Independent Analysis

I'm featured (with a huge photo) on page fifteen of today's Independent On Sunday. Article about sexism in the financial services sector where a new report shows the pay gap is now 60% for salaries and 80% for bonuses. You can read it here.

Finally, Finally, Finally!

The "one and other" team have restored the video footage of my hour on the Fourth Plinth art project as the world's first living art forgery! For more info about what I did and why go and have a read here. And to see (at last!) the footage of me up there doing it take a look here.

My Blog, My Rules

Right - I am sorry it has come to this but I am now switching ON comment moderation so your comments will not appear on my blog until I have read them. I've resisted doing this for a long time because I find most comments are reasonable and considered, the occassional one or two that weren't I would delete when I noticed them.

This last week I did exactly that - I spotted a comment I was not prepared to leave up and I took it down. Suddenly I had a barrage of comments demanding to know why I had removed it, including from people who I had specifically asked not to comment on my blog any more. Among the wilder accusations were that I was failing to provide an "open forum" and "What is the point of having a blog in which only your views can be aired?". Well the simple answer is - it's my blog - the whole point of it is that my views can be aired. Many blogs don't allow comments at all and even more moderate comments as I'm going to. Anyone can have a blog - go right ahead, set your own up and fill it with whatever the hell piffle you like.

I often leave up comments that I disagree with. I often respond to points made. I plan to continue to allow comments of all kinds. However the following will not be allowed - so you know:

1) Offensive remarks about specific people/groups. This includes sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism and nasty unjustified personal attacks on individuals or organisations. Obviously.

2) Lies and distortions.

3) De-railing. If I'm writing about violence against women and you want to know why I haven't mentioned violence against men I can only say THE CLUE WAS IN THE TITLE! Why not ring up the cats protection league and demand to know why they don't help dogs? I have better things to do.

4) Blatant attempts at advertising (unless it's for cool stuff - e.g. new ace feminist blogs or events - that I am happy to promote).

5) Whatever the hell else shows up that I don't want to publish. For instance totally reasonable considered intelligent comments from people who I have asked not to comment here.

So my apologies to all my commenters who want to say reasonable things. I will try to approve your remarks as quickly as I can. Perhaps in a few months I will be able to remove this restriction if it scares away those who are causing the problem. Thanks!

Why Am I Angry?

Last night's BBC4 documentary about the rise of modern feminism (in which I featured several times) was annoying for a number of reasons (but also excellent in other ways and definitely worth watching, which you can do here and at several points later this week on BBC TV).

One thing that I didn't like was how they kept asking the feminists they interviewed why they were so angry. As though feminism were a mental disorder. If I look at things like the 6% conviction rate for rape, the 20-30% pay gap, the pension and poverty gap, the 25% of British women who experience domestic violence in their lifetime I think how can anyone be calm? And think about this - the UK government doesn't recognise risk of female genital mutilation as a valid reason to offer asylum to women entering the UK so your tax money is actually being spent tracking girls down, imprisoning them and then forcing them on to planes to return send them to a place where they will be subjected to FGM. That's YOUR MONEY sending girls to have their CLITORISES CUT OFF. Why aren't you angry (director Vanessa Engle)? What is wrong with you?

And the notion that women "shouldn't" get angry about things is in itself sexist. When Jose Mourinho is on the sidelines of a football pitch screaming and swearing at the referee no-one asks why he's so angry. The conversation in the commentary box is usually about whether or not a penalty was the right decision. And football is a game, supposedly played for fun.

I should be angry about women's rights. You should be angry about women's rights. Vanessa Engle should be angry about women's rights. In fact I think Jose Mourhino should be angry about women's rights. A lot more than he is about some stupid penalty.

Why am I not surprised?

Apparently the new system for assessing those entitled to benefits due to disability has been telling triple-heart-bypass, terminal cancer patients that they should get off their lazy asses and get a job. The trouble is such an enormous amount of kicking and screaming is done whenever someone claims an extra £1.50 in benefit that in the panic to stop the odd dodgy guy claiming a few extra pence we are turfing the terminall ill out onto the streets.

Maybe next time it would make more sense to turn the tables for one and look at the levels of corporate fraud and tax evasion. Reclaiming some of that would have a much bigger impact on the economy and wouldn't involved tipping over wheelchairs (metaphorically ... for now). And the Tories were the ones who replaced Invalidity Benefit with the much cheaper Incapacity Benefit so there's no point them pretending they'd be any better.

Me me me (and LFN) on the BBC!

Tonight's documentary "Women: activists" is pretty much all about London Feminist Network. There are certainly things about it I thought were naff - like the persistant search for why on earth we would all be so dreafully angry (like a 6% rape conviction rate wasn't enough...) and the rather weird insistance on finding out what everybody's mother thought about them being so frightully political. But that said LFN is a great story, an on-going success story. Even since the film was made the law about lap-dancing is changing, the law about prostitution is changing, the stuff we're campaigning for is happening. And at the end of it you just can't keep a great story (or a great organisation) down. So do watch it (for the next ten days or whatever online and laso repeasted on the BBC several times this week). I am featured a lot, starting about 25mins in.

Me 'n' Stringy Again

So I was on BBC Five Live last night and rather than offer some common or garden misogynist for me to argue with (Lynette Burrows, Toby Young), I had the chance to trade blows with none other than slimy uber-creep Peter Stringfellow (pictured). I have debated him once before on BBC Leeds but this was the first time I had a change to do so on a national station. We were discussing porn and he was losing. You have seven days to hear it again (click here, click listen again to the 13th Mar Stephen Nolan show and then fast forward to an hour and ten minutes in). Enjoy.

Shortest Book Review Ever

I received and read my preview copy of this ages and ages ago now and I've been plugging it to everyone and just realised I haven't actually written a proper review of it. To be honest I'm not sure I need to. But here is is:

The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard is a book we've needed in Britain for a long time. It's a book you'll want to buy in bulk and distribute to your friends and family. It explains with both statistical facts and heart-breaking, sickening case studies just how bad the gender divide is in the UK today and how in many areas things are actually getting better, not worse. You can (and should) buy it here.

Reasons Not To Let Your Kids Play Grand Theft Auto

Warning - this could definitely be triggering. And frightening.

Dear The Economist

I was delighted - at first - to see you providing coverage of the dreadful pattern of female infanticide around the world. I found the opening three paragraphs naturally moving...

"XINRAN XUE, a Chinese writer, describes visiting a peasant family in the Yimeng area of Shandong province. The wife was giving birth. “We had scarcely sat down in the kitchen”, she writes (see article), “when we heard a moan of pain from the bedroom next door…The cries from the inner room grew louder—and abruptly stopped. There was a low sob, and then a man’s gruff voice said accusingly: ‘Useless thing!’

Suddenly, I thought I heard a slight movement in the slops pail behind me,” Miss Xinran remembers. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail! I nearly threw myself at it, but the two policemen [who had accompanied me] held my shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Don’t move, you can’t save it, it’s too late.’

‘But that’s...murder...and you’re the police!’ The little foot was still now. The policemen held on to me for a few more minutes. ‘Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here,’ [an] older woman said comfortingly. ‘That’s a living child,’ I said in a shaking voice, pointing at the slops pail. ‘It’s not a child,’ she corrected me. ‘It’s a girl baby, and we can’t keep it. Around these parts, you can’t get by without a son. Girl babies don’t count.’"

But do you seriously not understand what is wrong with paragraph four:

"In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies don’t count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women—a figure unprecedented in a country at peace."

The worst consequence of female infanticide you can come up with is that male children won't have anything to marry? Quelle disastre!! What will they poke their penises in to? What will clean their toilets and prepare their dinner? Let's hope the robot-makers are prepared to work overtime... Vomit.

Totally Unauthorised Guest Post

Just spotted this on Facebook from James Ross of Better Living Through Comedy fame...

Dear BBC,

Do you think that the fact a chap caught with ricin in a jam jar was a white supremacist is:
a) very important. In fact, central to the story.
b) somewhat important. Let's give it a good level of prominence.
c) neither important nor unimportant. Let's at least mention it though, some people might find it interesting.
d) somewhat unimportant. But hey, let's mention it, we've got a whole page to fill.
e) not at all important. How could a motive be relevant to a crime? I, for one, have no idea.

