I am regularly approached by supporters suggesting I contact one or more of three supposedly small ‘c’ conservative media outlets – The Spectator, Unherd and GB News – in an effort to engage with them, and offer material challenging feminist narratives. My experience has been that it’s an exercise in utter futility – especially with The Spectator – but a month ago I sent this message to a contact at Unherd (Freddie Sayers is the Executive Editor of Unherd as well as the Publisher of The Spectator, Sally Challerton is the Editor of Unherd):

“[Name readacted], I’m writing to ask you to forward this email to Freddie Sayers and Sally Challerton, and thought it might help to explain why I wish to contact them.

Freddie / Sally

I’ve been a subscriber to Unherd for 18 months. A few extracts from your Mission Statement https://unherd.com/about-unherd/:

• We make it our mission to challenge herd mentality wherever we see it
• This may be to speak for people who are otherwise dismissed; to challenge lazy consensus
• We try to give a platform to the overlooked, the downtrodden and the traduced
• We have no allegiance to any political party or tradition. Our writers often disagree with each other. Our approach is to test and retest assumptions, without fear or favour.
• The effect, we hope, is to get a little bit closer to the truth — and to make people think again.

When it comes to men’s and boys’ issues and feminism, your output utterly ignores your alleged mission. I can think of four feminist Unherd contributors off the top of my head – Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, Mary Harrington and Sarah Ditum – but not so much as one article by an anti-feminist, or anyone (regardless of how they describe themselves) seriously challenging the whole ideology of feminism (as opposed to some contentious areas of the ideology) or the output of those women. Being able to post comments on their articles is a very poor substitute.

Your lack of coverage of men’s and boys’ issues, and lack of challenging of feminism and feminists, is of course consistent with the mainstream media generally. Given your mission statement, I’d have hoped (and expected) you to be different. I think you’ll find a huge audience for pieces challenging feminism and feminists.

I look forward to hearing from you in due course.”

My contact told me she’d passed my email on to the “editorial team” and – quelle surprise – I’ve heard nothing in the month since I sent it.

From the Wikipedia entry on Sir Paul Marshall:

“Sir Paul Roderick Clucas Marshall (born 2 August 1959) is a British hedge fund manager and philanthropist. According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2020, he had an estimated net worth of £630 million. In 2024, he topped The Sunday Times Giving List, having donated £145.1 million over 12 months to various charities.”

Sir Paul Marshall is a Christian and the owner of Unherd, The Spectator, and a co-owner of GB News. All three outlets are regarded as small ‘c’ conservative and right-of-centre, but all three either promote feminist narratives, or at best don’t challenge them. It hardly needs me to point out that feminists are hostile to men and the nuclear family, and therefore profoundly anti-conservative and anti-Christian.

Maybe it’s time for Sir Paul Marshall to exercise some long-overdue proprietorial influence?

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