UK Feminista is the creation of Kat Banyard, a radical feminist whine merchant and the inaugural winner of our “Lying Feminist of the Month” award for an absurd claim she made on Channel 4 News about the frequency with which schoolgirls in the UK suffer sexual harassment. Needless to say, she’s never retracted the claim (lying feminists never do). Our blog piece on the matter, which contains links to the Channel 4 News piece and Banyard’s award certificate, are here.
We’ve just learned UK Feminista is running free Feminist Activist Mentoring (FAM) courses in Birmingham, details here. In the introduction, they say:
Are you an individual with a vision to organise for gender equality but need confidence to get started? Then UK Feminista’s FAM course is for you!
I’m clearly just the sort of person they’re looking for, so I’ve applied to go on the course—it’s free—and I feel quietly confident I’ll be accepted, given my responses to the questions on the application form.
What campaign or project are you working on or planning to get started?
Justice for men & boys (and the women who love them) http://j4mb.org.uk
Anti-Feminism League http://fightingfeminism.wordpress.com
The Alternative Sexism Project http://thealternativesexismproject.wordpress.com
Campaign for Merit in Business http://c4mb.wordpress.com
Men Shouldn’t Marry http://menshouldntmarry.wordpress.com
Why do you want to take part in this course and what do you hope to gain from it?
I want to learn from the course how I might persuade more men and women to care about men and boys the way they currently care about women and girls. The impact of sexism on men and boys is appalling, as you know, leading to poor life outcomes for men and boys compared with outcomes for women and girls. Just a few examples below:
- Suicide (#1 cause of death of young men): The male/female suicide rate differential has almost doubled in the past 30 years; it’s currently 3.5:1.
- Denial of paternal access to children.
- Lack of support for male victims of DV.
- Education: Only 40% of university students are men, while female postgraduate engineering students at Brunel University are being offered additional sponsorships of £20,000+ p.a. on the basis of gender alone.
- MGM is commonplace, FGM is illegal.
- Employment (most unemployed people are men).
- Political representation (all-women PPC shortlists).
- Homelessness (90% men).
- Justice system (far harsher toward men than women).
- Paternity fraud (commonplace, yet not one British woman has ever been convicted of it).
- Threats of legislated gender quotas driving poorly qualified women onto corporate boards, despite evidence showing one consequence will be declines in corporate financial performance.
- Resources devoted to male-specific diseases (e.g., prostate cancer) much lower than resources devoted to female-specific cancers (e.g., breast cancer), although almost as many men die from prostate cancer as women die from breast cancer.
I look forward to the course.
Where in the UK are you organising for change?
Everywhere.
Are you working on your own on this campaign or with others / as part of a group?
With others (men and women).
Participants are stronly (sic) encouraged to attend all 4 days (both weekends) of the course and carry out an assignment between sessions. Do you expect to be able to participate in the full course?
Yes.
Would you need any financial assistance for childcare costs, other care costs or travel expenses to enable you to attend the course? Please estimate how much this would cost per 8-hour day of training.
Travel expenses at cost, payable in advance. Happy to buy drinks for the ladies on the course, so long as this wouldn’t be construed by them as benevolent sexism. If it would be, then they can buy me drinks, because benevolent sexism is fine with me—it’s the malevolent form I’m not keen on!
We are looking for free/affordable venues to host the course. Please let us know if you have access to a space we could use.
The Sahara Desert.
Equal Opportunities Monitoring
Please answer the following questions if you feel comfortable doing so as it helps us to monitor and improve our practices. Your answers will not affect your application.
Age
107.
How would you describe your sex/gender?
Infrequent / male.
How would you describe your sexuality?
Heterosexual.
How would you describe your ethnicity?
North Korean.
Feature image by University of Exeter
