A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

Earlier this afternoon I received an email with a government press release. I’ve taken a few comments from some of the people mentioned in it.

Idiot #1

Business Secretary Sajid Javid said:

The employment rate for women has never been higher and there are now more women on FTSE boards than ever before. But we need to go further, particularly when it comes to paving the way to the executive level. Companies cannot afford to miss out on the skills and talent of the whole population if the UK is going to compete in a fast-moving global economy. This is not just about diversity for diversity’s sake, but about improving performance and productivity. [My emphasis.]

It surely doesn’t need stating again, does it, that no evidence exists of a causal link between increasing the proportion of women on boards, and financial performance improvement? The only causal link we’re aware of – from longitudinal studies – is with financial performance decline.

For the past four years Campaign for Merit in Business has been challenging the government and in particular Javid’s department – DBIS – to provide evidence for the causal link he and others keep implying. No evidence has ever been provided for the link, and Samantha Beckett, a senior civil servant in the department, recently won a ‘Lying Feminist of the Month’ award over the issue – here.

Idiot #2

Women and Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan said:

Having more women on FTSE boards allows companies to benefit from the enormous wealth of talent these women offer, and means these women can act as powerful role models for the next generation of girls.

We have come a long way but we must do more to make sure women everywhere are able to fulfil their potential. I want to see an end to all male boards anywhere on the FTSE 350, and much more progress at the executive layer where we know progress has been slowest to date. [My emphasis.]

Progress has been slowest to date in that area, because companies still appoint into the executive layer on the basis of merit, and one element of merit is a strong work ethic. Dr Catherine Hakim’s Preference Theory (2000) perfectly explains why ‘progress has been slowest to date’ in this area.

Idiot #3

Sir Philip Hampton said:

I am delighted to take on Lord Davies’s great work [bullying FTSE100 companies into ‘voluntarily’ appointing more women to their boards, with the threat of legislated gender quotas] around Women on Boards and I want to now turn my attention to the FTSE 350. I will focus on improving representation in the executive layer of companies, as well as maintaining the momentum on boards. This means looking at the talent pipeline for female executives and emerging non-executive directors to ensure we create opportunities and the right conditions for women to succeed. [What would those ‘right conditions’ be, other than yet more anti-male discrimination?]

Idiot #4

Corporate Governance Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe, said:

As a former director of several companies, I know that business needs to do more to ensure that female talent is harnessed and not wasted. Encouraging progress has been made, but we now need to focus on the talent pipeline of capable women to ensure they can see a viable way ahead into leadership positions.

This will ultimately make companies more innovative and more competitive; a leadership team made up of men and women better represents the employee and customer base giving firms an edge in the products and services they offer. [My emphasis.]

A leadership team made up of men and women with a wide spectrum of IQs would also ‘better represent the employee and customer base’, so would logically also ‘give firms an edge in the products and services they offer’, given this line of thinking. It’s outrageous, how few genuinely stupid people there are on FTSE350 boards.

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

Interesting.

Please support Mike Buchanan’s work on Patreon. Thank you.

A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

An interesting piece from the BBC. An extract:

The app makers believe the high cost of university fees and accommodation in the UK is making students look at new ways of making cash while studying.

Fortunately the ‘high cost of university fees and accommodation in the UK’ isn’t impacting on male students, thanks to their generous monthly Patriarchy Council cheques.

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

Our thanks to Robert for this. What could be more fitting for narcissists, than marrying themselves? An extract:

Timothy George highlights a revived trend in lifestyle choices in First Things, called “sologamy,” which began over 20 years ago. George writes: “Sologamy is the marriage of someone to one’s own self—the his- or herness of it is not relevant, although it seems to be mostly women who are doing it.”

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

Do the people behind Woman Sour, and those presenting the programme, feel utterly mortified about the trash they’ve forced British people to listen to, decade after decade? You have to hope so, with such execrable nonsense as this, insulting unfortunate listeners earlier today, many of whom have paid a licence fee to hear this garbage.

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in February 2016:

Our thanks to David for this. Well, that’s a novel way to bring a long dull meeting to a close… what could men do, to achieve the same objective?

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in January 2016:

[Note added 13.2.16: A tip of the hat to Toy Soldier for his take on this story – here.]

Enjoy (video, 1:32). As always with pieces posted on AVfM, the comment stream is well worth reading. If I had the money, I’d fly to Australia and buy Senator Fifield a few cold ones.

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in January 2016:

It’s a ‘guy thing’. Our thanks to Kimski for this image:

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in January 2016:

Our thanks to William for this. From the article:

A promising young female golfer was jailed last week for causing serious injuries to six people after weaving her car across the road as a joke. Shannon Ashcroft, 20, drove erratically and swerved into the wrong side of road at least twice as she took a group of friends in ‘high spirits’ to a party.

But her Volkswagen Polo crashed into a lorry and all five teens in the vehicle and two people from the lorry had to be cut from the wreckage and needed hospital treatment.

On Friday she pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at Truro Crown Court in Cornwall and was jailed for nine months.

The court heard Ashcroft took responsibility for the crash as she was driving dangerously and not paying attention, texting on her phone and veered around as a joke…

Joanna Martin, defending, said it was a significant error of driving and was the result of high spirits. She said: ‘This was a young girl who was clearly distracted by a lot of things going on in the car.’

Ask yourself this. If the driver had been a 20-year-old man, is it conceivable his defence counsel would describe him as ‘a young boy’? It’s a truly sickening example of not applying appropriate moral agency to an adult woman. The sentence itself is, needless to say, far too lenient. The accident led to life-changing injuries, and it was little short of a miracle that nobody was killed.

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A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I’m the chairman, in January 2016:

Our thanks to Francis for this. From the article about the cheery-looking woman:

Ms Mazo, who is right handed, says the August 2009 injury destroyed her lucrative career and left her with wrist scars she fears will make people believe she self-harms. The HR professional says the accident has also left her with ‘rollercoaster’ moods causing her to swing ‘from anger to sadness in seconds’.

After being awarded £150,000 in damages, she believes it should be 30 times more and her case is now set to go before three senior judges.

Now I’ve encountered many Human Remains people in my time, and if anyone can explain to me how breaking a wrist could destroy an HR consultant’s career, I’d be most grateful. If £150,000 – let alone £4.5 million – is the going rate for tripping outside a pub, I predict I’ll be tripping outside the numerous pubs on Bedford High Street this evening. Just £10,000 from each of them would do very nicely.

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