Paton said yesterday: ‘I don’t care if you are a man or a woman, I don’t care what you do, and the enemy doesn’t either.’
You can be very sure that the new “fitness tests” will be set at a level at which more women “succeed”, as was the case with the Fire Service. The inevitable result will be a reduction in the average fitness of “close combat soldiers” over time, compromising the safety of all of them, men and women alike, in the event of conflicts, and increasing the likelihood of operational failure.
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Employers would have to provide up to ten days leave for those suffering from domestic violence in radical proposals to help victims of abuse set out by Labour today.
Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Dawn Butler, will announce the policy to help tackle what she’s called an “epidemic” as two women on average per week killed by a current or former partner.
Aside from the immeasurable human cost, domestic abuse costs businesses £1.9 billion every year due to decreased productivity, time off work, lost wages and sick pay.
Labour would also require employers to have a domestic abuse employment policy which includes providing up to 10 days paid lave for victims of domestic violence.
The policy is already in place in New Zealand while laws providing paid leave relating to domestic violence also exist in Australia at five days and in Canada at a provincial level, in Manitoba and Ontario.
“Employers have a duty of care to employees experiencing domestic abuse and should put in place a range of workplace policies to help victims,” Ms Butler will say in a speech to Labour Women’s Conference,“This crucial time will allow women to leave their abusive partners safely, get the help, protection and support they need, knowing their livelihood is secure.
“These 10 days could literally help save the lives of those women.”
Labour say they would create a separate department for Women and Equalities to “put equality centre stage” to end millions being “held back” by “stubborn inequalities”.
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Our thanks to Mike P for this. The start of the piece:
Russia is set to allow women to take jobs as truck and train drivers, and to operate heavy machinery, lifting a ban that was intended to protect their health.
A list of jobs and professions prohibited for women in Russia is going to be amended in the near future, Russia’s Labour Minister Maxim Topilin told reporters on Friday.
The list contains 456 professions in 39 industries – mostly those requiring work with various chemicals, heavy machinery or complex vehicles – that are considered dangerous for women’s health. [J4MB: But not dangerous for men’s health?] It was adopted in 1974 and last revised in 2000.
According to Mr Topilin, women will now be allowed to take jobs in six out of these 39 categories: bread-making, sea, river, air and railway transport, driving heavy trucks and specialised vehicles.
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Our thanks to Mike P for a Telegraphreport on this scandal. The paper’s headline (above) is misleading. Extracts:
A major review into rape convictions, ordered in the wake of last year’s disclosure scandal, will only examine a fraction of the cases where a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, the Telegraph has learned.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) recently announced it would be revisiting 306 convictions on its books to identify if vital evidence had been missed during the original trial. [J4MB: 306 convictions is a small proportion of the rape convictions in recent years. And “to identify if vital evidence had been missed” is to admit that men charged with rape are considered guilty, and have to prove their innocence. In many cases e.g. “he said, she said” cases, there is no evidence, so the men will languish in prison.]…
As well as an urgent review by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)into live cases, the CCRC – the public body responsible for identifying miscarriages of justice – announced it would also be looking in detail at all 306 rape cases referred to it between April 2016 and March this year.
Announcing the review in July, Richard Foster, the chair of the CCRC, said: “We believe the public needs to be assured that disclosure in past criminal cases – as well as in live prosecutions and future criminal proceedings – can stand up to scrutiny.”
But an internal memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that rather that examining all 306 cases in detail, only 61 will be explored in depth. [J4MB emphasis]
Following an initial review, a 20 per cent sample of the cases will then be selected at random, with investigators going through the police and CPS files in detail to see if there is any evidence that renders the conviction unsafe.
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Christopher Knox, defending, said the doctor suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and PMDD – a disabling menstrual disorder which affects around 3-8 per cent of menstruating women.
Mr Knox said: ‘She had clearly got suicidal thoughts. She had an intention to drive into some stationary object with the view of ending her life. She had a very severe mental illness at the time we are talking about. She took drink as self-medication, unsuccessfully but compulsively on this unfortunate day.’
Mr Knox added that Morch-Siddall is ‘now a fit and proper person practising her profession’ and that her patients have all been ‘properly cared for’.
If you know of any cases where taking alcohol as “self-medication” has been used successfully by a man in mitigation, please let us know (info@j4mb.org.uk). It appears to be a uniquely female mitigating defence.
Women are strong!
Women are amazing!!
Drunk women can consign men to wheelchairs, and not go to prison!!!