The BBC story. The full story.

FFS! It's not as if keeping details of white racist terror plots off your website is likely to win Murdoch and the middle-market press round to your side! Pay attention!

Good spot James!

Don't Vote Tory

I know the other choices are bad but - not this bad!

Vile, Vile, Vile: Compare and Contrast

BBC Online coverage of the jailing of Gail Sherwood on charges of making false rape allegations.

The full story from Women Against Rape.

May I State The Obvious?

Fact 1: Gavin and Stacey (written by James Cordon and Ruth Jones) was a big hit as a TV series and received critical acclaim (Deborah Orr said "amiable, unpretentious, well-scripted, nicely acted and archly amusing"), won awards (including a Bafta, a National Television Award and a British Comedy Award) and pretty much everyone I know thinks it's really funny.

Fact 2: When James Cordon and Matthew Horne wrote a film (Lesbian Vampire Killers) it was a flop, panned by the critics (The Times called it an "instantly forgettable lads' mag farce") and everyone I know thinks it's dreadful (including a friend of mine who was IN it!).

Fact 3: When James Cordon and Matthew Horne wrote a sketch show (Horne & Cordon) it was a flop, panned by the critics (The Guardian wrote "Never has a three-minute sketch felt so long, and the joke inevitably comes down to the fact that James Corden is fat and is happy to show us his wobbly bits. Or one of them gets his arse out.") and everyone I know thinks it's dreadful (including James Cordon himself!).

So let me stick my neck out here and say something radical. Maybe the talented one was Ruth Jones (pictured). Yes I know - pretty shocking stuff eh? I mean she doesn't even have a penis! Lets see if she's working on anything new we could put on TV of an evening huh?

Anna vs The Lads

Want to watch a lad mag editor squirm? Go on, you know you want to... This is so great! Anna from OBJECT takes some monster dickhead apart:

Melanie Phillips line-by-line...

Melanie Phillips is a genius. When you're faced with a real problem often there are different choices about the best way to tackle it. Different approaches may have different merits associated with them. It takes a real genius though to come up with a suggestion that has no merits whatsoever and is so terrifyingly awful that no-one would dream of taking it seriously. Here's what I mean...

Here's my radical cure for the epidemic of single mothers... pay men to commit to their families

Yes lets pay men to do something they should be doing anyway. Why not pay men to shave and have a wank too!

"Once again, the alarm is being sounded over family disintegration and the apparently unstoppable rise of lone parenthood and mass fatherlessness. Support for marriage looks set to become an election issue."

Yes the alarm bell is being sounded Melanie - by you. Everyone else is a bit more concerned about the illegal wars we're in, the recession, poverty...

"The Catholic Church is publishing a report this week urging people to consider marriage and the family when deciding where to place their vote. The issue could not be more urgent."

Melanie this is not a Catholic country. If we are to follow the Catholic Church's teachings we will also have to, as a nation, accept transubstantiation. I am out of this move.

"Devastating new research by sociologist Geoff Dench shows that not only is one in four mothers single, but more than half of such mothers have never lived with a man at all and are choosing to live alone on state benefits."

How does never having lived with a man show that a mother is choosing to live on state benefits? What it shows is that the father of her child has never lived with her. Maybe she was raped. Should she then have moved in with the rapist? Maybe she is a lesbian. Are lesbians forbidden from getting pregnant in your world? Actually don't answer that.... Maybe she prefersto live alone because she doesn't know any suitable, available men who she thinks would be a positive influence on her child. Some of these teenage mothers are actually too young to legally move in with a guy anyway!

"They believe they have no need for a man in their life and that their children have no need for a father."

Perhaps they're right. Where is the evidence that children "need" a man living in the house? I've seen evidence that two-parent families offer greater financial stability to a child (obviously, given how paltry single parent benefits are) but the only parenting evidence seems to suggest the best model (only by a fraction) is lesbian partners.

"The founding premise of the Government's £280million sex education strategy - that young mums get pregnant through ignorance - is thus very far from the truth."

I don't remember the government saying this but I know teenage mums who got pregnant because they didn't think contraception worked. I personally think a far bigger problem is lack of opportunities. We need to give young women living in poverty the opportunity to go to college. Like cutting tuition fees and quality access programmes.

"It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Britain still has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe."

We also have (second to Poland) the least amount of compulsory sex ed in schools. Co-incidence? No.

"In the light of this deeply troubling record, eyebrows were raised at the weekend by prize-winning author Hilary Mantel, who claimed that girls are ready to have babies when they are 14 years old."

Well biologically THEY ARE. I think some teenage girls are surprisingly smart and sensible. But if we think teenage girls aren't ready for children we should (a) enforce the law on statutory rape - someone is fucking our kids!! and (b) make contraception and abortion widely and easily available to young girls so they have the freedom to choose not to be mothers if they don't want to.

"With so much flailing around over the family, I have a modest proposal to help break through the confusion. It is that the Government should introduce a Man Benefit."


So which societal group spends the most on drink, drugs, gambling, prostitution and abandoning their family to go off and watch football? Lets give them more money... that'll help the family. Also poking this pen in my eye will probably cure my short-sightedness right?

"Before people assume that I have confused today's date with this time next month, let me say that my somewhat light-hearted proposal is based on a deeper point that I believe has been generally overlooked."

No confusion here Melanie, if it was a joke it would be funny.

"This is that the most important force behind elective lone parenthood is not ' feckless' men, but the attitude of women and girls."

'Elective' lone parenthood is a pretty meaningless concept. I think most people would like to share their life and family with another person provided that person was the right person. Those who chose to parent alone are in my experience exclusively those who don't know such a person. So if you don't want to live with an abuser or a rapist - is that elective? What if you don't want to live with an alcohol or drug abuser who you fear may turn violent? What if you don't want to live with someone who is involved in crime? Or someone who is prone to anger and shouting or to belittling you and behaving unreasonably, someone who refuses to do their share as a parent, someone who spends more time out with their mates than with the family, someone who tries to indoctrinate your child with views you don't share or who insists you send the child to a school or church of their choosing... Who exactly is electing and who exactly is choosing "no partner" rather than "unsuitable partner"?

"It is the way they think about their interests which drives the pattern of relationships between the sexes. And they have simply changed their opinion of where their interests lie. "

Really - better tell that to the two women a week killed by their intimate partners. guess they must be thinking about their interest wrong huh?

"Back in the mists of time before the Pill, all-women short-lists and Harriet Harman, relationships between men and women were based on a bargain between the sexes which, although never stated openly, everyone accepted as a given."

Back in the mists of time women were considered the chattels (property) of their husbands, 'witches' were burnt at the stake and half the country had the plague. This doesn't mean it was good.

"Women realised they needed the father of their children to stick around to help bring them up."

Actually it's more like the mothers of illegitimate children were persecuted to the point of death in many cases.

"In turn, men committed themselves to the mothers of their children on the basis that they could trust they were indeed the father because the woman was sexually faithful."

Yes Harriet Harman invented infidelity. The 21st century is THE FIRST time in the history of humanity that a man can actually be 100% certain that a child is his. Few men seem in a hurry to prove they are fathers - many more are in a hurry to prove they're not and thus shake off the responsibility involved.

"Today, this bargain has been all but destroyed. A number of factors have conspired to make women and girls think they can go it alone without men. The first has been that so many women work and are therefore economically independent."

Ah that's it - women working - that's the root of all evil isn't it? Did Harriet Harman invent that too?

"Next was the sexual revolution which saw women becoming as sexually free as men."

Men cannot EVER have been having more sex than women unless they were all gay.

"In short order, any stigma over having babies out of wedlock was abolished."

Yes there's no stigma left about illegitimate children is there - except of course the stuff coming out of your mouth Melanie.

"Then there was the collapse of manufacturing industry, which deprived many boys of the job prospects which once made them an attractive, marriageable proposition."

And it was only men who worked in manufacturing? Nothing turns me on like a guy saying "I screw the lids on toothpaste jars all day".

