An existing donor has just contributed £40 towards our campaign to fund a third candidate in 2015, which means we’ve reached our target of £1,000. I should like to thank both him and all the other donors for helping us reach the target in the first 22 days of our 60 day campaign. If donations keep flowing in at this rate over the 23 months before the 2015 general election, we’ll be able to fund our target of 30 candidates.

This campaign ends 3 August. Any excess over £1,000 will be used to kick-start the next campaign, for a fourth candidate. Thank you for your support.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/justice-for-men-boys-and-the-women-who-love-them

It’s just been discovered, apparently, that when one group of people makes choices, it may impact negatively on other groups of people. Who knew? Now if the first group consists of women, and the second group of men, that’s not a problem. Indeed it’s long been the default setting for how most societies operate across the developed world.

But what if the second group also consists of women? The second group wouldn’t complain about that, surely? Forgive me, I couldn’t resist that. Of course they do:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/06/21/family_friendly_workplaces_are_great_unless_you_re_childless.html?wpisrc=flyouts

The end of the piece is priceless:

Clearly, what we need are work environments where the specifics of your home life shouldn’t matter at all, and a culture that supports everyone having a life outside of work, regardless of whether that life includes raising kids or not.

Translated into plain English, I think this means:

Clearly, what we need are work environments which give women special treatment, regardless of whether or not they have children.

How could anyone possibly object to that happy state of affairs?

An interesting report from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22992625

Until today we were told the four senior people allegedly involved in the cover-up at the Care Quality Commission (‘CQC’) were ‘Mr E’, ‘Mr F’. ‘Mr G’ and ‘Mr J’. All are, in fact, women:

Cynthia Bower – former chief executive

Jill Finney – deputy chief executive

Louise Dineley – head of regulatory risk and quality

Anna Jefferson – media manager

As far as I’m concerned, these women are innocent until and unless found guilty of the allegations. But it’s significant that the individuals were initially presented as being men. It flies in the face of the assertion – confidently and frequently made by feminists and others – that we could expect higher levels of integrity if there were more ‘women at the top’.

Earlier today the government published the report of the House of Commons inquiry into ‘Women in the Workplace’, to which C4MB gave written and oral evidence. The chairman of the inquiry was Adrian Binley, a Labour MP. Not that his political convictions need necessarily matter – after all, the appalling House of Lords inquiry ‘Women on Boards’ last year was chaired by a Conservative peer, Baroness O’Cathain. Today’s report is here:

130620 House of Commons report, ‘Women in the Workplace’

It’s an interesting report, to say the least. Our critique is here:

130620 Critique of the House of Commons report, ‘Women in the Workplace’

Another story for the ‘You couldn’t make this stuff up!’ file, this time concerning a woman fired by CMC Markets, a company founded by former Conservative co-founder, Peter Cruddas:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/10119321/Female-executive-claims-City-firm-fired-me-for-being-a-woman.html

You have to ask yourself – why did the company hire her in the first place? Presumably she was a women then, too?

Nine days ago we set up a ‘crowdfunding’ campaign to raise £1,000 to fund another J4MB candidate for the 2015 general election:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/justice-for-men-boys-and-the-women-who-love-them

The campaign has another 51 days to run (to 3 August) but donations have already reached £601. If we don’t reach the £1,000 target by 3 August, all donations will be returned to donors in full. If we pass the target before 3 August, any sums beyond £1,000 will go towards funding more candidates. We plan to field 30 candidates at the 2015 general election.

This morning we received a £200 donation from a pensioner, HS. His details aren’t shown on the website because he chose to stay anonymous, but his email address is visible to us, so I emailed him to thank him for the donation, and asked him if he’d like to explain the motivations behind it. He replied, and I have his permission to reproduce his reply here:

I’m a pensioner, and every year I set aside £200 from my pension payments to pay for a short holiday. I’ve got to an age – 84 – where I’m not as mobile as I once was, and I was in two minds about whether to have a holiday this year, or not. I decided I couldn’t think of a more worthwhile use for the money, than to help you fund another candidate at the next election.