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Tucked behind an aged dragster roaring across the Utah desert, a 45-year-old mother of three has become the fastest cyclist in history by travelling at more than 180mph.
Denise Mueller-Korenek, a former junior cycling champion who stepped back from the sport and became chief executive of a home security company in California, risked death or serious injury at the Bonneville Salt Flats on Sunday to smash a record that had stood for 23 years.
“Now I know how Evel Knievel felt,” she said after hitting 183.9mph on her bike, almost 40mph quicker than the women’s record that she set in 2016.
Times caption: She used a slipstream to reach 184mph and become the world’s fastest cyclist MATT BEN STONE/GETTY IMAGES
The eccentric history of the motor-paced cycling land speed record is strewn with fatalities and mangled limbs. Participants ride, or “draft”, in the slipstream of a motorised vehicle after first being towed by it.
The discipline was popularised by Charles “Mile-a-Minute” Murphy in 1899 when he hit 60mph while drafting behind a steam train. Casualties piled up over the following century, including the Dutch rider Fred Rompelberg who broke 24 bones when he crashed at more than 100mph at the Bonneville flats in 1988. He returned seven years later to set a 167mph record which stood until last weekend.
Ms Mueller-Korenek’s assault on his mark had been thwarted by bad weather in 2016, when she still set the women’s record; by a training crash that broke her shoulder blade and rib in 2017; and by an unfortunate incident later that year when she accidentally shot herself in the leg during a shooting competition.
“She’s no spring chicken at 45 but she’s a superb bike handler and at the peak of her strength after coming back after taking 23 years off and having three kids,” according to her coach, John Howard, a former Olympic cyclist who once held the motor-paced cycling record himself. “She was totally ready.”
For the first two miles of Ms Mueller-Korenek’s record attempt she was towed behind the rattling pace-setting vehicle, which had also been used to help set the previous record in the same place in 1995.
Then, with the racing car and bike both moving at about 150mph Ms Mueller-Korenek released her cable tether and pedalled the last three miles in the slipstream of the dragster but under her own power. Her low-slung custom-built bicycle was seven feet long with compact 17 inch motorbike wheels for stability. A pair of 60-tooth sprockets and a 12-tooth cog pushed the bike forward by almost 130ft with every pedal stroke.
Times caption: Ms Mueller Korenek was described as a “superb bike handler” MATT BEN STONE/GETTY IMAGES
As Shea Holbrook, the driver, pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor, Ms Mueller-Korenek was sucked along in the air pocket behind the car, a phenomenon known as the Von Karman effect, after the Hungarian physicist Theodore von Karman. The cyclist calls it “the hand of God.”
After her victorious run Ms Mueller-Korenek was asked what her next goal would be. She waved the question away but her husband, Chris Korenek, interjected. “World record for margaritas,” he said.
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On the editorial page of yesterday’s Times, in response to the piece we’ve just published about banter at work:
“Okay,” said the instructor. “Do we know why we’re here?”
PC Smith and PC Jones looked at each other. Neither of them did. Nor did they quite understand what the instructor meant when she told them it was all about PC banter.
“Don’t know him,” said PC Jones. “But there’s a DS Banta over at Sun Hill.”
“Not ‘police constable’,” said the instructor. “‘Politically correct’.”
“He is black,” agreed PC Jones.
“No,” said the instructor. “Look. The fact is, I have been informed that during your last arrest, one of you committed a microaggression.”
“Was it when I hit that bloke in the face with my truncheon?” said PC Smith.
“Didn’t look micro,” said PC Jones. “Not at the time.” The instructor shook her head. Actually, she said, it was when he called the suspect “a fat slag” just afterwards. In the hearing of PC Jenkins.
“Police Constable Jenkins?” said PC Smith. “Or politically correct Jenkins?”
“Actually Jenkins is both,” said the instructor. “And she was offended.”
“But she ain’t fat,” said PC Jones.
“But did it occur to you,” said the instructor, “that she might identify as fat?”
“Eh?” said PCs Smith and Jones, in unison.
“Okay, look,” said the instructor. “The point is, everybody wants a fun workplace, but we need sensitivity, too. An awareness not to mock appearances, or backgrounds, or unusual names. And I warn you, this initiative has support from the top.”
“You mean . . .” said PC Jones.
“Yes,” said the instructor. “Cressida Dick.”
“Ha!” chuckled PC Smith. “Still cracks me up.”
“Not PC,” chided the instructor.
“Well obviously,” said PC Jones. “She’s the commissioner.”
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Justice for Men & Boys 