Feminism Rules –OK?
I am inspired to write this particular comment not just because the Church of England has given overwhelming support to women becoming Bishops, but more because its selection boards have instructed the churches to give priority to women. I find it odd that ever since the foundation of the Christian Church, immediately following the work of its founder, Jesus Christ, bishops, like priests, were always men. There, I must leave the subject to more informed practising Christians as I am only a nominal one. However, I do ask if it is but a symptom of the rising power of Feminism which now dominates Western thinking and action stretching from Hollywood to the media and its political class.
Before I go any further Iwould stress for the benefit of new readers that I am not some elderly misogynist who would deny women the equal right, at equal pay, to fill whatever post, sectarian or non-sectarian. I worked with them at an early age in industrial chemistry, where I was usually the junior. Later, I worked with some women and met many in trade journalism, where some of them were the best editors or sharpest reporters.
The issue of letting feminism determine so many aspects of life is reflected in Cameron’s decision to bring more of his back-bench woman MPs into the Coalition Cabinet. There was nothing in the record of thigh-flashing Esther McVey that suggested she would offer much as the new Education Minister, other than that the leftie women in the NUT union would prefer her to the outspoken Michael Gove. His appointment of Liz Truss as Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was probably because he was told she was a Norfolk MP. “That’s pretty rural, yes? So I will put her in”, Cameron might have said. But Miss Truss has never shown any interest in agriculture whatsoever. This was in contrast with Owen Paterson who was dumped from the post, despite his popularity and keen interest in all things rural. Ask the people of the Somerset Levels.
The now liberal-leaning Daily Telegraph let one of their new young women columnists have her say on these two concomitant areas where feminism has been advanced. Headed “Women are on the march” it was written by Isabel Hardman. She graduated from Exeter University in 2007 as a liberal democrat and first wrote ( surprise, surprise) for the Guardian. Here are just some of her points, which seem to reflect similar attitudes from most feminist writers today, with my comments in italics.
“Angela Merkel is basking in the glow of World Cup victory, as the most admired and arguably the most influential leader in the world.”
It is worth mentioning that men achieved the victory and will continue to do so in this sphere unless some radical biological changes come about. Some may prefer Marine Le Pen as the “most admired” political leader.
“The coming generations of women are ready to achieve even more. Girls now outperform boys right up until they graduate from university.”
She does not refer to the very low number of women graduates in the sciences, particularly physics and biology, or in maths. This is where women are not “outperforming their male colleagues.”
“No wonder some thinkers have made excited prophecies of “the end of men”.
If this came about where would you find a woman composer to equal, let alone “outperform”, Beethoven, Elgar, Sibelius and their equivalents in popular music? In painting you will have to find somebody better than Tracey Emin.
All Is Not Lost
In the same paper a day later (July 16) Mary Kenny had an article headed “If a girl isn’t interested in science, don’t force her to be”.
I met Mary Kenny some 40 years ago when I was speaking for Andrew Fountaine at a parliamentary by-election in Acton. She was an outspoken, attractive young Irish woman spewing forth her then recent university-given left wing views. Today, she is still attractive, still very much Irish, but now writes and talks excellent good sense.
In her article she supports the view of a psychologist at Glasgow University, Dr Gijsbert Soet, who has argued that it is unlikely we will ever have an equal number of males and females in science and engineering. He told the British Education Studies Association recently that girls too often say these subjects are “boring”. Biology and nature, he suggested, will generally nudge females away from them.
She then adds her own view that “it’s considered heresy today to suggest that ‘equality’ is not completely attainable in every field of human endeavour, and Dr Stoet has been duly shot down. A person who thinks men and women are different may well be accused of being a ‘biological determinist’, and there are few worse insults than that.”
Further on Mary Kenny adds the telling insight that broadly speaking, women are drawn to the human factor: to story, biography, psychology and language.