"Finally, the coup de grace was administered by welfare benefits to single mothers which enabled them to live without the support of their babies' fathers."

Yes we should have just left single mothers to die on the street, shouldn't we?

"The result of all this was that many women and girls decided they no longer needed their children's fathers to be part of the family unit."

Great - they no longer NEEDED these men there, which meant they could still CHOOSE to have these men around. Also it meant that those women whose partners left them and their children didn't die of starvation.

"Today, this bargain has been all but destroyed. A number of factors have conspired to make women and girls think they can go it alone without men. This has given rise to an increasing number of women-only households where fathers have been written out of the family script for three or four generations or more."

It wasn't a bargain, it was women being held hostage by financial circumstances to stay with men whether they liked them or not and even whether their own lives and those of their children were put at risk by them or not.

"The consequences of such family disintegration - as is now indisputable - are in general catastrophic for both individuals and for society."

Show me one piece of evidence that shows that the benefits of a two-parent family cannot be largely explained financially? And how exactly is forcing women to live with guys they don't want to good for society? Is the worth of a society directly proportional to female misery?

"This problem will not be cracked, however, unless women come to believe once again that their interests lie in attracting one man to father their children and then stick with them. Which is where my proposal of a Man Benefit comes in."

I think to convince women that their interests lie in living with a guy we should maybe start by tackling domestic violence...

"At a meeting last week of the Centre for Policy Studies to discuss Dench's research, the veteran anti-poverty campaigner Frank Field came up with an inventive suggestion to counter the catastrophic impact of joblessness among young men at the bottom of the heap."

How about creating more jobs? Seems like an obvious choice...

"He suggested that the state should pay a dowry to couples who undertook to stay together, and that this dowry should be paid to the girl in such a relationship."

Lets bribe people to stay in relationships that aren't working. This will not have any negative consequences...

"It seemed to me, though, that girls already have a kind of dowry in the form of Child Benefit, paid to mothers on the birth of every child - a dowry with a destructive effect. For the great unsayable is that Child Benefit acts as a huge incentive to have children outside marriage."

Actually child benefit is paid to the parent who takes responsibility for the child. If should act as an incentive to encourage people to take care of their children. Actually very very rude here to ignore the many men who do raise children alone.

"When it was introduced in the Seventies, it replaced child tax allowances, which were set against the earned income of fathers. It was, therefore, hailed as a transfer of family income 'from wallet to purse'."

It was about getting the money where it was most likely to directly benefit the child - major research showed giving it to the primary caregiver was the best option. Where is the research showing this is no longer true? Or did you make it up Melanie?

"This was considered a great advance, on the grounds that men were universally irresponsible and would spend any welfare money on drink, while women were entirely responsible and would spend it as intended on the needs of their children. But the greatest need children have is for their two parents to bring them up."

Yes the number one thing kids need is a drunk bloke stumbling in at 2am and passing out on the kitchen floor. This is well known.

"And what few anticipated was that, along with the impact of all the other social and economic changes, some women used Child Benefit to help junk men altogether as superfluous to requirements."

Child benefit in case anyone was wondering isn't actually the same as being added to the civil list. No-one chooses to live on child benefit unless the other options are seriously undesirable. So this in fact means only that women who really don't want to remain with their partners are able to leave. As such it's vital to society. Yes society, Melanie, the thing the rest of us live in.

"Since marriage has always helped turn young men into responsible adults..."

Sadly not responsible enough to stop them murdering their partners twice a week. And anyway when exactly did it become the job of women to render men "responsible". Sort yourself out assholes and call us when you're done.

"... this marginalisation gave them a green light to be as irresponsible as they wanted - thus creating a vicious circle in which girls would dismiss these wastrel youths as a 'waste of space'."

So these dreadful girls would describe "wastrels" as a "waste of space". Isn't that the definition of wastrel?

"What's needed, therefore, is to help turn men once again into an attractive, marriageable proposition."

Sounds like a job for Gok Wan!

"The most important thing they need is, of course, a job - which is why the policy of pushing lone mothers out to work is actually disastrous, particularly in areas of high unemployment."

Yes lets have mothers stuck home in poverty and give men access to subsidised jobs so they can choose whether to bring the money home to their families or to spend it on booze and gambling. How is this better than just giving the money direct to the people actually looking after the children?

"But welfare must stop reinforcing the idea that men are dispensable. The best way of underpinning marriage is probably through transferable tax allowances for married couples."

Darling, I've been meaning to ask you for some time. Would you consider sharing a transferrable tax allowance with me? This will SO work Melanie...

"But in addition, my modest proposal is that men who marry for the first time might be given a state 'dowry' to increase their worth to women."

Ha ha ha. Bring in dowries for men. It is April Fool's right? The next line is... Also when women die can we have their husbands burnt alive on a funeral pyre? That would help me to understand how firmly committed to their families these men are. It might also reduce the two women a week killed by their intimate partners sinc ethese would now effectively be suicide attacks.

"Such a Man Benefit would also send a powerful signal that men are not worthless creeps but are essential to family life - which would in turn help address their demoralisation and consequent irresponsible behaviour."

Yes if you had to pay me to marry a guy I'd think he was clearly a brilliant individual...

"The undoubted expense of such measures would be more than offset by reducing the astronomical cost to this country of family breakdown."

Any evidence for this? What about the increased cost of medical bills for all those women forced back to live with a guy whose violent to them? The extra murder enquiries - it could all add up.

"By themselves, of course, any such financial initiatives wouldn't stop the rot."

The rot?!! The rot!! What about the 6% rape conviction rate? The fact that 1 in 4 women is a victim of domestic violence in her life? How about stopping that "rot"?!

"The main drivers of family breakdown are cultural, not economic; they emanate, moreover, from the intelligentsia at the very top of society even though their worst victims are at the very bottom. It is those limousine liberals who developed the core idea behind the recalibration of women's interests - that equality meant women should behave in exactly the same way as men."

Yes ever since feminism I do piss standing up. Equality means women should have the same rights and opportunities as men. We are far from achieving it and yet what is evident is that even given those rights and opportunities women do not on the whole behave like men. We continue to dedicate more time to family and caring, we start less wars, we commit much much less crime...

"This would have appalled the earliest feminists..."

As would your article/career/existance...

"...who fought for votes for women on the basis that women stood for moral constraints that would civilise the public sphere."

No the sufragettes wanted votes for women because it was right and just.

"The irony is that, as a result of modern notions of gender equality, it is men who now need special help to restore the sexual bargain that will not just benefit the male sex but stop the degradation of women and family life that so threatens us all."

Poor poor men. All they've got is 19 out of 23 cabinet member, nearly half as much pay again, a fraction of the unpaid work, a 6% conviction rate if they rape. Yes they probably need government hand-outs right? How will we pay for these extra manefits? How about a special vagina tax...? Long live equality!

Just To Cheer Everyone Up Today!

It's Official - I Have Become Mary Whitehouse!

Yesterday I was bewailing the fact that the BBC website choses to cover topless tobogganing rather than real news. I figured since I'd gone to all the time and effort to moan about it - I might as well forward my angry comments to the BBC website complaints department. Today they replied...

"Dear Ms Smurthwaite,
Thank you for your email complaining about the tobogganing video on the News website.
I have looked at the video in question and think there is an inappropriate image within in. We are re-editing the video to remove that image. We are also re-writing the story headline.
We cover a wide range of content in video on the BBC News website. Some of it is light-hearted. A great deal is serious. We try to strike a balance between the two but accept that we will not please everyone, all the time.
I’m sorry if you found this video offensive.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Barlex
Editor, On Demand
1640 BBC Television Centre "

Oh dear. How did this happen? I was trying to complain about the focus of the news being on the trivial and tittilating rather than on real political and social issues. Mark seems to be under the impression I am offended by the sight of A NIPPLE.

So Why Do They Call It The News?

The BBC today is all over the story that some people in German went tobogganing topless. And yes, there is a video. It wouldn't look out of place on Girls Gone Wild.

Stories not featured on the BBC site today include Republican Scott Brown voting with the US Democrats on jobs, the decision not to investigate the authors of the notorious US waterboard memo and right here in the UK the country's biggest union (I think) Unison has voted to back calls for a 'Nordic Law' on prostitution.

