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Showing posts from June, 2016

What next for the UK?

Although events are unfolding at a rapid pace, a lot of these things are largely irrelevant. It looks like the Conservative Party will hold itself together and conduct an orderly leadership election. The sheer panic of Friday 24rd of June is now over, and the markets have rebounded. There will be no annulment of the result, no re-runs, and no early general election. The rhetoric of the Leave politicians has changed. There has been a huge amount of back-pedalling by the Leave campaigners, who now recognise late in the day the need to cooperate closely with Europe. They now recognise that they must (1) stay in the single market, and (2) retain bank "passporting" rights, which mean that our banks can operate in Europe from London. By default, both of these would be forfeited if we left the EU. The markets have responded positively, because if Britain does maintain access to the single market and passporting, then it's almost business as usual. But I fear their optimism

Feminism vs. Anti-feminism

I've been following various anti-feminist groups for a few months, and am now, in a very unscientific sense, able to summarise my impressions. My brushes with feminism have always been quite problematic, and it's fair to say that all is not well with feminism. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise feminism, because bad feminism, of which there is a lot, will at best achieve nothing and at worst actually end up harming women and men. My main criticisms of feminism are that it's incredibly pejorative, and it only focusses on the problems of one gender. In fact, any feminist who focuses on, or even raises the issue of men, is rather insultingly called a "menimist", and is accused of bleating "what about the men?" Ironic, since the entire point of feminism is "what about the women?" Like feminism, anti-feminism actually comes in many different flavours, and it's important to realise that not all feminists are crazy, and not all