Finally, I was much taken by her observation that “some people still secretly harbour the thought that men and women are wired up differently – especially the parents of daughters and sons, who can be quite taken aback by how insistent little girls are about emulating Disney princesses, and how little boys prefer rough games.”
Running for Money?
When Mo Farah became the 5,000 and 10,000 metres Olympic Champion in the London Olympic Games the media ensured he became a national hero. This brilliant Somalian distance runner was held up as an example for other immigrants to follow: to become a British subject, excel in a sport, an art or a business, not only for your own benefit but for the nation you have now joined.
Mo Farah dealt the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last month a major blow when he made the “tough decision” to withdraw from the competition. He had been sick with stomach pains a fortnight before and he said from his home that his body had not recovered completely. Therefore he would concentrate on getting fit for August’s big European Athletics meeting. And where was the ‘home’ that Mo was speaking from? He’s moved, in case you don’t know, from the West London suburbs to Portland, USA. A week or so before I was informed that he has transferred his money earnings to a bank in Canada for a better return. If you were not a “National Hero”, why not?
Incidentally, when our adopted national hero runs at the European Athletics meeting its rules state that appearance fees and non-cash prizes go up to the value of $50,000. It should be noted that the financial rewards of appearing in the Commonwealth Games are “bugger all”, apart from your travel expenses . You just compete for the honour of it.
Why is it that Alastair Brownlee who won the triathlon gold in the London Olympics – his brother Jonathan won the bronze – as he has again at the Commonwealth Games, has not been put on the same status as Mo Farah? After all, immediately after completing the 1,500 metre swim and then the 40,000 metre bike ride Alastair Brownlee’s time for the final 10,000 metres run was only 97 seconds more than Mighty Mo’s 10,000 metres on the track!
DNA Gives Racial Group Differences
Aided by considerable researching in various science journals, back in October 2005 I prepared an article for Identity magazine (now defunct) on “How Small Genetic Difference Give Racial Diversity”. With some up-dating this was re-published on the Brit Dem website last year and can still be found if you click on ‘Immigration’ in the top bar and then select ‘Race’.
In the introduction you will see that I said that since the original Human Genome Project was completed in 2000 further developments have clearly demonstrated that quite small genetic differences can produce disproportionate results that substantiate the fact that racial differences are a reality (Note ‘differences’ is the key word, not superiority or inferiority). Although human DNA carries 25,000 genes, only 360 of them account for differences between individuals and groups. As this was only about 0.1 per cent some scientists of the liberal-left persuasion said that this supported the view that race is a ‘biological fiction’.
It was understood at the time when I wrote my article that some 80 per cent of our DNA was junk, mainly left over from our evolutionary past. Now, in a paper just published in PLOS Genetics by Prof Chris Ponting of the Medical Research Council’s Functional Genomics Unit at Oxford University, it is discovered that just 8.2 per cent of the human genome is actually functioning to make us who we are and keep our cells ticking over.
Now, those 360 different genes found in the main racial groupings, grow to more significance by a factor of ten.
Suffolk Goes Multicultural
“Lower-year groups in schools in Suffolk have the highest numbers of pupils for whom English is not a first language.”
This surprising comment from a report in the Daily Telegraph (22.7.14) shows that there are a diminishing number of rural retreats for ‘culturally enriched’ Brits trapped in big cities to run to. The report was concerning the Hillside Community School in Ipswich – which is not really typical of rural Suffolk as Ipswich has long been a home for West Indian immigrants, most of whom present few problems. Among the 471 pupils 58 languages are spoken. These include Nigerian dialects, Kurdish, Polish and Portuguese. The latter two are children of horticultural foreign workers who are filling jobs local Brits won’t do. Nevertheless, as a NUT member teacher says: “A disproportionate amount of time has to be spent on those children because it takes longer to explain things to them.”
The main market town in mid-Suffolk is delightful Bury St.Edmunds. Most, but not all, of the Afro-Asian faces you see there are American Service personnel from our occupiers’ bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath. Perhaps not unlike the Bury in Lancashire, the East Anglian Bury has some odd characters who make the news from time to time.
