City Journal contributing editor and former New York Times columnist John Tierney has written a terrific piece debunking what he calls the misogyny myth, namely, the claim that contemporary western societies are riddled with prejudice and discrimination against women. On the contrary, John argues, it is men that get the short end of the stick.
Here’s how John summarises his article
Contrary to what you see in the press (or Barbie), misogyny is not rampant in modern societies. There is no evil patriarchy oppressing women. Quite the reverse: Both men and women are guilty of misandry, a bias against men. My City Journal article reviews the overwhelming evidence (ignored or suppressed by misandrist journalists and scholars) of bias against men, from the ‘women are wonderful’ effect reported by psychologists to the discrimination against men in the legal system, government, schools, corporations, and academia.
This misandrist bias is probably innate, and it’s being exploited by a diversity industry that falsely blames sexism for any gender gap not favouring women. Yes, women are ‘underrepresented’ in some fields, especially at the top, but it’s not because of discrimination. It’s because of factors like the ‘gender productivity gap’ and the ‘competition gap’ (which explains why scientists in the 99th percentile of productivity are disproportionately male, and why 95 of the top 100 Scrabble players are men). The misogyny myth serves the interests of the diversity industry, but it’s enormously damaging to the rest of society — women as well as men — because it poisons relations between the sexes and undermines the system that has provided unprecedented opportunities and prosperity to everyone: meritocracy.
And here’s an extract:
‘Toxic masculinity’ and ‘testosterone poisoning’ are widely blamed for many problems, but you don’t hear much about ‘toxic femininity’ or ‘estrogen poisoning’. Who criticises ‘femsplaining’ or pretends to ‘believe all men’? If the patriarchy really did rule our society, the stock father character in television sitcoms would not be a ‘doofus dad’ like Homer Simpson, and commercials wouldn’t keep showing wives outsmarting their husbands. (When’s the last time you saw a TV husband get something right?) Smug misandry has been box-office gold for Barbie, which delights in writing off men as hapless romantic partners, leering jerks, violent buffoons, and dimwitted tyrants who ought to let women run the world.
Numerous studies have shown that both sexes care more about harms to women than to men. Men get punished more severely than women for the same crime, and crimes against women are punished more severely than crimes against men. Institutions openly discriminate against men in hiring and promotion policies – and a majority of men as well as women favour affirmative-action programs for women.
The education establishment has obsessed for decades about the shortage of women in some science and tech disciplines, but few worry about males badly trailing by just about every other academic measure from kindergarten through graduate school. By the time boys finish high school (if they do), they’re so far behind that many colleges lower admissions standards for males – a rare instance of pro-male discrimination, though it’s not motivated by a desire to help men. Admissions directors do it because many women are loath to attend a college if the gender ratio is too skewed.
Gender disparities generally matter only if they work against women. In computing its Global Gender Gap, the much-quoted annual report, the World Economic Forum has explicitly ignored male disadvantages: if men fare worse on a particular dimension, a country still gets a perfect score for equality on that measure. Prodded by the federal Title IX law banning sexual discrimination in schools, educators have concentrated on eliminating disparities in athletics but not in other extracurricular programs, which mostly skew female. The fact that there are now three female college students for every two males is of no concern to the White House Gender Policy Council. Its National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality doesn’t even mention boys’ struggles in school, instead focusing exclusively on new ways to help female students get further ahead.
Of course, females in the past did suffer from outright discrimination, but most American institutions eliminated those barriers at least 40 years ago. Women have been a majority of college graduates since 1982 and dominate by many other key measures. They not only live longer than men but also benefit from a higher share of federal funding for medical research. They’re much less likely to be fatally injured on the job or commit suicide. They receive the lion’s share of Social Security and other entitlement payments (while men pay the lion’s share of taxes). They decide how to spend most of the family income. Women initiate most divorces and are much likelier to win custody of the children. While men are ahead in some ways – politicians love to denounce the ‘gender pay gap’ and the ‘glass ceiling’ supposedly limiting women – these disparities have been shown to be largely, if not entirely, due to personal preferences and choices, not discrimination.
