Education and feminism and Steve Moxon

This seems to be a common complaint of the education system these days. Apparently boys are being held back so that girls look better - not sure I believe that. People seem to be worried about most primary school teachers being women. I was at primary school in the 1950s/1960s and all my teachers - with one exception - were female. So how have things changed?

The other complaint is course work favours girls where exams favour boys. This is definitely a sweeping generalisation. I've come across more than one man who doesn't do well in exams but excels at coursework. I tend to do better in exams than I do at coursework but my mother used to go to pieces in exams. So surely if you have half the marks on the coursework and half on the exam that is fair to both? Or am I missing something?

I am currently reading an interesting book by Steve Moxon called The Woman Racket. I haven't got to the section about education though he has talked about men getting a higher percentage of first class honours degrees and being better than women at maths. His basic theory is that men are discriminated against because in almost any activity women cluster in the middle sections of ability with men at both ends - the best and the worst. Men have bigger brains and higher IQs. I paused to wonder whether that's because they were better at IQ tests but he seems to have ignored that point.

He also argues that the NHS pays more attention to women's health. Germaine Greer argues that's because it's an indirect way of controlling women by screening them for everything under the sun. I've also read somewhere that men in general resist attending for any sort of screening and that is one reason why screening programmes for prostate cancer etc are not considered viable. There is far more at stake than a simple discrimination issue.

Steve Moxon's basic argument is that women have never been discriminated against in any shape or form and have always lived privileged lives and yet they never achieve anything particularly noteworthy. Marie Curie anyone? Florence Nightingale? Rosalind Franklin? He also says we should not judge what happened in the past through the eyes of today. I know what he's getting at but surely nothing would change if we never looked at it differently? He is saying men are the ones who are discriminated against. He hasn't yet annoyed me and while I don't wholly agree with what he is saying it is interesting reading and is backed up by verifiable sources for a change.

Swine flu again and neighbours

We received our invitations for the swine flu vaccination today so we shall both be getting them done. We've been given three dates to pick from and you just turn up and get it done. I wonder how many takers they'll get because there always seems to be a good turn out for seasonal flu.

My neighbours have had their barge boards replaced with UPVC but for some reason they haven't had their porch done. The people who did it tried to get us to have ours done but we can't afford it at the moment. Next time they need painting I really will have to see if we can afford it then the house will be virtually maintenance free outside apart from the fence. Michael wants to replace our metal external doors with UPVC - I can't see the point and actually I'd rather have metal.

Our neighbours always seem to be having something done to the house and garden - garden remodelled twice, brick wall replaced with a fence, cavity wall insulation - which they didn't need, conservatory added, 2 extra radiators put in which 2 heating engineers told them would adversely affect their heating system. The result is their heating is not working properly. Now the barge boards replaced. I'd love to know how they can afford it all considering they're two pensioners and an adult son who doesn't work. Very odd but maybe they don't spend their money on books like I do!

Horrible weather and swine flu

The wind blowing on my bedroom window woke me up last night - which is unusual as not much wakes me up normally. It really is strong at the moment as well. I always find the wind makes me feel really uncomfortable and unsettled - I've never understood why. Anything else I can deal with but I always feel a sense of relief when it dies back to more normal levels. I was sitting in the car at the doctors this morning waiting for MJR and the wind was making the car rock from side to side - not pleasant.

We're waiting to hear whether we have been selected to have the swine flu jab as it seems to be by invitation only. We both definitely want one. I know people are saying swine flu is very mild but I'm not prepared to take the chance. I've had other types of flu and they've always made me feel so bad that I didn't care whether I recovered or not! I've tried reading all the scare stories about the vaccine but there just doesn't seem anything credible out there. The conspiracy theories range from population control to microchips and from implementing the New World Order to social engineering and mercury poisoning.

The favourite seems to be it's a plot by the drugs companies to poison us all. But if they're in it for the money - how would this achieve their aims? And of course swine flu itself is supposed to be man made and released for the purposes of population control to kill off lots of people. Oh right then - so if the vaccination doesn't get me the swine flu will? Damned if you do and damned if you don't really.