There is for example the turbulent priestess Frances Ward, the Dean of St.Edmundsbury. She has written a stiff letter to local Tory MP David Ruffley about his alleged assault on his former girl friend (by the time you read this the Party may have given him the boot). The Dean, who is a long-standing friend of Ruffley’s ill-treated ex, earlier this year announced she had joined the Green Party.
I am told that it is rumoured that as the C of E selection boards will now give priority to women when appointing new bishops, Frances Ward will fit most of the requirements.
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Nicky Morgan, not Esther McVey, new Education secretary. Esther’s performance at Number Ten put me in mind of Violet Elizabeth Bott!
Mark, thanks for correcting me on Nicky Morgan being the new Education Secretary and not Esther McVey – alias Violet Elizabeth Bott!
(Party Member) Well before the current publicity about the awful outbreak of ebola, our party website published my comment saying we should ban anyone from entering our country from Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, the Congo and some others. ( see ‘exploiting the world health service’ and comment of 29/6/2014 ) I knew the ‘liberal types’ would object to this ‘typically extreme nationalist’ measure! Well, now Guinea has CLOSED IT’S BORDERS adjoining Sierra Leone and Liberia to contain the outbreak! However, our Government has NOT LISTENED TO THE BRITISH DEMOCRATS and therefore are putting people at risk, particularly in heavily populated multi-cultural London.
With regard to DNA and race, there was an interesting story recently in the Daily Telegraph about research led by the Yale scientist Nicholas Christakis which showed that the people we like to make friends with are those who are as genetically close to us as fourth cousins, ie people who share great great great grandparents.
The implications of this were not spelled out, but seem clear enough. If we prefer the company of people who are genetically close to us, this is friendship. If we do not care to socialise with those who are genetically as distant from us as possible, this is racism and could be illegal.
What an excellent piece of writing John. So many excellent points thoroughly presented.
Perhaps like yourself, I am not a Christian but will support the Church in the UK against the onslaught of Islam. Likewise, those being persecuted for being Christians in Iraq I would also support. The Christian religion at least is not one, as is Islam, that often murders it’s own children in the name of the faith. Islam is not a religion in the normal sense. It brainwashes from birth and demands five prayers a day plus constant study of the Koran that completes and maintains the brain control. It is often an evil cult we have to drive from our country and from Europe.
One would have thought that by now, in the 21st century, promoting females for no other reason than their gender is doomed to failure. The sight of the new Tory female ministers would be funny if not so dangerous. Our country is badly served by this stupidity.
Most males in the Royal Navy opposed female crew on ships. This went ahead despite common sense again being ignored. What do we have now? Female crew making complaints of sexual harassment against male crew. What a surprise to no one who has ever served in the forces. I overlook the fact of course that in the present third-rate coalition there are no ministers with any military service.
As the song goes, things can only get better if for the obvious reason they can get little worse. The General Election is coming. Let us hope our fellow countrymen and women show common sense and rid this country of the self serving clowns who have held the reins for too long.
Good article John, regards.
I venture to suggest that one of the biggest problems with the “established” Christian Church is that, feeling in its core that it reflects unchallengeable truth largely (or even entirely) based on a Bible deemed to contain the 100% “true word of God”, the Church (and its staff) feel it is a wicked sin to alter any aspect of their doctrine, practices, routines and core beliefs.
This has resulted in a present-day church which tends to rotate in the 12th Century when the rest of the world is in the 21st. But, according to some parts of the Bible, it is perfectly permissible for women to be church leaders, to teach men finer points of religious interpretation, and even to be apostles. “…and Priscilla… expounded to him the way of God more perfectly” (Acts 18:26). “…I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a servant of the church… Greet Priscilla and Aquila… my helpers in Jesus Christ” (Romans 16:1-4). “…Junia… of note among the apostles” (Romans 16:7). (The Revised Standard Version of the Bible actually uses the Greco/Latin word for a servant “deacon” in the anglicised female declension “deaconess” to describe Phoebe’s status in the passage in Romans.)