Yet most people still believe in the “myth of pervasive misogyny”, as the social psychologists Cory Clark and Bo Winegard concluded in Quillette after surveying the research literature on gender bias. Noting that a Google Scholar search for “misogyny” yielded 114,000 results, while a search for “misandry” yielded only 2,340, they write: “We suspect this difference in interest in misogyny over misandry reflects not the relative prevalence of each type of prejudice, but rather greater concern for the well-being of women than men. All of the arguments, anecdotes, and data forwarded to support the narrative that we live in an implacably misogynistic society, in fact, may be evidence of precisely the opposite.”
Yes, the misogyny myth persists because both sexes want to believe it. Our greater concern for women’s well-being is presumably an innate bias that evolved because it helped the species multiply. From a reproductive standpoint, individual males are ‘expendable’, but females are not. Men are expected to sacrifice their lives defending women in every culture, from hunter-gatherer bands to modern nations like Ukraine, which allowed millions of women to flee the Russian invasion and required all men under 60 to stay and fight.
This instinct to protect women has been essential for societies to survive, but it has also made us easy prey for a modern industry of academics, journalists, activists, lobbyists, and bureaucrats who falsely blame sexism for any gender gap that doesn’t favour women. The misogyny myth has served the interests of this diversity industry, but it is enormously damaging to the rest of society – women as well as men.
Worth reading in full.
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“The paper mills helping China commit scientific fraud”
At medical school one of my tutors mocked the faith healer Harry Edwards for writing in a book, “Cancer of the prostrate [sic] is very rare in women.” Lo and behold, it’s now mainstream science.
https://neweasterneurope.eu/2018/12/10/holodomor-2018-public-scholars/
Yesterday was Holodomor commemoration day.
‘The reports that Muggeridge and Jones sent to the UK on their return from the Soviet Union about the Holodomor (this name was not used until the 1990s, and the atrocity was usually referred to as an “artificial” or “man-made” famine) were met with disbelief and attacked in the left-wing press.
Significantly, Orwell emphasized that the famine Jones had uncovered was centred on Ukraine, and even gave an estimate of the number of victims. He wrote: “The years Mr. Lyons spent in Russia were years of appalling privation, culminating in the Ukrainian famine of 1933, [during] which it is estimated that no less than three million people died of starvation.
Orwell was impressed by what he learnt from Lyons’ book about what Jones’ had done. He is certain to have used this information, and everything he later learnt from Muggeridge about the famine and the USSR, when writing his classic Animal Farm.
When Orwell heard on the radio that all the male inhabitants of the Czech village of Ladice had been shot as punishment for harbouring the assassins of Gestapo chief Rienhard Heydrich, he drew up his own list of the worst atrocities after 1918 atrocities. He included the “Ukraine famine” among them.
In his 1945 essay “The Prevention of Literature”, Orwell wrote: “The fog of lies and misinformation which surrounds such subjects as the famine in the Ukraine, the Spanish Civil War, Russian policy in Poland, etc., is not entirely due to deliberate dishonesty”,” but is tantamount to active collusion with the Kremlin.
Today we can extend this to Russia’s disinformation and fake news about its genocidal war against Ukraine and its 1984-like regime that tolerates no dissent and worships “Big Brother” Putin.
And also, to those who seek a cynical deal with despotic Russia at Ukraine’s expense and forget the lessons of the Holodomor, Guernica, World War II, 1984, MH17, Bucha, Mariupol and the existence of the hostile anti-democratic alliance of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.’
Hardly any wonder that Ukraine fights on……
‘In the Kursk region, missile and UAV threats persisted for several hours. Witnesses reported nearly continuous air defense activity and the sound of explosions. The Governor of the Kursk region, Alexey Smirnov, reported an alleged interception of 27 UAVs and two missiles in the skies over the region.’