Strange reasoning

Comments on news stories can show up some very strange reasoning. The two stories which have given rise to the strangest in the last few days have been the woman who was murdered with a captive bolt gun and the doctor who attempted to poison his pregnant girl friend. The murder was committed by an abattoir worker as might be expected and was carried out because the lady concerned did not want him as her boy friend and made it clear she didn't want him. The strangest were along the following lines:

She brought it on herself because she humiliated him by saying she wouldn't go out with him

All meat eaters are responsible for this murder because if you hadn't eaten meat there wouldn't have been a slaughter house for this guy to work in.

The doctor who attempted to poison his girlfriend to bring about an abortion of his baby prompted the following comments:

He's definitely innocent and she framed him by poisoning herself

Why was she going out with a married man? [She didn't know he was married until the police told her]. It's all her fault.

Women have abortions - this was no different. If he's got to go to jail then all women who have abortions should be jailed as well

What rational woman takes a cup of tea she thinks was poisoned to the police?

When I read the last one my immediate reaction was - any rational woman who wants to stay alive!

We have heating!

Well it was working while he was here and has gone on and off on its own so hopefully that is the problem solved. I haven't yet moved stuff back into the utility room and I think I'll leave that a couple of days to make sure. This is the best news I've had for at least a month. Just have to wait for the bill now.

False Pretences

I gave up on the Cruel Hoax having realised that one of the books he was quoting from was actually revealed as a hoax way back in 1912. I have posted a review of it on Amazon which I'm sure will attract a lot of negative comments. The book already has two positive reviews which appear to have been written by men who have swallowed the theory hook line and sinker. I did read most of it though I skimmed through the last 50 pages as being hopelessly irrational and delusional.

I turned instead - with relief - to Veronica Heley's False Pretences which is the fourth book in her Abbot Agency series. I wasn't sure about this series at first but it is really growing on me. There is no on the page violence, characters attend church though they are definitely not holier than thou types. Zander - who appeared in a previous book - asks Bea for help. He works for the Tudor Trust which owns blocks of flats in London which it rents out at reasonable prices. Zander has discovered an ongoing fraud which is netting one of the directors a tidy sum each month and as a result has put himself in danger.



The plot is satisfyingly complicated and the regular characters - Oliver, Maggie, Max, Nicole and Piers make a welcome reappearance. This is a relaxing read with realistic characters and situations. I enjoyed it.

Cruel Hoax

I am currently reading a book called Cruel Hoax: Feminism and the New World Order by Henry Makow who seems to have an inferiority complex before he starts as he has PhD after his name on the book cover. His opinion - not backed up by verifiable facts - is that feminism was invented and propagated by the big banking families in America and Europe. It was done to destabilise society and make people more easily controllable. It was easier to invent feminism as women are much more easily brainwashed than men.

The whole idea is that women would be indoctrinated into thinking they should rebel against their oppression by men and destroy the nuclear family. According to this guy, feminists are all lesbians, communists and atheists and are being controlled by the Illuminati to break up families and not have children so that the world population reduces, society is fragmented and individuals are more easily controlled.

He seriously believes that women are naturally self sacrificing and find true happiness in giving up their wants and needs in exchange for being supported by a man. Men have only become promiscuous because women made them so and man's natural inclination is to have a wife and children but feminists thwart this desire. He says women should behave like they do in Muslim countries and not work outside the home. It is wicked not to have children. Obviously he is not aware that in Iran more than 50% of university students are women. The author says he never found happiness with women until he got himself a submissive wife who believes his word is law and that her own interests don't matter as long as he is happy.

Women should not have careers because it is not natural to have women in positions of authority over men. In fact all the things he says should happen if suggested in connection with a race or religion would be against most Western anti discrimination and race hate laws. I find it suspicious that even though he writes mainly about America he lives in Canada and his web site is hosted in Canada. Is he persona non grata in the USA? He also appears to have been adversely affected by being sacked from a University post because of sexual harassment in connection with his teaching of the works of D H Lawrence. His writing is emotive - 'feminists vomit' over material on his website and he does not back up his theories with verifiable facts only by quotes from long out of print books and articles.

I am far from believing that feminism holds all the answers but if this is the standard of the opposition they don't have much credibility.