In the opposite corner of the boxing ring, however, we also have 1 Corinthians (14:34-35): “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church”: and 1 Timothy (2:11-12): “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”
I came to realize at least 60 years ago that you can prove anything and its opposite from the Bible. All most people do is to limit their reading and choices to the bits of the Bible they agree with, and mentally ‘bleep over’ those bits they disagree with. This leaves modern British society with the big problem of dragging its national religion kicking and screaming into the 21st century when it is only just reluctantly beginning to accept the outlook of the 12th century.
The question must be asked: how can anyone possibly manage to equate the women apostles, teachers and helpers of the New Testament with the total denigration of women also required by the Bible? It is a fact that some translators of the Bible were so offended by the concept of a woman being specifically named as an apostle that the original name “Junia” mentioned in Romans 16 was often surreptitiously altered to “Junias” in the belief that this was a male version of the name. In fact, “Junias”, although recorded extremely rarely in classical sources, can also be a female name, as confirmed, for example, by Plutarch (AD 50-120) who writes in his Life of Marcus Brutus that Junias was the name of Brutus’ sister who became the wife of the regicide Cassius, which again places considerable weight on the argument that the apostle Junia or Junias was a woman.
The argument about the apostle Junia has raged for many centuries. Within the early Church, Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis and later of Aparneia (315-403) compiled an Index disciplulorum (Index of Disciples) in which he describes “…Iounias, of whom Paul makes mention…”. Written in Greek, in chapter 125, verses 19-20, the text uses the word hou (a masculine relative pronoun) for “of whom”, thereby indicating that Epiphanius considered Iounias (Junias) to be a man. However, John Chrysostom who lived at about the same time (347-407), in his preaching on the passage in Romans 16, referred to Junias by exclaiming: “Oh! How great is the devotion of this woman…”
John Chrysostom is referred to in the Catholic Encyclopedia as “…generally considered the most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.” He is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the Church of England. It would therefore be a particularly brave or rash Bible fanatic who would dare state that he was mistaken in his considered opinion that the apostle Junias (or Junia) was female.
This conflicting set of messages in the Bible, coupled with the inbuilt prejudice of the Church fathers and their acolytes down the centuries against the idea that women are equally worthy to hold office at all levels in the church, has until the 20th century resulted in the exclusion of women from the majority of proper Church offices. Quite simply, the female was viewed by biblical dogma and the societies it produced and molded as something inferior to the male, something that should be kept very firmly in its subjugated place, and whose main purpose apart from continuing the species was the temptation of man into sin and his distraction from a properly religious asceticism, from the time of Adam onwards.
As a matter of interest, Congregationalist Elsie Chamberlain was appointed in 1946 as the first female chaplain (in the RAF), and the first woman to actually become an Anglican priest was Florence Li Tim-Oi, ordained to serve inside Japanese-occupied China in World War Two.
The ordination of women in the Church is not a recent concept. As a Wiccan myself, I commend it to you.
DNA or its use in arguments for and against what us folk stand for is of course a red herring. The difference between a dolphin, an ape, a west a African, and a white northern European are negligible.
Mohammed Farah is not special in any sense. And a childhood, living in the horn of Africa. High altitude running an everyday life for all. But in the face of modern un-sportsmanship loyalty to ones mentor is not seen as clever or financially sound.
Tom Finney left an estate worth £ 115,000. That’s less that half a WEEK’S salary to todays soccer starlettes. The ones knocked out of the world cup by Costa Coffee or Costa Rica will go wherever the highest bid takes them.
No excuses for Farah. He or his family I presume came here as refugee, seeking a safe place.
Farrah came here as a ‘refugee’ via Eritrea where his grandmother (I think it was) was living. Economic migrants.
