Given that the British government – in common with governments across the developed world – discriminates against men and for women in so many ways, to what extent are men bankrolling the state through their taxes, more specifically their income taxes i.e. the taxes on their earned incomes? The answer may surprise you. The excellent American men’s human rights website ‘A Voice for Men’ has just exclusively published my article on the matter:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/government-tyranny/he-who-pays-the-piper-calls-the-tune-or-does-he/

When you read the assertions made by proponents of increased female representation in boardrooms, you find a considerable number which have no basis in reality. A whole language has been developed to present a credible but ultimately fantasy-driven picture of the supposed advantages women bring when appointed to the senior reaches of major organisations, when the overwhelming evidence is that performance declines, mainly because quotas – or the threat of them, as we have in the UK – inevitably forces organisations to appoint female directors who are less well qualified than the most highly qualified men available.

Proponents of increased female representation in boardrooms often make statements which are factually wrong, and it’s rare for parliamentary inquiries to notice the fact, and challenge witnesses accordingly. On 20 November 2012 I gave evidence (along with Dr Catherine Hakim, Dr Heather McGregor and Steve Moxon) to the House of Commons inquiry ‘Women in the Workplace’. Heather McGregor owns and runs Taylor Bennett, a London-based headhunting company. In her evidence to the inquiry, she proudly referred to the fact that of the 22 directors and employees of her company, 20 are women. Gender equality is a fine thing when women are in charge of hiring and firing.

In her evidence to the inquiry Heather McGregor – well-known for her television appearances and her articles in the Financial Times – made a claim which was factually untrue. I’d spoken at length about five longitudinal studies which all show that when more women are appointed to corporate boards, corporate financial performance declines. This is an extract from the original (uncorrected) transcript of what followed:

Chair: Have you read these longitudinal studies that Mike Buchanan has talked about? If you have, have you any comment on them?

Dr McGregor: I believe that Mr Buchanan is referring to a study in Norway, but I do not know because he has not said so. The study in Norway, where they have had quotas, Mr Chairman, shows that there has been no change in the financial performance of companies (my emphasis) despite the fact that they now have 40% of women on boards.

The text I’ve emphasised is factually incorrect. I put up a blog post on the matter (link below), then emailed her and asked her to correct the statement.

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/an-invitation-to-heather-mcgregor/

In the absence of a response, I contacted the clerk of the committee, asking that the matter be brought to the attention of the inquiry’s chairman, Adrian Bailey MP. I don’t know if Dr McGregor corrected the statement voluntarily or after coming under pressure to do so, but the corrected report has just been published:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmbis/c754-i/c754i.pdf

On page 25 we note the following:

Chair: Have you read these longitudinal studies that Mike Buchanan has talked about? If you have, have you any comment on them?

Dr McGregor: I believe that Mr Buchanan is referring to a study in Norway, but I do not know because he has not said so. The study in Norway, where they have had quotas, Mr Chairman, shows that there has been negative impact on financial performance (my emphasis) due to the precipitous nature of the way quotas have been introduced in that country. The 30% Club interest in the Norway experience is very much around the fact that despite quotas we still do not have a sustainable pipeline of women in executive positions. Despite the fact that you have this wonderful headline of 40% of women on boards, you do not have either a pipeline of senior women or women CEOs; in fact, their averages for both of those statistics are lower than a European-wide average.

What she’s admitting is that quotas have driven poorly-qualified women onto Norwegian boards, which has impaired financial performance. The British government’s threat of quotas is driving poorly-qualified women onto FTSE100 boards. Why should the outcome be any different to that experienced in Norway?

The highly respected website http://politics.co.uk – required reading for the British political classes – has just published an article I wrote recently:

http://politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/03/06/comment-why-britain-needs-a-pro-male-party

The original article was longer, and they asked me to reduce its length. For those with a little more time on their hands, here’s the original article:

130305 article for politics.co.uk

I note that the estimable Charlotte Vere – who ran the non-feminist pressure group ‘Women On…’ before running the Girls’ Schools Association – wrote an excellent article in September 2011 for the same website. Here it is:

http://politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2011/09/29/comment-the-harriet-harman-s-new-clothes?link=related

Next Monday, 4 March, there’s going to be a discussion on the state of feminism in Britain, on the BBC Radio 4 programme Start the Week. It will be broadcast twice that day, at 09:00 and 21:30. A lady BBC researcher contacted me and we talked at length about feminism, as did another writer and men’s human rights activist, Swayne O’Pie, author of the excellent book Why Britain Hates Men: Exposing Feminism.

On the programme will be the feminist writer and activist Natasha Walter, and Dr Catherine Hakim, a renowned sociologist, and the originator of Preference Theory (2000). Her research found that while four out of seven British men are ‘work-centred’, only one in seven British women are. This alone accounts for most of the ‘low’ representation of women we see in the upper reaches of major organisations, particularly in the private sector. Most of the remainder of the explanation in the private sector can be attributed to the fact that almost two-thirds of private sector workers in the UK are men. Combining these two facts would lead us to expect men to take over 90% of major corporate board positions, but it’s currently about 85% and declining year-on-year.

Preference Theory is central to our Campaign for Merit in Business. More details on the theory below:

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/dr-catherine-hakims-preference-theory/

I also suggested to the BBC researcher that she speak to some anti-feminists of the female persuasion. She agreed to this, and later the same day I supplied her with the names of two prominent female anti-feminists who were willing to have a discussion with her. That was over a week ago, and she confirmed today she’s spoken to neither of them.