Other sources suggest the enemy may be employing ATACMS missiles
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1860470535060124154?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Do you really believe that anyone cares about Ukraine in the West? USA? UK? EU? Do they care one iota about the country and its people, or do they only care about serving USA’s determination to retain global hegemony, while USA additionally wants to weaken Russia for future exploitation.
The Ukrainian ex-President has literally sold out his country: BlackRock is the new owner of Europe’s ‘bread basket’, whereby Zelensky and his fellow dictators are rolling in cash. Poroshenko’s income has increased 25-fold since the beginning of the war. Zelensky himself is now the owner of numerous luxury residences around the world.
Anyone who seriously supports the people of Ukraine would stop the hostilities immediately. The price will be denazification of the current government and military as well as an agreement never to join NATO. Is that so bad? Eastern Ukraine will remain in Russian hands but your Banderites always wanted rid of the ethnic Russians there anyway. It would be wise to surrender now before Odessa is lost, thereby removing access to the Black Sea. Each day of conflict is costing thousands of Ukrainian lives and those lives can never be won back.
U.S. strategy, Ukraine
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
That meant Russia should “not have the capability to very quickly reproduce” the forces and equipment that had been lost in Ukraine.’
Russia strategy, Ukraine
Nothing scares a Russian autocrat more than a democratic Ukraine, because if Ukrainians can build a democracy, then the supposedly fraternal Russian people might too. Thus, combined, identity, security, and the interaction between the two drive Russia’s policies towards Ukraine since the 19th century. And demography.
Of the two, only the first one is succeeding. That is because of corruption and incompetence.
Even the latest ‘super weapon’ (a bit like the V2) is useless.
‘Russian bloggers note the alleged absence of damage to the Yuzhmash plant in Dnipro, which was attacked by the mega-missile “Oreshnik,” something the so-called president of Russia has been boasting about for days:
“November 24, 2024
Dnipro, Ukraine
Satellite images of Yuzhmash, which was struck by the “Oreshnik” missile, have surfaced.
The workshops are intact; nothing has been “reduced to dust.” However, it seems the private residential area above took some damage.”
Not many Western leaders take Putin seriously any longer. Maybe they should, but they don’t and, to get their attention, he will have to destroy Russia…..and they know that he will not do that…..although the inhabitants of Kursk are less sanguine.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/Events/2024/Intent-to-Destroy-Russia's-Two-Hundred-Year-Quest-to-Dominate-Ukraine-Cold-War-Studies-Project-Seminar
‘What drives Russia’s violence in and against Ukraine from the 19th century to 2024?
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is the single most important event in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is also arguably the major global geopolitical development since 9/11. Prof Finkel’s main argument is that violence and repression are deeply rooted in the history of Russo-Ukrainian relations. Since the mid-19th century, dominating Ukraine and denying Ukrainians an independent identity, let alone a state, has been the cornerstone of Imperial, Soviet and eventually, post-Soviet Russian policies.
More specifically, Prof Finkel will show that Russian and Soviet policies were driven by two factors: identity and security. The idea of the shared origin and fraternity of Russians and Ukrainians is a staple of Russian self-perception and historiography. The second key factor is security. Western powers often passed through Ukraine to attack Russia; Ukraine’s fertile soil was crucial to feeding and funding the Russian and Soviet Empires. Even more than geopolitics, it was regime stability that drove Moscow and St. Petersburg’s obsessive focus on Ukraine.
Nothing scares a Russian autocrat more than a democratic Ukraine, because if Ukrainians can build a democracy, then the supposedly fraternal Russian people might too. Thus, combined, identity, security, and the interaction between the two drive Russia’s policies towards Ukraine since the 19th century.’
And, to that, I would add demography.
In 1991, Solzhenitsyn said that Ukraine’s independence meant that Russia ‘lost twelve million Russians and 23 million more Russian speakers’.