And honestly the BBC is one of the better ones. What happened to journalists reporting stuff that mattered?

Easy Tiger

I was on BBC Five Live on Friday night talking about the wildly over-hyped story of Tiger Woods' public apology. Unfortunately the debate wasn't very interesting - other guests kept talking about "brand Tiger" and the impact on the game of golf. Big who cares!!

There is one point I was desperate to make but didn't get the chance though: Sex addiction. Apparently he's been in rehab now for "sex addiction". I am unconvinced that this is a real condition, and deeply unconvinced that Tiger Woods has ever suffered from it.

An addiction drives you to behave in ways you never would normally. If he was rushing to the bathroom during golf tournaments to frantically masturbate I would be prepared to consider it a psychological problem. Why does his condition only kick in when he meets gorgeous supermodels? Sleeping around when you're in an exclusive relationship is not a medical condition. It means you're a bad partner, a liar and a creep but it's not a diagnosis.

The notion that men "just can't help" having sex is a noxious one. No man has ever died from failure to poke his penis into something. And it's trotted out regularly as an excuse for rape and sexual assault as well as infidelity.

My friend Zoe put it best, so I shall quote: "What a knob. As if being an ignorant, self-serving prick was a disease. I think most of my ex-boyfriends have been infected with it, actually. Maybe I am a carrier!"

One Line

Sometimes the headline is enough: Rape victim given 101 lashes for becoming pregnant.

The Porn Generation

This is not new news - many researchers have shown links between porn and sexual violence and harrassment before. I don't even understand why we need research to demonstrate a link - isn't it obvious? Still whenever I mention it I am always scrutinised for the exact details of the research in an incredulous way so I'm posting up the link since it's in the news today.

"young boys who see pornography are more inclined to believe there is nothing wrong with pinning down or sexually harassing a girl"

Now I know that young people today have more access to porn than the did a few years back. Did you know that the average amount of time per week that teenage boys spend watching porn is 90 minutes? I'm not sure what exact age range this (shoddy journalism) is but it's frightening because there is a real sense I hear from people that there's no point passing laws to keep kids away from porn, they're going to see it anyway. Well I understand they'll spend a couple of minutes curiously peering at it, and I can cope with that. 90 minutes a week? That's more than they spend studying science in some schools! No wonder they come out with a totally messed up attitude towards women.

A Quick Recap On The Whole God Thing

Just in case you've been asleep for the last 500 years or accidentally cancelled your subscription to New Scientist - turns out there is no god. Someone clearly forgot to tell the BBC. In the wake of the Haitian earthquake, while debates rage about what action governments should take and aid agencies appeal urgently for funds and support, the BBC have the nerve to publish this piece entitled "Why does God allow natural disasters?". Really. And remember they're the same people who never fail to put inverted commas around the word "rapist" or "murderer" even if there are dozens of victims with the same story (e.g John Worboys) or corpses everywhere. Where are the inverted commas round "allow". I mean "god" is a fictional concept, how can a fictional concept "allow" things?

The article itself is frightening.

"Archbishop of York John Sentamu said he had 'nothing to say to make sense of this horror', while another clergyman, Canon Giles Fraser, preferred to respond 'not with clever argument but with prayer'."

So even the most "respected" theologians in the country don't have a ruddy clue. You would think the next paragraph would start "uh oh, looks like their beliefs don't hold even the slightest drop of water here, maybe all that virgin birth, everlasting life stuff is nonsense too...". Instead:

"Perhaps their stance is understandable. The Old Testament is also not clear to the layman on such matters."

Yes but they're not "laymen" are they? One of them is the Archbishop of York.

"So what should believers say?"

How about "I'm clearly wrong"?

"To make progress, we might distinguish two kinds of evil:

•the awful things people do, such as murder, and
•the awful things that just happen, such as earthquakes"

You can't really do that actually. The earthquake in Haiti might come under the heading of "natural disasters" but if the country wasn't so poorly run and if the international community had been more engaged in improving life there, more accepting of Haitian refugees and faster to respond after the earthquake there's no doubt the loss of life could have been massively reduced. So it is a largely man-made disaster. And by the same token the difference between reckless driving and manslaughter can be down to weather conditions making the road slippery. If there were a god, she could intervene at any time with a well-placed lightening bolt.

"It's OK, some will insist, because God works in mysterious ways."

Weird how if I'm trying to be mysterious I talk in half sentences and avoid eye contact, god does it by throwing rubble on the heads of 200,000 Haitians. And the last line of the article is:

"If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?"

In other stupid questions: If cheese is purple, why doesn't it taste of blackcurrant? If Spain is next to Antarctica, why is it so warm? If goats usually wear mini-skirts, why isn't there one in the Spice Girls? (enough stupid questions...)

Lets try this question instead: Given that no deity exists, why do I keep assigning a gender to a mythical concept?

Or this one: Given that no deity exists and prayer doesn't work, is there really any use for this great big stained glass building and if there isn't how many parcels of medical supplies could we buy and deliver to Haiti with the money we'd get selling it and wouldn't people respect us a whole lot more if we did that instead of wandering about in embroidered frocks smilingly admitting our religious beliefs don't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny?

Just me?

Cause and Effect

The BBC website reports "Sex website row led to wife murder, Swansea trial told". Yet somehow I feel like the main cause of the gruesome murder was not that a woman had the temerity to question her husband's use of websites aimed at those trying to arrange casual sex encounters but instead the fact that he's a brutal homicidal misogynist criminal. No? I mean why doesn't it say "man's use of sex websites led to murder"? Because I'm pretty sure if he hadn't been on the sites, she wouldn't have asked about it. Do we really live in a world where a guy has a right to log on to sites seeking casual sex but a woman doesn't have the right to even question that behaviour? If anything "led to" Kirsty Grabham's appalling murder, you would have to say it is Paul Grabham's history of serious violence against her.

The article also claims that both partners "worked" as prostitutes. Then is says she had sex for money while he hung around in the background. He meanwhile sought casual sex and dogging on the internet and beat her up. I'm not sure I'd call him a prostitute. I think the word might be "pimp" here.

Keeping It In The Family

A minor, but worrying development - the BBC website has changed the title of it's "Education" section to read "Education and Family". In my experience when politicians or think tanks, etc talk about "family" it is bad news. "Family values" means "get back in the kitchen women". People who talk about the importance of "family" are usually trying to stigmatise single mothers or something similar. It's meaningless anyway because we're all in families. Whether you count me, Mr Cru and the cat or whether you include other relatives who don't live with us - it's all family.

This seems to have been timed to co-incide with David Cameron banging on about tax breaks for married couples. This is now the top story on what used to be the education section of the BBC site. Underneath it says:

"'End of nuclear family' forecast

Cameron backs family support

'Toxic cycle' of family breakdown"

Which all comes back to this hideous notion of assuming that "family" = good. When we know perfectly well that for 2 women a week in the UK "family" = murder. We know that child abuse is happening all over the country, domestic violence, forced marriage, marital rape, all these things. Seems to me that if we're going to have a news section about "family" these things should get some coverage - not just David Cameron's largely meaningless quotes.

I HATE Boris

I used to hate Boris on an intellectual level - I thought his policies were dreadful but they didn't affect me so much personally. Today that changed.

I made the mistake of leaving home without my Oyster Card. Do you know you can no longer get a one-day bus pass without an Oyster Card? So I paid £2 out and £2 back AND if I go out again later I'll still have to pay again. It also means the at-stop ticket sales machines now only offer one of the four options they used to sell (since you can also no longer get a young person's rate without an Oyster card) which is a real waste of technology. It means people from out of town, people who forget their card and people who don't understand the system could end up spending £10 or £12 just getting around town on the buses for the day.

Recently there has been criticism of low-cost airlines who then charge a huge fee for "booking with a credit or debit card" - their argument being that if there is a way of not paying the fee - however arduous or obscure - then can claim the fare without the fee as the quoted fare. Then of course they charge you for having luggage, choosing a seat, etc. It's a scam. What Boris is doing on the buses is the same thing - unless you apply for and allow time to receive an Oyster card and don't lose it, have it stolen or forget it - travelling around London by bus becomes ridiculously expensive. The fares with an Oyster card have also gone up.