We recently announced plans to establish a new political party, Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them). We’re expecting the party to be formally recognised by the Electoral Commission in around two weeks’ time, and we’re now in a position to publicise our logo:

130217 J4MB logo

Full credit for the design must go to an expatriate British Graphic Designer and Illustrator who now lives and works in Vancouver, Neil Westlake. He was a real pleasure to work with. Neil’s well known (as ‘LimeyWestlake’) to visitors of the American website ‘A Voice for Men’, and we thank him warmly for his work on this project, which he’s kindly carried out at no charge, as a gesture of support to the party. His website is here:

http://westlakedesign.net

We’ve revealed the logo to a small number of people already, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Do feel free to post any comments you may have about it. Thank you.

Two days ago the American website ‘A Voice for Men’ exclusively published an article in which I revealed for the first time that the proposed title of our new political party is Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them). The following is a link to the article, in which I outline some of our thinking behind forming a new party:

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/government-tyranny/fighting-feminism-lets-get-political/

My warm thanks to all those who’ve contributed comments on ‘A Voice for Men’, with the exception of a male feminist – let’s call him ‘Tom’ – who clearly only had the intention of irritating everyone.

We have a blog set up – http://j4mb.wordpress.com – with only basic details at this stage, but we’ll be adding more material in time, especially after the party’s official launch, which we expect to be in March.

We keep hearing that companies will be more successful if they appoint more women to their senior teams, regardless of the compelling evidence to the contrary. Some even claim that having more female CEOs will improve companies’ performance. So what’s the evidence? About four months ago we reported that  Cynthia Carroll, CEO of Anglo-American (a FTSE100 company) had presided over a drop in the company’s value of £9 BILLION in just five years:

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/ftse100-female-ceo-presides-over-a-9-billion-fall-in-market-value/

Now we wouldn’t want to be accused of cherry picking examples to support our arguments – we’ll leave such tactics to our opponents – so what’s the bigger picture of the performance of female CEOs? A comment has just been left on ‘A Voice for Men’ in response to my article about forming a new political party, and I thank the writer warmly. Enjoy:

August Løvenskiolds commented on Fighting feminism – let’s get political.

in response to Mike Buchanan:

Hey, Mike – I just finished a bit of research you might find useful in your Campaign for Merit in Business.  Hope this helps:

In the year 2010, according to a list compiled by CNN/Money, there were 15 women CEO’s in the Fortune 500 Companies, and this number grew to 21 women CEO’s by 2012. But I was curious – how had the original 15 high-powered women of 2010 fared in two years as leaders of their superpower companies?

Two years is admittedly not too high a bar – I mean, hell, Sarah Palin lasted over two years and seven months out of her four-year term as governor of Alaska before she gave up and bolted away – so these talented women probably did at least as okay, right?  I mean, feminism, for all of its faults, can’t be THAT wrong, can it?

Oops – sorry, ladies.  The two-year results for the 15 gal CEOs of 2010 were not so good at all.

Of the original 15, only 5 women were still in their same top jobs by 2012 (Burns at Xerox, Kullman at DuPont, Meryowitz at TJX, Nooyi at PepsiCo, and Woertz at ADM).  Kraft Foods broke up into smaller companies in 2012, and their former CEO Irene Rosenfeld still leads one of the child companies now called Mondelez International, so we can sort of count her as survivor #6.

Now, of these 6 survivors, 2 of them saw their companies decline in the Fortune rankings – TJX fell from #119 to #125, and ADM fell from #27 to #28.  3 women CEO’s saw their companies move up the list, and of course, in the case of #6, it is easy to guess that when Kraft broke up, the ranking of their offspring companies is likely lower than their former #53 rank.

So after just 2 years, only 3 of 15 women CEOs (20 percent) were successful, in that they both kept their jobs and their company rankings grew within the Fortune 500.  But don’t despair – I’m sure the other 12 lasses have amassed large shoe collections, and now that they are, or will be, employed as lorry drivers, they can transport their shoes with relative ease.

Sources:

CNN Money (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/womenceos/),

Catalyst (http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-fortune-1000)

My thanks to the technology-savvy MRA who set up my YouTube account. It now has the videos of the House of Commons inquiry into ‘Women in the Workplace’, as well as the recent appearance on the BBC’s Daily Politics:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhX1c3ow6BrzdzP3ydpeZQ/videos

In the first 48 hours after being made available, the videos have been viewed over 1,200 times. The word’s getting out…

The DBIS this morning issued an interesting press release, concerning a letter sent to the seven remaining FTSE100 companies with all-male boards:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vince-cable-progress-still-to-be-made-on-all-male-boards

What makes it interesting is that Campaign for Merit in Business has evidently succeeded in stopping even Vince Cable claiming that increased gender diversity on boards leads to enhanced corporate financial performance. The idiocy of such claims – which were made regularly by Cable and many others before C4MB started campaigning in early 2012 – must have become only too painfully evident to even Cable and his colleagues.

On past form we’d expect a press release from Cable to contain at least one absurd statement, and for us the prize winner for absurdity in this particular press statement is the following:

Businesses should be making sure they have the right people around their top table. This is not about equality, this is about good governance and good business. The international evidence supports this: diverse boards are better boards benefiting from fresh perspectives, opinions and new ideas which ultimately serve the company’s long term interests.

No such ‘international evidence’ exists, of course – other than international evidence which shows declines in corporate financial performance – so we’ll be writing to Vince Cable this morning asking him to supply it under the Freedom of Information Act. We can look forward to a creative response, probably the customary opinions masquerading as facts. We’ll post the response upon receipt, with our commentary.

I see from the press release that a former General Secretary of the TUC has been appointed to the Business Bank Advisory Group. Vince Cable is clearly in the wrong party. He should be in the Communist Party of Great Britain.