In 2000, Putin said this:
‘And, if you believe the forecasts and the estimates are based on actual work, the real work of people who understand this, who have devoted their whole lives to this, in 15 years, there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to think about this figure: a seventh of the country’s population. If the current trend continues, the nation’s survival will be in jeopardy’
Russia has had a ‘Ukraine problem’ since the mid 19th Century.
NATO was only founded in 1945.
More complete nonsense. Firstly, Ukraine was part of the USSR. Secondly, Russia and Ukraine were working side by side all the years since the USSR until USA stepped in and set up the Maidan Coup. Instead of your daily tirades against Russia, you should be attacking USA for the death and destruction they have brought to Ukraine. Istanbul was Ukraine’s finest chance of peace with minimal losses but, no, Zelensky believed in sacrificing his country for what, a chance to join the outdated NATO, the dictatorial EU?
But, fortunately, Putin is not expecting Western leaders to take him seriously.
‘Why make these same claims time and again when the Kremlin has no intention of following through on them?
The escalatory rhetoric plays extremely well with the vocal nationalist crowd on digital platforms like Telegram, a popular source for consumption of news in Russia. On state-run Telegram channels, reports of the Kremlin’s braggadocio often cause excitable pile-ons in comment threads.’
Ian Garner
So just a dotty load of vodka soaked old duffers then…….
Blimey, the numbers on that petition are moving fast! Of course they are not going to call another GE, but it does send a message, and they will have to respond to it.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143
Just shy of 450k at 10:12 am.
Now 516k (11:05 am)
I reckon it will be at a million by the end of the day.
It looks as though you may be right: now 720k (1:20 pm)
It passed one million at 4.00 pm.
A lot of “buyer’s remorse” here, I would guess.
Much as I would like there to be a new election, it seems obvious o me that the e-petitions site has been got-at by ‘bots’. When I first looked at it it was on 278 thousand ‘signatures’, In the length of time my tea took to brew it reached 280 thousand. It’s now (08:52 UK time) on over 327 thousand. Unfortunately this gives Sir Keir’s mob excellent justification to ignore the petition.
If they are this easy to be got at by bots how do we know if any petitions are valid?
What’s the point of them?
We don’t.
09:52 350,259 ‘signatures’
There were 28,809,340 votes cast out of an electorate of 48,253,193 in the 2024 GE. So apparently the petition is signed by 1.2% of the turnout at the GE or 0.72% of the whole electorate. I don’t think that many people have heard of the e-petition site.
Dammit. That was supposed to be 09:12 350,259 ‘signatures’. In other words 20 mins after my 08:52 comment.
But they are experiencing labour’s gov!
Maybe they are looking for some way to be heard?
This might just be the vent of their spleens they’ve been looking for?
The British are just realising how much they have been shat upon in such a short period of time!
Over a million signatories now (16:40 UK time). @Valerie_London (below) pointed out that the map of where the signatories claim to be from is consistent with Labour heartlands not voting for it. I hope it’s real! Over 3.7% of the votes cast at the last GE.
I’m certainly not offended by your (later) comment above. I hope nobody else is either!
Is it not necessary to confirm ones vote after first doing so.
Yes it is. I’ve just done so. That makes bot voting more difficult. Besides, why doubt the depth and severity of hatred for the Labour branch of the elites.
Indeed, there is plenty of it out there it seems.
Yes, they’re hated but far too many think they’re better than the alternative(s).
Why doubt the e-petition votes? To be well prepared when the inevitable ‘we considered debating it but decided against’ response comes down from Parliament.
(My emphasis)
You do have to verify your email address before voting. If it helps, here is their map of signature locators. https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=700143
Interesting view.- I see the north is very well represented…
My permanently Labour London borough has very low numbers…
Interesting. If it was ‘bots’ I would have expected a more even distribution. We can hope it’s real. At 12:13 it was at 619,295, 2.1% of the number of votes cast at the 2024 GE.