And I'm totally cornered. I won't drive for obvious reasons. I'm not to be trusted on a bike (and it exacerbates my Raynaud's to ride everywhere). So my only other choice is to walk. Realistically I won't do that every day, I'll not have time. I may well end up getting more cabs though since the price differential is less and less these days.

I see this as a warning of what will happen under a tory government. Really - he has fixed the full underground and all systems passes - the most expensive ones - and he's trying to screw more money out of those who try to save and use the buses.

Today's Question Is...

What's the minimum age you need to be to work as a BBC correspondent? I am not making this up - they have a feature today called "Yemen: Exotic, remote and 'a little bit scary'". Brilliant. Could the BBC not have tried to explain it's insight in a slightly more nuanced way? And does the use of inverted commas somehow justify saying something that could clearly come across as xenophobic? Tune in next week for "France: Cultured, sophisticated and 'full of cheese-eating surrender monkeys'"...

Sisters Doing It For Themselves

Oh dear - Luisa Dillner in the Daily Mail. Has the civil war in Darfur suddenly ground to a halt and peace spread across the middle east while I was napping? Because otherwise I don't see much in the way of a valid excuse for padding out a page-worth of a national newspaper (o.k. I exaggerate - the Daily Male) with this absolute dross.

It's called "Your best friend - and deadly rival: Why the love-hate bond between sisters is the most precious relationship of all" which sort of means "I don't really have anything to write here but I'm trying to make it seem exciting". She describes her two daughters "One has stolen the favourite spot in the bed, and the other feels short-changed on cuddles." Brilliant - this is the sort of information than when someone starts telling me on the phone I switch on the TV subtitles so I can murmer along in agreement while actually catching up on House or Scrubs.

"No one can hurt you like your sister. With a man, you have the nuclear option: you can leave. You don’t have that with a sister." Well unless that man is your brother. Or father, son, etc, right? And actually you can leave your sister. If you really don't get on you can - once you reach adulthood - part company and lose touch if you want.

"It doesn’t seem to matter how big or small your family, or whether you live in Britain or Outer Mongolia - if you’ve got a sister, you’ve got the woman who can change in a heartbeat from being your best friend to being your deadliest rival." Really? Cos my sister and I get on pretty well when we see each other which is a few times a year. If she's my deadliest rival - or best friend - she has a pretty clever way of hiding it by acting like she lives in Southhampton and works in HR...

Who on earth actually lives in Daily Mail world? No-one! Really Luisa Dillner - give up now, there has to be something better you can do with your life!

[And fittingly that is not a picture of me and my sister. It's me and my friend Karen from down the road - I'm having to improvise because I don't have any recent pictures of me and my sister...]

Interesting Link Of The Day

If you've got 20 seconds to spare today - I thought this was interesting about the scale of the universe.

Frightening Read of the Day

The deaths of Christelle Pardo and her little boy show just how screwed up our system is. Those able to work are offered benefits but those unable to are refused. Seems like all they care about is getting something back. Note that because the jobseekers allowance was cut off because she was pregnant, no guy, not even a single dad in an otherwise totally similar situation, could find themselves in the same horrific predicament.*

*Thanks to Incurable Hippie, currently guest-blogging at The F-Word for pointing this out to me in an email!

Out, Out, Damn Spot

Oh dear - I just laughed so hard I nearly lost bladder control.

There is an article in The Times about how the female G-Spot is a myth. I will deal with the article shortly. First though take a look at the very first comment added below the article...

"John Chamberlain wrote:
First of all the Dr. was British, Second of all, the doctor was a man.

Heck he'd have a better chance of finding the Ark of the Covenant.

I have been with over a hundred women and they all had G spots, 10% of them saying no man had ever made them realize they had one,

Just because your doing it wrong, doesn't mean it doesn't exist..."

So the G-spot is right there but all these women just couldn't find it on their own until miracle-boy came along? What percentage of them were just saying whatever the hell they thought would stop him scrabbling about pointlessly down there? I'm going 100%, no? Strange how despite his miraculous sexual technique at least the first 99 of these 100 women didn't end up in a lasting relationship with him?!

Can men really be this delusional? Say it like Obama: Yes They Can!

Here's the skinny boys - if a woman tells you she rarely or never has an orgasm from penetrative sex the best response is to find out what other activities do give her pleasure and then be sure to include some of them in your foreplay (look it up FHM readers). Do not spend the next four hours teeth gritted, dryly grinding away in hope of a miracle. A quick survey of my straight female friends suggests the vast majority have faked orgasm, always for the same reason - just to get him to stop before it starts to really sting and without hurting his feelings.

Now the elusive G-Spot. Does it or does it not exist? Well it depends what exactly the definition of "G-Spot" is. The most sensitive part of a woman's (or man's actually) legs might well be the back of the knees. But no-one talks about the mysterious "knee-spot". Most women would agree that different parts of their vagina are differently sensitive too. The most sensitive area for many women is about 2-4 inches in on the front side. But that doesn't make it some sort of magical spot that exposed to so much as a warm draft sends a woman off multiple-orgasming like some sort of professional bonfire night display. It's just the most sensitive bit so if she's into it, and you're into it, it's not a bad place to focus some attention on your way round.

I feel like I just turned into some sort of sex advice agony aunt. Address all problems to "Dear Cruella..."

Economic Tits

So I know - I should expect this sort of thing from The Sun. Seriously though, I would do a line-by-line except as with most Sun stories there's only about three lines. Apparently the recession's over because more people are going to strip clubs. So....

1) Where are the statistics on this? There aren't any. This is based on one guy saying so - one guy who in return gets his chain of misogyny shops plugged in Britain's best-selling paper.

2) Hooray - lets see what other dodgy industries we can use to prop up the economy. People are buying more heroin than ever. Hired assassins have never been so popular. The demand for mugging old ladies has gone through the roof. Oh whoops, except economic benefits don't justify an industry that's riddled with exploitation.

3) If this is all true then it's very very frightening news indeed. Women are already seriously over-represented in the ranks of those affected by the downturn. We earn less across the board and are way more likely to suffer discrimination, way more likely to have dependent family members to support along with complicated caring arrangements. How many more women will start to feel that their only viable economic choice is to work in one of these horrible places? And then when they're not making as much as they thought, feel like they have to start offering sexual services too...

4) Again if this is true then why exactly would we imagine that lap-dancing is more resistant to economic conditions than other activities? What other industries appear to have strong resiliance against bad economic conditions? Alcohol and cigarettes. Stuff that's addictive, stuff that is actually doing you no good at all but over a number of years you've become so used to that you can't live without it. If lap-dancing is really just the "harmless" fun that these assholes constantly claim it is then when money's a bit tight guys would stop going and come back when they have more disposable income. Not happening.

5) Our reliable correspondant says the customers are city bankers. So bad news for the female city bankers who wanted to get ahead with a bit of networking. He also says more and more women are going to strip clubs - I wonder how many of them really have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun" and how many of them are just worried about losing their jobs if they don't go along with the team for the socialising.

6) Of course - random excuse to show more tits in The Sun. Why is this "newspaper" not sold on the top shelves? This is not news. News would have found actual market trend statistics, interviewed an economist rather than a pimp, and included, for balance, comments from those who feel that a rise in strip club attendance may have it's negative side too. This is porn. Pure porn. Porn goes on the top shelf - away from where children can reach it.

The Sun "newspaper" has so much in common with strip clubs: Bad for women. Bad for men. Bad for business. Bad for society.

Two footnotes here: (1) on the subject of how young women are now supposed to have a "different" attitude to "sexiness and fun". When the revolution comes and I am magically able to access whatever pleases me whenever I please I'm going to demand regular hot baths poured for me and about an hour a day of cunnilingus. Going to a grimy, tacky strip club full of drunk blokes letching at women who we all know for the most part really don't want to be there strikes me as neither "sexy" nor "fun". (2) The photo - I took it just before xmas in a major chain book store on Oxford Street (I forget which one - Waterstones or Borders I think). There under a huge "we recommend" sign are the gifts for the man who likes to spend his festive season thinking about women's bodies in a strangely dismembered way. The Big Book of Legs and The Big Book of Breasts. I guess great literature isn't dead...