I can barely contain my rage at what’s happened to British society over the past 50 years, and the past 30 in particular. A small minority of men-hating women declared war on men, and the state has helped them – and women in general – assault men (and boys) on so many levels. It continues to do so. I’ve seen a steady poisoning of relationships between men and women, which has led to the dysfunctional society we see all around us today. And it’s not only men who suffer. Most women and children suffer, too.

I’m sick to death of the constant assaults on men’s interests, and they get worse with each passing year. An example is the current crisis in the NHS, caused by a huge influx of female doctors (I believe 70% of medical students today are women). Most female doctors quit the profession, or work part-time, and refuse to work unsocial hours. The result is an ever-worsening service, for which the taxpayer pays ever more. The (Conservative) Health Minister Anna Soubry has the gall to say the ‘solution’ is to train yet more doctors (mostly women, needless to say) at a cost of £250,000 each. Most of the tax burden falls on men. THIS IS INSANE.

I see feminist thinking behind most, if not all, the assaults on men and boys. My grandson’s wife had an affair, the marriage ended in divorce, she ended up with the house and children – who adored their father – and while poisoning their impressionable young minds towards him, she denied him access to them even in the face of Custody Orders (which the courts wouldn’t enforce).

He’s been close to suicide quite a number of times (I can quite understand why the F4J member defaced a portrait of the Queen yesterday). We shouldn’t be surprised the suicide rate among British men is three times higher than that among British women. I don’t think most men’s suicides should be attributed to ‘failings’ on those men’s parts. Many of those men have simply reached the point where their lives have objectively become not worth living. The state tells men in distressing circumstances to go hang themselves. We shouldn’t be too surprised that so many of them do.

I’m a lifelong Conservative voter, but under David Cameron the party has been a disaster, following the feminist agendas of Harriet Harman and her like. Dear God, when you compare Cameron with Margaret Thatcher… I’ll end here before my blood pressure goes through the roof.

Thank you for all you’re trying to do for men and boys (and women and children in general). I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see your party succeed in its aims, but I hope I do. Good luck.

I don’t mind admitting HS’s email brought a lump to my throat, and we thank him warmly both for his generosity, and for his explanation of why he donated the sum.

If you can make a donation to our campaign for more candidates in 2015, however small, I should be very grateful. We’re working hard to make the future brighter for men and boys (and the women who love them). Nobody associated with J4MB draws any income from donations. Thank you.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/justice-for-men-boys-and-the-women-who-love-them

Last Friday I had a lengthy discussion with Jonathan Vernon-Smith on BBC Three Counties Radio, concerning women in the workplace:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GulYuojvoMw

Caroline Criado-Perez, a feminist and founder of ‘The Women’s Room’ http://thewomensroom.org.uk contributed to the discussion. Over the course of one section (16:15 – 20:05) I made the point that we have five longitudinal studies which show that when companies increase the number of women on their boards, corporate financial performance declines. Our briefing paper on the studies is here:

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/improving-gender-diversity-on-boards-leads-to-a-decline-in-corporate-performance-the-evidence/

Ms Criado-Perez made the following astonishing claim (18:16):

There are many longitudinal studies that would say the opposite.

I expressed my disagreement with the claim, and I now publicly challenge her to send me links to the ‘many’ longitudinal studies she claims exist.

Last Friday I was in a lengthy discussion on BBC Three Counties Radio with presenter Jonathan Vernon-Smith and four others (the others were all of the female persuasion) on the topic of women (and men) in the workplace. It was good (for once) to have enough time to explore some of the nuances around this topic. All too often I (in common with other MHRAs) am given only 5-10 minutes to cover a host of subjects relating to men’s and boys’ human rights. So I thank BBC Three Counties Radio, and Jonathan Vernon-Smith, for this rare opportunity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GulYuojvoMw

Followers of this blog are well-informed about The 30% Club. Founded and still chaired by Helena Morrissey, Chief Executive of Newton Investment and mother of nine children, it recruits as ‘members’ chairmen of major British companies, professional services firms etc. to drive up the proportion of women on their boards, regardless of the compelling evidence which shows they’re damaging their organisations’ future financial prospects as a result. Here’s the current list of these despicable men http://30percentclub.org.uk/members.