I note Aunty Beeb hasn’t covered it – I wonder why?
Soundofreason,
Maybe Real people are this pissed off at labour’s lies?
Maybe you’ll get your wish and it is real people after all?
850000 and counting, at time of comment!
This could go viral!
I agree it might not change anything, but it’s a hell of a kick in the bollocks to Starmer!
Sorry about the profanity, I unreservedly apologise. Touch of the vapours!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/11/23/climate-change-weekly-526-some-suggestions-on-climate-and-environmental-policy-for-the-new-sheriff-in-town/
Notes on U.S. Climate/Energy policies that may be useful for an incoming centre right government in Britain to emulate:
‘1. Paris Climate Treaty and Endangerment Finding. Repeal the Obama/Biden EPA determination that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are threats to the public health and welfare (the “endangerment finding”).
2. EV mandate and California waiver. Request legislation clarifying that the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA)
3. Green New Scam and Grid Security. Ask Congress to repeal all the energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act through budget reconciliation. For national and economic security purposes, bar electricity grid reliance on variable sources of electricity generation such as wind and solar.
4. Oil and Gas. Lift moratoria on offshore drilling in areas put off limits by prior presidents. Reverse the Biden moratorium on federal leasing for coal mining. Streamline the permitting process for energy production. End the Biden moratorium on LNG export terminals.
5. Presidential Appointments. Appoint officials at federal agencies like EPA, Interior, DoE, FERC, and other key agencies that will aggressively permit new oil and gas pipelines, LNG terminals, and other infrastructure required for producing oil, gas, and coal. Streamline the permitting process. Terminate all existing federal science advisory boards and reconstitute only those that are legally required. Appoint qualified and pro-energy individuals to the boards.
6. Offshore Wind. Offshore wind developers, which happen to be foreign companies in most instances, threaten consumers, endangered species, and iconic maritime communities whose prosperity depends on the fishing. The industrialization of fisheries by offshore wind development should be terminated by delisting unleased wind energy areas.
7. Coal. Repeal all the anti-coal regulatory actions of the Biden administration and promote coal as a preferred means of producing electricity. Commence a review of related air quality regulations issued by EPA.
8. Litigation. Re-staff the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division attorneys who will zealously defend administration priorities.
9. Regulatory Reform. Request legislation to require that federal courts no longer defer to regulatory agencies on scientific matters.
10. Regulatory Burden. Require congressional authorization of regulations with a significant economic impact, including but not limited to those with an economic impact of $100 million or more.’
Simply delete ‘Congress’ and insert ‘Parliament’.
I checked Miri AF last night and found this excellent piece…
https://miriaf.co.uk/invasion-of-the-flat-snatchers-2/
Huddersfield Council have “sequestered” shall we say some student accommodation just outside Huddersfield centre and it will be used to accommodate 400 immigrants. Doubtless as Miri suggests these immies will be single, male and in the age range 18-40 i.e 400 soldiers.
I have just been informed that Oldham Council have been given a seven storey ex DWP building in the centre of town complete with tram stop. No information on its likely use but I suspect something similar to Huddersfield.
Another clampdown looks likely but this time ‘policed’ by mercenaries. So me banging on about an invading army for over three years is beginning to look bang on.
The petition for a general election has now got nearly an astonishing 500,000 signatures. If you haven’t already done so, do consider signing: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700143.
Duly signed and shared widely.
I do suspect we are shouting at the moon however. 2TK knows he and his “government” are detested but doesn’t care, hence the importing of hundreds of thousands of voters.
Nothing less than the subversion of democracy, as we are seeing in Europe.
According to Lloyd Austin about N Korean soldiers “Based on what they have been trained to do, and how they have been integrated into Russian formations, I am absolutely certain that these soldiers will soon be taking part in combat operations,”
Oh, so they are not there yet. What a surprise.