You describe yourself as a nominal Christian . A slightly ambivalent phrase. A get-out-of-jail card. If you were a committed Christian you would plainly see that the head honchos of the Anglican church are in fact not even nominal Christians but atheists. How ever could they destroy their founders’ rules if they were not?
Were Islamic scholars doing the same heads would roll. I guess we are all anti-Islam on this site. But one cannot knock their adherence to the word as written in their holy book whatever we think of it.
I don’t believe in the ‘equality’ of the sexes. This urge to be equal is part of the dire legacy of the so-called ‘Age of Reason’ with its fatuous slogan ‘Liberty Equality and Fraternity’. Liberty soon took a dive under the guillotine and the Terror, and the West has been surrendering to the fantasy of unreal unlimited ‘equality’ ever since with a concomitant reduction in personal freedom, sometimes allied to mass exterminations.
I agree with C S Lewis that women are not equal but complementary to men. It seems glaringly obvious that evolution has given females a particular role in producing and raising children (their physical equipment alone is proof of this) and that this means not just physical differences but emotional and intellectual ones also.
Lewis had some pertinent remarks to say about women as ‘priests’. in the Church of England. Suppose he suggests:
‘That the incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the second person of the Trinity be as well called the daughter as the son. Suppose that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the bridegroom and christ the bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.
Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity.’
Lewis contends that God himself has taught us how to speak of him. Those who would contend that both males and females are the same types of icons for Christ would be mistaken.
‘To say that it does not matter is to say that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and inessential. And this is surely intolerable, or if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery.’
If baz 4545 had actually read my original in-depth article on ‘How Small Genetic Differences Give Racial Diversity’ he would see that DNA is not a red herring. It was acknowledged in the first paragraph that ‘the difference between humans and chimpanzees is only just over one per cent’. Our pet dogs and cats also share about 80 per cent of our DNA.
This substantiates the fact now being acknowledged by many geneticists that quite small genetic differences (around 350 have been located so far) can produce disproportionate results. It is therefore logical to contend that this can contribute to the reality of racial differences – and they are more complex than just differences in skin colour and hair texture.
In reply to Roger, will the British people get the chance to show common sense? I support UKIP but trust the BDP will be contesting the General Election in a big way.I also find it ironic that Guinea has more sense than Britain!
Then it’s up to people to join us and make it a much bigger party is it not Mark?
Mark, I think the British (white) people have had more than enough time to “show common sense”. How much longer can we keep finding excuses for the brain dead idiots who continue to support the establishment ? Year upon year good sensible nationalist candidates have worked their socks off only to get pathetic votes at election time.
Supporting UKIP is not really very smart is it? Surely this results in more of the same.
Sadly we all know that the BDP cannot contest the General Election in a big way. We do not have the membership nor financial clout to do so. Lastly, admin I have not renewed my membership this year – an oversight on my part and I will rectify that this week.
No we can’t participate in a big way at the moment. The point is to grow. There are thousands of people out there who have been involved in our way of thinking currently doing nothing.
People vote for the big parties because they are the only ones who can win big contests not because the voters have confidence in them. It’s a least worst manoeuvre.
UKIP is limited but it’s changing the situation.
Thank you for renewing your membership. Plenty more reading this might consider joining!
(Party Member) After nine and a half years as a member of the ‘old party’ I resigned and Joined the British Democratic Party. Best thing I ever did and I am grateful to the founder members for having the courage and foresight to get Nationalism in this country on to the right track at last, after years of total incompetence and the wasting of the efforts of some wonderful PATRIOTIC PEOPLE.
This column is not going to become an agony aunt concerning the experience of other parties.
But it does need to be said that for more than a decade it was obvious that the ‘old party’ was systematically throwing down a drain a huge number of very good people and their valiant efforts.
In reply to John Bean
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I did read the article through . The point I made is valid because the pro-diversity crowd tell all who will listen we are all the same under the skin. DNA proves it. Therefore a red herring.