Leeds Redux Mumsnet Strikes Back

So this was a piece I was intending to write after the ELSC exhibitions and performances. However certain feminists have been busy commenting on my flying penis avatar on twitter, which of course would be very easy for me to comment on and mock. But to be honest the way these feminists have been carrying on they need no help from me on creating a highly amusing set of comments. So who are these warriors of truth, justice and the feminist ways? Well it is our good friends on the Mumsnet feminist boards, you know the ones who raise a hue and cry based on beliefs rather that facts. No apologies for the length of this piece nor on the lack of images.

As people who read the blog regularly know I have a fascination with crime figures and when I did a comparison on the Lilith report with a control being Wandsworth and allowing for population changes which Lilith didn't do the figures changed a tad with rape falling over 12 years in Camden and increasing in the control being Wandsworth. So we were seeing pointers towards the fact that any claims of links to sexual violence were in fact a little off. Add to this the figures produced by a local paper in Newquay after a certain Inspector Drummond opened mouth and engaged foot and any claims about the fact that SEVs cause sexual violence seem to have disappeared. However facts can never keep a good Woozle down.

So if people remember I produced figures around every single SEV in England and Wales back in 2012 for the year 2011. Now the methodology wasn't mine but one used by Bristol and Coventry feminists in the campaign against clubs in those areas. They took an arbitrary 50 metres around each club and assumed any and all violent and sexual crimes were linked to the SEV at the centre of the zone, now I have no idea why 50 metres but it does create an image of what happens around SEVs apparently. The methodology was created by Bristol and they passed the figures for Bristol to Coventry Women's Voices for them to use in their campaign. So I had figures for 2011 for the Headrow in Leeds where 2 clubs closed and now the clubs have been clubs long enough that I can do a comparative analysis of what has gone on since the 2 clubs in the area closed, the clubs were fairly close to each other and created overlapping fields of influence so I have taken the two as a single entity.

Looking back at 2011 we saw a grand total of 15 sexual and violent crimes whilst from August 2014 to July 2015 37 violent and sexual crimes in the same area. So 12 months and allowing for any residual impact of the clubs on the area I worked back from the latest date for one year. Not rocket science and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if proves much other than the claims made by radical feminists in an effort to close clubs are not based on any sort of reality. If I was a victim of sexual or violent crime in the Headrow area since the SEVs closed I would be questioning the council about the fact that no impact analysis was done on the closing on venues and losing bouncers and CCTV. I e-mailed the licensing committee to ask if anyone had thought to consider what might happen if the clubs closed and was told the licensing committee had no interest in doing an impact analysis as they could not see any possible reason. And this is where the ignorance created by claiming clubs cause Sexual Violence people will not think that losing CCTV and door staff could possibly have a negative impact.

The fact is after looking at every venue in England and Wales back in 2012 I can be certain that the only places that have localised issues with sexual and violent crimes are night clubs. So I am certain there will be a backlash from this after all this is only a blog and I don't get peer reviewed as I don't publish papers. What I do is look at claims pointing SEVs as being linked to sex crimes. The clubs are no more linked than banks or even women's centres. The claims were made and the fact is the claims have no bearing on reality, so please if you are going to make claims about the clubs please be aware I will be here to double check any claims. I could pick a woman's centre in a locality that has a lot of sexual and violent crimes close by and make the whole thing look incredibly edgy.

One thing that has had me laughing about Mumsnet boards is that one section of the feminists have basically ignored all evidence including Eaves withdrawing Lilith and still believe that SEVs cause localised sexual violence, this might be called cognitive dissonance? And on the other hand some being accepting of the facts are now trying to justify the attitude of close all clubs because they allow men to let off rabid misogyny and come out of the club worse than when they went in. Now apart from the fact there was almost two separate groups of radical feminists with diametrically opposed points of view the thing that I found most funny (apart from the fact I am supposedly crazy enough to post on mumsnet boards posing as a feminist) was that certain people on the board quoting Lilith and associated gems was on the board when Object were forced to remove Lilith from their resources (well played Sausage) so they surely knew what they were saying had no basis in fact but they just couldn't manage to hold back. So the fact that Leeds has such a dramatic change since the club closed it does raise a question why? I will be going back over my 2011 figures and comparing them to clubs that have closed elsewhere and see if the issue is consistent or does it take a large City for this sort of thing to happen?

Finally I know those who accept there isn't a direct link between clubs and sexual violence are already looking for ways to still blame clubs but now the club is a breeding ground of misogyny that will be brought out of the clubs and will affect women everywhere. Interesting that any time one argument fails there seems to be a rush to find another excuse to back the belief system that clubs are evil and need to be eradicated. I am amazed that the belief system refuses to die amongst those who want to close clubs and that claims still rattle out regularly because to actually realise the claims are based on nothing other than a belief and that clubs are not the evil they imagined.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com) for flying penises everywhere!

It Is An Ex Lobby Group, It Has Ceased To Be?

Over the years that this blog has been running there has been one thing that has been more consistent than anything else. The fact that Object Now Ltd have been campaigning about striptease and "lapdancing", usually missing most of the facts, at every turn and about every venue. They even had toolkits full of misguided, ill informed and defamatory statements to send to councils. Well I will admit that I was expecting them to haunt every campaign ever since the Guardian framed Anna as the perfect radical feminist, but is seems motherhood changed her drive, either that or Object couldn't afford her any more.

However the existence of Object seems to be a thing of the past as I suppose all good (and bad) things must come to an end. Having looked at their webpages for many a year it was disappointing to go have a look to see what they were up to only to find what is basically an empty page with a log in for the webmaster, now we know that they haven't had much in the way of funding and the money from Joseph Roundtree which covered the money for the CEO ran out this year so what do you do? I was assuming the cost cutting would be so that Object could focus on communicating with the world via facebook and twitter, however twitter and facebook seem to have stopped at the 7th July. I not sure when their tumblr stopped as I have never really tried to figure out timelines on there.

Whoops, well that's not good.

So Object as a company have failed to file both their account and annual returns, the last two transactions were terminations of appointments as directors leaving Roz Hardie as CEO and Company Secretary. I am not sure if Roz has even realised that the accounts and returns are due but given the fact she seems to have sole responsibility for Object as a company I would suggest she is in trouble, not sure that using the same name in both roles apart from the addition of the name Boyd as a director really makes much difference. Does Object even have a future? I am sure that when this is read someone will try to make object look active but over the last couple of years they have had less and less impact and failed to deliver anything other than a jolly to Brazil for Roz, certainly hope that wasn't the last of the funds. And if I donated to Object in the past I would be stopping any standing orders.

Someone needs a new accountant

So who will pick up the slack and become the next object of ridicule? We have seen misleading reports and cherry picked results from various organisations but we are not sure if anyone will take that step forward to become the next voice of stupidity... errrr I mean the next voice of denying women the right to choose... errr the next group to make up stuff to create invalid arguments... errr the next group to running around shouting stuff.... you all get the point. I would put my money on UK Feminista which of course will be the death knell for it as the more object claims were countered the less people wanted to deal with them. The big thing now is all the MPs and councillors who followed Object are going to now wonder why it has ceased to be. Come on Roz make that effort for a couple of weeks. Pretend that Object has some validity left and please file your accounts and returns we dont want you in trouble we want you to lead your followers into battle and shout intelligent slogans like loser and w**ker.

Has Roz been cloning herself?

It is an ex lobby group it has ceased to be, well almost we are waiting on that last gasp.

TonyN (tonyprince@acdcfan.com)