I’m grateful to a supporter, DN, for recently informing me of an organisation formed in London earlier this year, The 2% Club http://thetwopercentclub.com. Their website contains some of the discredited claims still made to this day on the website of The 30% Club, so four days ago I emailed the club’s founder, Heather Jackson, with a simple challenge. I haven’t heard back from Ms Jackson, but if and when I do, you’ll be the first to know. Don’t hold your breath. The content of my email:

Heather, good evening. A supporter has pointed me towards your website. I was particularly struck by the statistics on this page:   http://www.thetwopercentclub.com/issue.html   The claims of improved performance (66% higher ROCE etc.) are, I believe, those made some years by Catalyst, an American militant feminist campaigning organisation. If so, you might be interested to know Catalyst have stopped making such claims, according to a leading academic proponent of more women in boardrooms, Professor Susan Vinnicombe, contained in her evidence to a House of Lords inquiry last year:

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/a-remarkable-statement-by-a-leading-proponent-of-improved-gender-diversity-in-the-boardroom/

If you look at Catalyst’s ‘Bottom Line’ series of reports you’ll see they’re reporting correlation, not causation, and the reports’ editors make it clear causation cannot be concluded (or even inferred) from correlation. The reasons for correlations are well understood, and have nothing to do with corporate performance improving after more women reach boardrooms.   The reasons men outnumber women in boardrooms etc. are perfectly well understood, and discrimination against women isn’t one of them. I detailed them in my book The Glass Ceiling Delusion: the real reasons more women don’t reach senior positions. The most important reason was outlined by a renowned sociologist, Catherine Hakim, in 2000:

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

There’s compelling evidence that driving up female representation on boards leads to declines in corporate financial performance:

https://c4mb.wordpress.com/improving-gender-diversity-on-boards-leads-to-a-decline-in-corporate-performance-the-evidence/

If you know of any longitudinal studies showing that increasing the number of women on senior teams (including boards of directors) leads to improved financial performance, would you be so good as to point me to them? Nobody else has been able to supply even one such study worldwide. Thank you.

This morning I was in one of the BBC Three Counties Radio studios for an hour-long discussion with Jonathan Vernon-Smith (‘JVS’) on the topic of women in the workplace. The discussion was prompted by a recent report by the Women’s Business Council. When the file has been edited by http://manwomanmyth.com he’ll post it on our YouTube channel along with more commentary, but I thought the followers of this blog might like to hear the discussion first. Here’s the iPlayer file, which should be accessible for seven days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018z8jw

Four ladies contributed to the programme at various points – gender balance is a fine thing, isn’t it? – as you can see from the following timeline:

1:02:04 – 1:03:20 Introduction by JVS

1:05:58 – 1:13:26 Discussion between JVS and Ruby McGregor-Smith, chief executive of Mitie plc (a FTSE250 company) and chairwoman of the Women’s Business Council

1:13:27 – 1:20:21 JVS discussion with myself

1:21:19 – 1:28:33 We were joined by Caroline Criado-Perez, a journalist, feminist campaigner, and co-founder of http://thewomensroom.org. Two further sections of the discussion at:

1:30:14 – 1:31:03

1:33:50 – 1:43:11

1:43:12 – 1:53:50 We were joined by Amanda Murrell  http://www.amassocs.com/ who is the President of ‘Bedfordshire Businesswomen’. Part-way through this discussion, at 1:49:10, we were joined by a lady phoning the programme, ‘Ann from St Albans’. Ann spoke a great deal of common sense, and said that – given the chance – she’d vote for Justice for men & boys (and the women who love them). A fine woman.

I should like to thank JVS and BBC Three Counties Radio for giving me this opportunity to articulate some of our key arguments about the genders in the workplace. I also thank the ladies for their contributions.