Words and Their Meanings

There are many excellent dictionary sites on the internet, most are available for free. What a shame that well-paid lawyer Yale Galanter hasn't logged on to one lately. BBC reports that Charlie Sheen put a knife to Brooke Mueller Sheen's throat and threatened to kill her. Mr Galanter responds by telling the media that they are "very much in love". Err no, she may be in love with him (she'd have to be to put up with that behaviour) but the whole knife-throat-death-threat-thing is the big clue here about his feelings for her. "Love" is more of a cuddles-poetry-flowers-dinner-dates-fireplaces-long-walks sort of a thing. Knives and death threats would be "hate".

And before you ask - yes those are my skinny knuckles biro-ed up in the photo. Am going to try to use my new phone to take my own photos for the blog this year rather than borrowing from around the web as I have in the past. Well we'll see how long that lasts!

New BBC Low (and High)

Barely a week goes by I don't write to the BBC to complain about a badly-phrased article or a misleading headline that I feel unfairly skews the argument on a key subject or misleads the public as to the underlying message of the situation. I'm like that. This week though the BBC has totally out-done itself with this debate on the "have your say" page... It's called "Should homosexuals face execution?". I was rather hoping there would only be one response just saying "no". Feel free to write in. I assume they'll take it down shortly.

I'm on the BBC myself tonight on BBC Five Live, the Richard Bacon Show. Half ten to 1am. I'll be his "presenter's friend" chatting about everything that comes up. Do tune in and ring in too if you like to back me up. All the info and the listen online option is here.

Footnote: they changed the page heading to something less shocking but kept the shocking headline as the first line of the introduction with a second line (new) which implied they had been asking the question deliberately to provoke debate... They didn't explain what they had done which is poor journalism I think - write an apology and a retraction but don't change it and then act innocent...!

All I Want For Christmas...

Trying to decide what to get your favourite blogstress for Christmas? I want one of these!!

Women Bosses: Line-by-line!

The Daily Mail. Ah. It's my birthday today (drinkies on Saturday at The Comedy Pub, Oxenden Street show at half eight, pub closes 2am, please come if you're in town) and the Daily Mail's lovely gift is clearly this Amanda Platell article charmingly titled "Moody, indecisive and always trying to behave like a man, why ladies make truly lousy bosses". It's a stonker. It really deserves the proper Cru-blog line-by-line treatment so here goes... happy birthday me!

"Why is it that in a society overrun by greedy fat cats - where the Sir Fred Goodwins of this world continue to outrage with their business brutality, unreasonable demands and outrageous bonuses - there is not a single woman’s name in the rogues’ gallery?"

Yes Amanda why IS that? Maybe women are less unreasonable, less brutal and less demanding. Still at least they're not in charge eh?

"Why is there not an equally hated Lady Freda Goodwin, Freda The Shred, riding roughshod over the poor workers, slashing costs and sacking staff? Because, ladies, we are not nasty enough. "

Oh trust me Amanda, I'm only two lines in and already I'm planning to be pretty nasty here. But if women aren't capable of being like Fred Goodwin shouldn't we hire MORE of them? Or are you the only person in Britain still rooting for Fred in this whole fiasco?

"Nor are we single-minded enough, nor focused, nor task driven, nor adept at that simple but essential boss task of giving orders."

No doubt this sort of offensive baseless sweeping generalisation will be backed up with hard cold facts.

"In short, our commercial DNA is not wired for corporate success."

So we're biologically incapable of running a business? Weird that so many of us do run businesses then. Perhaps someone should let Martha Lane-Fox know.

"And nowhere was that more graphically demonstrated than last week when the much-feted co-chairman of Gordon Brown’s Women’s Enterprise Task Force was successfully sued by one of her employees for bullying."

I'm waiting for the cold hard facts and I'm getting a single case study. Just as well you don't run a business Amanda - "I asked my cat and he doesn't want to buy football tickets so clearly there's no market for them..."

"Dr Glenda Stone runs a successful recruitment website, Aurora, with her husband. So even this colossus of female business success, the woman chosen to front such a highprofile government body, co-runs her business with her spouse.

Not much of a triumph for feminism after all, is it?"

She runs a business with her husband? But who cleans the bathroom and does the ironing. Daily Mail head overload alert!! But seriously as an official spokeswoman for feminism - we weren't claiming her as our key triumph this year. I was at Reclaim The Night and the Emma Humphrey Memorial Prizes went to Sandra McNeil and Object. Dr Stone was not nominated but I wish her the best of luck.

"And what’s more, by all accounts in the industrial tribunal, she was a terrible boss - overbearing, foulmouthed, petty, bullying, micromanaging-vindictive."

Foulmouthed, petty, bullying and vindictive? Well if the career doesn't work out she can always get a job as a columnist for the Mail hey Amanda?

"I know that type of female boss well, the Bully Boy Boss, who thinks they have to be nastier than the nastiest male boss to succeed. But more of them later."

Earlier on the problem was that we weren't hard-wired to give orders and nasty enough to run big corporates, now we're too nasty and handing out too many orders? It's almost as if women aren't actually all the same after all. Maybe we're diverse, like human beings...?

"Now, before the hate emails start pouring in from outraged feminists and female bosses, I have a special interest in this subject.

Not just because I’ve had the misfortune of having some of the most God-awful female bosses in the history of modern business, but because I was a boss myself, more than once."

So you're allowed to criticise me because you've got a vagina and a job too?

"I have edited two national newspapers, been the managing editor of one, the marketing director of two and the managing director of one national newspaper group.

As William Hague’s Press Secretary, I was boss to a team of press officers.

I have sat in the editor’s chair, the boardroom and the shadow cabinet. And while I can confidently say most of the people who worked for me liked me and respected me (I always thought of them working with me, but that’s such a girl thing), and, more importantly, worked well for me, I’m not sure I was always a good boss."

So this whole article is about how you're "not sure" you were "always" doing a good job. Who is? Everybody has hurdles at work, everybody tries and learns from experience. I've had male bosses who I AM SURE were ALWAYS doing a BAD JOB. Doesn't mean all men are bad bosses does it?

"Believe it or not, I wasn’t tough enough. I had that classic female trait of being able to get the most out of people - it’s called nurturing now - but I also wanted to be liked, a fatal flaw in a boss."

I mourn whatever you threw away to be liked Amanda because I really really don't like you.

"And like most women bosses, I took things too personally."

Yes that's why Fred Goodwin was so great - he didn't let the little stuff, like a balance sheet flimsier than a sheet of Tescos Value loo roll and bad debts piling up faster than dirty laundry in a student flatshare, get to him.

"I remember one particular incident when my woman boss, who was trying to get rid of me in that usual sneaky female way or undermining me at every point rather than honestly pointing out my shortcomings, called me into an ambush meeting. "

I'm not sure what "that usual sneaky female way" is but I'm pretty sure if such a thing exists it's because when women are direct about what they want they're criticised for being too aggressive and "acting like a man" by people like Amanda Platell.

"She’d assembled various company directors and preceded to humiliate me in a most personal way, for my accent, the school I went to, for not liking the theatre, for my university. Not for a moment that I was bad at my job."

You don't like theatre? What's wrong with you Amanda...

What I mean is: That's unfair and I'm sorry you were treated that way. To me that's discrimination against women, in this case you, and I'm fighting that. What I'm not doing is fighting that discrimination by writing national press articles about women making bad managers. [Although I think you mean proceeded, not preceded, any boss who could time travel would have seen this article coming and retrospectively not hired you in the first place]

"And to my eternal shame I took it personally. Men don’t do that."

No they don't. That's why Eddie Murphy didn't threaten to sue Mel B when she implied he wasn't the most caring father to her child. And Peter Andre didn't sue Katie Price when she said he wasn't the most faithful lover.

"I was a good manager of people, but a lousy risk-taker."

Compared to Fred Goodwin Amanda, I'd say you were a brilliant risk-taker.

