[Because Mike Buchanan has been a full-time campaigner since 2009, and therefore unable to engage in paid employment, he relies in part on donations from supporters to help him meet his living costs. If you wish to help support Mike personally, you can do so though his Patreon account. Thank you.]

Mike is the father of two adult daughters. He’s an anti-feminist men’s rights activist (MRA), the only MRA in the world with a page on Wikipedia. He’s pro-life, the author of 10 books, a publisher, photographer and cruciverbalist. He’s perhaps best known in the Bedford area as the author of the international bestseller Guitar Gods in Beds: Bedfordshire, A Heavenly County, the recorded life stories of eight guitarists well-known in the Bedford pub-based live music scene, and the autobiographical Two Men in a Car: A Businessman, a Chauffeur, and Their Holidays in France. Both were published in 2008. He hopes eventually to document the life stories of some local medical practitioners and religious people, possibly with the titles Doctors & Nurses in Beds. and Priests & Nuns in Beds.

He was the founder (in 2013) of our party and remained so until (in May 2020) he handed over the leadership to Elizabeth Hobson, 31, a gender equality activist, formerly the party’s Director of Communications.

Elizabeth resigned in March, 2021, after realising that her new full-time job left her unable to devote the time and energy required for the role of party leader. Mike re-assumed the role and continued until J4MB ceased operating as a party on 31 March, 2023, and has since continued as the organisation’s leader.

J4MB has always sought to raise public consciousness about the disadvantages and discriminations faced by men and boys in modern Britain, which are primarily the consequence of the state’s actions and inactions, designed to privilege women and girls. The proposed name of the party, and some of the thinking behind launching a political party, were exclusively revealed in Mike’s article published by A Voice for Men (AVfM) in 2013. By 2015 AVfM had published over 60 of Mike’s articles, they’re available here.

Mike has appeared frequently on TV and radio since 2012, almost all his appearances are on the J4MB YouTube channel.

After obtaining a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry in 1979 at one of the three most prestigious universities in the UK – Oxford, Cambridge, Reading – Mike started a career with the Beecham corporation. He was a business executive and later a consultant. One of his consulting clients was the Conservative party (2006-8). He developed an innovative business model for the conferences which delivered more than £11.5 million in profits for the party over many years during which it was desperate for income. In his autobiography, David Cameron admitted the income stream had been the largest single income stream of the party over those years. Surprisingly, Mike has yet to be offered a peerage in recognition of his work, he would choose to be Baron Buchanan of Bedford. Details in the blog piece Mike Buchanan’s £11,500,000+ donation to the Conservative party. The future Baron Buchanan of Bedford, surely?

Along with many other party members, he cancelled his party membership in 2009 after David Cameron announced his intention to employ all-women shortlists for the selection of prospective parliamentary candidates for the next general election.

In 2010, at the age of 52, he took early retirement, after deciding to devote the rest of his life to challenging the toxic ideology of feminism. He’s never regretted that decision.

Rowland Adelagun (ManWomanMyth), a British man, was one of the most influential video creators in the history of the men’s rights movement before an accident in 2015 rendered him unable to produce lengthy videos, due to severe injuries including brain injury. Our YouTube channel has a playlist of all 130 of his videos. We’re in regular touch with “Row” and take him out for lunch every month.

In 2011 he drove to Bedford to record Mike for a video in which he sought to answer the questions, “If we ‘need’ more women in corporate boardrooms, do we also ‘need’ more white sprinters in the Olympics 100 metres men’s sprint final? And if not, why not?” The video was finally published in 2014:

One of Rowland’s most well-known videos is Feminism is the Pursuit of Female Supremacy (2013):

Mike launched two campaigns in 2012, The Anti-Feminism League (it’s been dormant for many years) and Campaign for Merit in Business. The latter reflected his conviction that merit must be the sole basis for recruitment and promotion in the workplace, in opposition to the initiatives which seek to ‘improve’ gender diversity in senior executive positions, including in boardrooms, regardless of individual women’s merit compared with their male peers, and regardless of the evidence which clearly demonstrates a causal link between increasing gender diversity on corporate boards, and corporate financial DECLINE. Mike presented that evidence to the House of Commons inquiry ‘Women in the Workplace’ in 2012:

The initiatives are anti-meritocratic, they’re inspired and sustained by radical feminist ideology, yet they were supported and financed by the Conservative-led coalition (2010-15) and continue to this day with a Conservative government (2019-). It’s known that one of the government’s longer-term targets is gender-balanced boards at FTSE350 companies. Two months after giving evidence to the House of Commons inquiry, Mike appeared on Daily Politics:

The world’s first International Conference on Men’s Issues was hosted by A Voice for Men (AVfM) near Detroit in June 2014. It was a huge success, and Mike was one of the speakers (these two facts may possibly be unrelated). The video of his speech, and the associated transcript, are here:

In 2016 Mike led two protests against non-therapeutic male circumcision (male genital mutilation, MGM) in London, outside the Home Office and in Parliament Square. A video of the two protests is here, it includes Mike’s arrest in Parliament Square:

Mike was duly charged and convicted of obstructing the highway. His two appeals – the first at Isleworth Crown Court, the second at the Royal Court of Justice – were unsuccessful, despite a strong legal defence. He later attemped to bring a private prosecution of Dr Balvinder Mehat, a Nottingham-based doctor and circumciser who had failed to obtain prior permission for circumcision from a boy’s mother (a single mother). The boy has suffered physical problems ever since. Mike was denied leave to bring a private prosecution by the judge – here.

Mike hosted the second International Conference on Men’s Issues at Excel London a month later, in July 2016. The event had 20 speakers (including five women and a Conservative MP, Philip Davies) and drew attendees from 20 countries. It was a resounding success. The video of Mike’s speech ‘The Political War on Men and Boys’:

The keynote speech by Erin Pizzey, the veteran domestic violence campaigner:

The video of Philip Davies’s speech, ‘The Justice Gender Gap’, which led to attacks by The Guardian newspaper and demands from opposition party leaders – including Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party leader at the time – that prime minister Theresa May fire him:

Mike supported A Voice for Men and a number of other organizations in organizing the third International Conference on Men’s Issues, held in Gold Coast, Australia, in June 2017. The conference website is here, a playlist of the presentations and related materials here. The video of Mike’s presentation, ‘Let’s Get Physical – Beyond Keyboard Activism’:

Mike hosted the fourth International Conference on Men’s Issues at Excel London in July 2018, his talk was titled, ‘Equal Rights for Men and Women’:

Karen Straughan, the legendary Canadian anti-feminist vlogger GirlWritesWhat, gave the keynote speech, “Why women must consign feminism to the dustbin of history”:

In 2019 Mike Buchanan and Elizabeth Hobson (then the party’s Director of Communications) travelled to Cambridge University to give talks on the history of feminism, and the need for men to have equal rights with women. Feminist academics, students and alumni (including men) did all in their power to stop the talks going ahead, including barricading the lecture building in which they were speaking, stopping people from entering the building, banging on metal pans and lids in an (unsuccessful) effort to drown out Mike’s and Elizabeth’s speeches, and chanting songs with threatening lines such as, ‘There are many, many more of us than you’.

Earlier in the day, in a pub garden, Mike had milkshake thrown over him by two feminists, one a man, one a woman. Natty Raymond, a female supporter, ran after the woman involved and detained her for a time, recording a very memorable and entertaining video of the assailant and photographer on her smartphone:

.A male supporter (with his slight 16-year-old son beside him) was assaulted on his walk back to his car. Details concerning that eventful day, and the preceding eventful weeks of feminist campaigning and lying, are here.

Mike’s talk at the 2019 conference in Chicago was titled, ‘Feminism sows the seeds of its own destruction’. It was the first ICMI in which a speaker talked about the killing of unborn children being a men’s issue:

Philip Davies’s talk at the same conference, ‘The Battle Against Political Correctness in the UK’:

Along with Elizabeth Hobson, Mike was a key organizer of ICMI20, a virtual conference (because of the COVID pandemic) with videos from 120 individual speakers (and interviews) in November 2020, ending on International Men’s Day (19 November, every year). Mike’s talk was recorded in the main library at Buchanan Castle and titled, ‘Why Women Fail to Compete Successfully With Men, and Will Always Fail’:

In May 2021 Mike sought to place an advert in the UK print edition of The Spectator, relating what has long been known by researchers (since at least the 1980s) about domestic violence being a generational issue, not a gendered issue. Along with many mainstream media publications, the paper has a long tradition of publishing many misleading articles on the matter, written by feminists including Julie Bindel (50+ articles from her alone). The editrix of the UK edition declined to publish the advert, without explanation, details of the matter here. An open letter to Fraser Nelson, the overall editor, remains unanswered to this day.