"With our typical propensity for multi-tasking, I was more comfortable doing ten things at once and keeping all the balls in the air than what was really needed, to focus on one task and nail that ball in the back of the net."

Yes a good manager only focusses on one thing. Really? So the accounts are sorted but the sales strategy is screwed and the premises licenses have expired. Great management. Our hero Fred Goodwin of course only focussed on one thing - getting rich quick.

"Returning to Dr Glenda Stone for a moment, ironically her job on the quango was to teach businesswomen how to take risks, one of the key areas survey after survey finds women are pathologically incapable of doing."

What surveys? Really. I have never seen such a survey. I saw a survey that said men are bad at taking risk and that's why they make worse car drivers. Even if we could prove somehow that women are more risk-averse though: Firstly when I look at the credit crunch and it's impact on Britain the one thing I have never though is "If only our business leaders took more risks". And secondly it is discrimination to make recruitment and promotion decisions based on generalisations. If you want risk-takers, ask for risk-takers and ask applicants to take one of the many tests of willingness to take risk at interview - don't assume you know what someone is like based on their gender.

"Even in countries where positive discrimination is enforced by law, such as Norway, the underpinning beliefs are that women bring different mindsets and skills to business.

In that country, by law 40 per cent of all corporate positions are now held by women, but even they concede women are by nature more ‘risk-aware’. For which read ‘risk averse’, for which read useless to thrusting, high-risk, high-profit companies."

Yes I remember reading all those articles about how badly Norway had been hit by the credit crunch. Forget all-male-run Dubai, the biggest sufferers have been the Norwegians right? The PROBLEM with businesses right now is that they are "high-risk".

"Women do, however, make a difference to bankruptcy levels, says a study by Leeds University Business School. It surveyed 17,000 companies and found that having at least one female director on the board cuts a company’s chance of going bankrupt by about 20 per cent."

Right so seems like Norway was right all along. And for one this argument actually has a source, it's based on fact.

"Why? Because we’re more cautious. But a study of 2,000 companies in the U.S. found a correlation between companies with disproportionately more female board members and lower profitability and lower market value. "

What study? By who? If you don't give me the source I can go and see whether the methodology is valid can I? Looking back thought at the last ten years of business I think profits were pretty high but risks taken were too high.

"So it appears that companies made up of more women executives are good at keeping afloat, but not at motoring ahead.

We’re good at preventing bust but not at facilitating boom."

Haven't we been saying for a long time we want to get away from a boom-bust cycle and into a steady growth economy? Don't we want more bust-preventers and less boom-facilitators?

"These studies indicate why women bosses are so unrepresented in corporate life. We have different skill sets and the things we’re naturally good at don’t necessarily make companies rich."

I think in the long term "not going bust" is quite a key component of "getting rich".

"That may go some way to explaining why every time a list of overpaid bosses appears, it’s a case of Spot The Female."

Yes it's called a pay gap.

"When the list of 323 public service bosses was published last Friday, there was not a single woman in the top ten. The Royal Mail’s Adam Crozier, Channel 4’s Kevin Lygo, the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson - all household names. Still no women."

If Adam Crozier had been a bit less greedy maybe there wouldn't have been a huge mail strike. Are these examples of great managers? Are these guys SURE they are ALWAYS a good boss. Honestly Amanda I think you could have done better than most of them and there are very few women I can think of I wouldn't have offered the job to ahead of you.

"Women have railed against it for half a century, the Labour government has legislated against it for a decade, and yet we are still in a minority in the companies that dominate our country."

Oh well we had a little try - lets give up now. Did anyone ever say the battle for equality would be easy and over in a fortnight?

"And where women do score more highly, it’s in the caring, catering or fashion professions."

Oh so we do run some industries but apparently these aren't as important as the others? Caring for the needy, feeding people and providing them with clothes to wear - yes I think are the most trivial roles of industry too... Clearly running a TV station or a casino is more important.

"As Dr Stone demonstrated, women bosses tend to fall into two categories - too soft or too hard."

Earlier on we were all the same - now we're scattered at two ends of a (mythical) spectrum. Or could it be that any woman you can't write off as too soft you're writing of as too hard, creating a no-won situation because you have a problem with women.

"There are the Caring Collegiate Bosses you’ll find running shopping, retail, fashion and style companies and the middleranking public service sectors."

Well they seem to be good at what they do, don't they?

"Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S are three of the top 11 companies employing female directors."

And they're on the brink of going out of business right?

"The two great success stories running UK companies demonstrate this point - Marjorie Scardino at Pearson, the publisher dominated by female magazines, and Angela Ahrendts at Burberry."

What point? The point that some women have managed to break through the glass ceiling in publishing, food and fashion and are doing at least as good a job as the men they had to fight out of the way? Yes point well made...

"And then there are the Bully Boy Bosses, like Dr Stone, the women who think you have be tougher than any male to succeed in a man’s world. Yes they’re tough, but they’re also petty, small picture people lacking the risk-taking, taskdriven skills necessary for running a big, successful company."

Yes many women believe (rightly) that they have to be tougher than their male colleagues to succeed. The rest is just meaningless drivel right? Also note that this is the opposite type to the Marjorie Scardino type. She's not tough of course, she got where she is by smiling and agreeing with people.

"Successful bosses mono-task, women multi-task; men are dispassionate, we are naturally emotional; they take risks, we ensure against loss."

So bad female bosses are "petty, small picture people" but men are "mono-task"-ers. That is the same quality only gendered to be negative for women and positive for men. And again what is so dreadful about ensuring against loss?

"But women’s DNA is only part of the answer as to why there are still so few female bosses in corporate life."

Which gene is this in? Which report shows a genetic difference. Go look in your local Early Learning Centre at the pink cookery sets and the blue science kits ... even if we can determine a difference in business performance based on gender - to call it "DNA" is a big (and offensive) leap.

"Even in the U.S., where 60 per cent of all college students are female, less than 15 per cent of board seats are held by women.

In the UK, the picture is worse. While the number of women in the top 100 FTSE boardrooms has doubled since 2000, it is still only 12 per cent."

So why doesn't this dreadful DNA prevent women getting in to university? Surely universities want these risk-takers since there's really no "risk" at university. If student's experiment and fail they just get kicked out or get bad grades.

"That despite a decade of social engineering and an ethos of positive discrimination by this Labour government."

It's almost like there could be nasty forces trying to hold women back? One of them is call YOU Amanda.

"Women are their worst enemies in some ways, with the avalanche of eye-watering sexual discrimination compensation claims in corporate life. Only last week, we had the absurd sight of banker Haley Tansey suing HBOS for £600,000 for sexual harassment."

Yes, absurd, Fred Goodwin deserves millions for running a company into the ground but Haley Tansey shouldn't expect compensation for illegal and terrifying harassment.

"The £39,000-a-year businesswoman said it all began with a colleague tricking his way into her hotel room while she was asleep then appearing naked before her. An eight-year nightmare of appalling sexism followed, she claims."

Oh well as long as nothing BAD happened eh? That's appalling.

"Why didn’t she tackle this undeniably unacceptable behaviour head on, when it happened?"

Because she didn't want to lose her £39,000 a year job? Because she didn't want to go through a horrific dragged-out court case and have her private life splashed all over your newspaper columns?

"A man would have."

How many men are vicitimised by having a naked colleague come in their room in the middle of the night? I've never heard of that happening.

"Victims don’t rise to the top."

You imply Amanda that victimhood is something that people can choose. Not true. Regardless of when she had reported it Ms Tansey would still have been the victim of this incident. And actually many victims of all sorts of crimes do go on to be successful in their own lives.

"Cases like this put the frighteners on companies. I know female bosses who privately admit that it has made them wary of employing female bosses."

You would hope that cases like this made businesses scared of sending naked men into women's bedrooms at night. Sorry if you think Ms Tansey is making a big deal about it - I think she's very brave to come forward and deserves to be thoroughly compensated if her claims are well founded. I think companies need to be sent a clear message that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable.

"Add to that the Government's new generous paternity rights and it's a double whammy for women, especially as it’s still mainly women who take time off after having children."

Then the next thing we need to address is why men aren't more involved in child-raising. See your local Early Learning Centre for clues.

"So it’s not getting better for women, it's getting worse. In this recession, companies have become wary of employing women at their key career stage - in their 30s - when professional women are most likely to step up the corporate ladder but also likely to want to have children."

Do you know that companies are reimbursed 92% of what they spend on maternity pay? And more than 100% for small companies. In a recession a pregnant employee means you can cut your staff temporarily at almost zero cost and ramp back up to full power in a few months.

"Like many women born into the postfeminist generation, the high-fliers of the Eighties and Nineties, I was once surprised by the lack of success of women at corporate level after decades of equality."

How can you be "postfeminist" when I'm still "feminist"?

"Once, we could blame prejudice and sexism, now increasingly we have to look to ourselves. And it’s not just that women are lousy bosses of big companies because of our DNA, it’s also because of the choices we have made."

Of course looking at those women who make it to the top we find that they are in fact not women who have chosen to remain childless. Marjorie Scardino has three children. What holds women back is not choices - it's sexism, sexism that you are all too keen to excuse.

"For perfectly legitimate, complicated reasons of family or love or work-life balance, many of us have chosen to leave or never even enter the corporate jungle."

Lucky that men don't have relationships or families isn't it?

"But we can’t go on blaming it on men and an unfair system weighted against women."

We can - if that's what's really happening.

"You have to ask yourself why even in modern times there are few great female boss characters. There is not one female boss in Sex And The City, the single most iconic feminist TV series of a generation. When we do have successful women bosses, as in The Devil Wears Prada, they’re running fashion magazines, not blue chip companies."

Carrie's boss in Sex and The City is a woman. But I agree - we need more positive role models from TV and films. You do know Amanda, don't you, that those shows are not documentaries?

"Simon Cowell has The X Factor, in which Dannii and Cheryl are little more than pretty props. Even on shows such as Dragons’ Den, there is only one woman dragon."

No wonder our young women are not aiming higher and no wonder senior managers don't think to recruit women into top level positions.

"Can you imagine The Apprentice with a Lady Nicola Horlick at the helm, the ultimate female corporate Superwoman boss?"

Yes I can. I think I might actually watch it whereas Alan Sugar makes me puke my tea up and start grabbing for the remote.

"We’ll know the world has changed when the planned sequel to Wall Street has as its star not Gordon, but that mean mother of all bosses Greta Gekko."

If only Hollywood would lead the way and make a film about a woman who could lead a business. We could call it The Associate and have Whoopi Goldberg play the lead. Or we could make a retro-1980s film with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda and call it Nine to Five. That'll never happen though will it? Did Platell miss a meeting?

As he famously said in Wall Street: ‘Read Sun-tzu, The Art Of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.’ And alas in the boardroom, that’s never been more true than it is today for women.

I'm still fighting. Your help Amanda is not appreciated.

Update From Here

Well the police have rung me twice now. Both times to mostly reconfirm details I already gave them and tell me things I already know. They have however finally established the case number for the last time this lowlife was harrassing me so there is some hope of finding out what happened last time in a few days. They also sent me a leaflet about home security - cos it's well known that if you fit window locks no-one will text you and threaten to kill you...or something. Nice to feel like I'm getting a personalised service.

I was away for the weekend in Edinburgh - gorgeous place, makes me wonder why on earth I live in London - which was nice because I knew that said lowlife didn't know where I was so I wasn't looking over my shoulder all the time.

Back now and busy with interviews. There is a report out showing that just over 5,000 teenage girls and women had repeat abortions last year (i.e. their second or more). Now representing, as it does, less than a quarter of a percent of teenage girls and women in the UK, it seems to me the need for shock and alarm is being a little over-played by, ooh, who could it be? ... did you guess? Yes the pro-choice alliance!

Well what do the numbers tell us? Not much really. Either the number of unwanted teenage pregnancies is on the rise (which would be maybe bad, but not necessarily depending on the age of the teenagers and the consentuality of the sex and the level of understanding of contraceptive use - you know a nineteen-year-old in a happy equal relationship using contraception which fails doesn't worry me) or the percentage of teenagers who want an abortion succeeding in getting one has risen (and that would definitely be good - for them, their physical and mental health and their human rights).

I think any focus on the number of abortions taking place is just dumb. The right number of abortions is one for every woman who wants one. The factors which affect the number of unwanted pregnancies - things like sex education and services working to end rape and sexual violence as well as support for women chosing to continue their pregnancy - can and should be addressed. The number of abortions or repeat abortions or teenage abortions is just a number. Apparently last year it was a bit over 5,000. Excuse me while I remain calm.

Houston We Have A (Death Threat) Problem

Some of my long-term readers will remember two years ago I had a series of nasty phone calls culminating in the unknown caller threatening to come to my house and rape me. The full story is here. Well I had some success in tracking the caller (thanks to O2 - who gave the details to the police) but I never heard back from the police what had been done or whatever. I was also never told by anyone who it was, which I would really have liked to know. I did try to chase them up a few times but was told the case had been referred to another office and then no-one answered calls, etc. But since the offending calls stopped I figured I would leave it there - either the police spoke to the guy and he stopped or by co-incience he stopped (or maybe he stopped because I told him the police were involved). Anyhow I wasn't exactly satisfied with the outcome but I left it there.

Last night it started again. This time with a text threatening to kill me. It's obvious it's the same guy - there are clear consistencies in the tone and language employed.

I've never had a death threat before. It's quite scary. [Bows to crowd, waves, thanks manager and fans, accepts award for stating the BLOODY obvious]. I got Mr Cru to pick me up from the bus stop on my way home tonight and there was something utterly futile about having a "bodyguard" for 0.1% of my day when I was totally on my own out in public for a lot of the rest.

I was wildly distracted and did a dreadful job compering at the Duke's Head in Putney tonight - sorry everyone and thanks to the acts who were great and made the night go swimmingly anyway. I probably shouldn't have gone but (and this is interesting because it relates to the issue of delayed reporting of crime which has been under hot discussion on here in the last few days) I had insisted in my head of thinking of it as "just a nasty text", and actually feeling cross with myself for letting it get to me. I was only halfway home on the bus when I went "Shit - that is actually a death threat".

Obviously I went back to the police this afternoon and they have written it down and given me a case number so we'll see what happens.

Festive Victim Blaming

'Tis the season to be ... raped apparently. The police have really outdone themselves this time with a series of adverts in which they effectively tell women (and potential rapists) that it is women who are to blame for being raped if they dare to have a few drinks at the Christmas party. The police of course claim they are alerting both men and women to the fact "a large proportion of reported rape cases feature alcohol as a factor - whether it is consumed by the victim or the offender" but that in itself completely misses the point - it implies there is no distinction to be made in terms of blame between the "victim" and the "offender".

Here are other things that increase a woman's likelihood of being raped:

1) Leaving her specially installed "safe room".

2) Having a vagina.

3) Saying "no".

Where is the police's advertising campaign to get women to stop doing these things?

On top of this the police claim their campaign aims to encourage rape victims to come forward. But with a 5.3% conviction rate and horror stories everywhere you turn, you have to think that what's stopping women coming forward it the fact that they have a genuine understanding of the treatment they really are likely to receive. No mention is made of the women being prosecuted for daring to accuse someone of rape without first collecting irrefutable evidence.

No doubt the police would point to the fact that a second part of the same campaign focusses on telling men that they could end up in prison if they rape someone. But that should really be the only point of the police advertising and of course where the story has been picked up in the press the headlines are all based on "warning" women not to drink too much. Sky News went with "Women Urged Not To Be Rapists' Prey This Xmas", the Metro preferred "Rape warning over festive drinks" with a subtitle that made it clear it was women on the receiving end of the warning.

And how are we supposed to believe that the attitude of the police towards rape victims is improving when even their advertising says the exact opposite?

Mystery of the Day

Remember recently when Chris Knight from the Lap Dancing Association angrily told me that the existing law on lap-dancing "works perfectly"? How then can it be that a lap-dancing club in London has been closed down and eight others raided after the police found out that sex was for sale on the premises as well as drugs. Could it be that Chris Knight is a lying asshole? You decide.