Mike was the conference director for ICMI21, another virtual event with 72 speakers, a very interactive event for attendees and speakers, with live interviews, Q&A sessions etc. His talk was titled, ‘Women’s Rights v Others’ Rights, Abortion, Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder’:

Janice Fiamengo, a Canadian anti-feminist men’s rights advocate and a former professor of English, is one of the most important voices in the global men’s rights movement. She spoke at five of the six conferences between 2016 and 2021. Her keynote speech at the 2021 conference was, “COVID-19 is a Men’s Issue”:

The first video in Janice’s important Fiamengo File series was, ‘Why I am an Anti-Feminist’:

Mike and Philipp Tanzer, a highly-regarded German men’s rights activist based in Scotland, hosted a live Q&A with the legendary vlogger Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) at the same conference:

Videos of the 300+ presentations at the 2014/16/17/18/19/20/21 ICMIs and the three Messages for Men conferences held in London are in individual event playlists, here. In 2020 Mike Buchanan and Elizabeth Hobson hosted a national conference, Domestic Abuse is a Men’s Issue, Too. The video playlist is here.

Mike will be the Conference Director for future online ICMIs and in-person ICMIs in Europe and North America. He’ll be hosting an in-person ICMI in Budapest, Hungary, in August 2024.

Mike’s 10 books are available to order worldwide through online retailers and traditional bookstores. His Author page on Amazon is here. He runs LPS publishing, which offers a commercial service to writers wanting to see their books published as paperbacks, hardbacks, or ebooks. A number of his books can be ordered directly from him, signed and dedicated, if you wish. Details on the website.

Mike’s last three books were concerned with gender-related matters:

David and Goliatha: David Cameron – heir to Harman? (2010)

The Glass Ceiling Delusion: the REAL reasons more women dont reach senior positions (2011)

Feminism: the ugly truth (2015)

The Glass Ceiling Delusion has received many testimonials including the following:

Equality of opportunity is a fine thing but equality of outcome is another matter entirely. There is little doubt that men and women have, on average, different talents and interests that make gender quotas in the workplace unfair and impractical. The Glass Ceiling Delusion is a welcome, well-argued addition to the debate about whether women should be pushed up the social ladder just because they are women, and thus at a presumed disadvantage. This is rather an insult to women and Margaret Thatcher, for one, would not have agreed. Individuals should be treated as individuals, not as members of a particular race, class or gender. Whatever the historic injustices, this is the only way that social structures can evolve naturally.

Glenn Wilson Visiting Professor of Psychology, Gresham College, London

The Glass Ceiling Delusion attacks head-on the militant feminist myth that men and women have the same interests and capabilities. Reviewing a wide range of evidence, Mike Buchanan shows that the under-representation of women in senior positions in business has nothing to do with discrimination and ‘glass ceilings’, and that attempts to impose quotas are therefore fundamentally flawed. A polemical book with an important message.

Peter Saunders Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Sussex University

The Glass Ceiling Delusion makes a significant counter-argument to the debate about women in boardrooms, and for this reason alone it deserves to be read. Whilst I’m personally too old to enter the fray, I’d nonetheless like to add that every scholarly study I’ve read about women in management during the past fifteen years indicates that successful women have exactly the same characteristics as successful men. All my life I’ve admired successful women as much as successful men and have had the privilege of working for and with many of them. A typical example is the brilliant Diane Thompson of the Camelot Group. Another is Professor Lynette Ryals, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of my own University. Women like this get to the top on sheer talent; they have no need of a ‘gender agenda’.

In this debate, however, we also need to be aware that we need pressure groups to ameliorate deep-seated prejudices in society, but a point is inevitably reached beyond which we must let meritocracy in a free society take over, otherwise we enter the dangerous domain of social engineering. The irony is that Mike Buchanan’s own movement, Campaign for Merit in Business, is also a pressure group. So, whilst I don’t agree with everything he says and does, I believe his book at least deserves to be read and seriously considered, preferably dispassionately.

Malcolm McDonald Emeritus Professor, Cranfield School of Management

The Glass Ceiling Delusion demythologizes each of thirty elements the author has identified of the now generally accepted claim that women are discriminated against in the world of white-collar work. Much has been accomplished recently in disclosing the half-truths about women and domestic violence, for example, but Buchanan illuminates an area that other critics of ideological feminism have not considered. Buchanan’s analysis is based partly on his experience of working as an executive for major British and American multinational corporations for over 30 years until 2010. His book should inspire research on settings of corporate power everywhere. Always witty and sometimes even biting in style, Buchanan’s text is grounded in important texts in psychobiology, sociology, history and politics. It is an impassioned yet not angry argument that deserves the careful attention of policy-makers and a general readership.

Professor Miles Groth PhD Editor, New Male Studies: An International Journal

The Glass Ceiling Delusion is an important and brave book, the best book on social economics and society in general published for decades. It’s irresistibly compelling, cogently argues and superbly put together. It should be in all school and college libraries. It should be compulsory reading for social science, economics and politics students. It should be force-fed to male and female politicians. This is definitely a five-star book. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

Dr Vernon Coleman bestselling English author