-:Undertaker:-
13-05-2014, 02:30 AM
Godfrey Bloom visit sparks small protest
http://www.palatinate.org.uk/wp-content/uploadedImages/potest.jpg
The participation of Godfrey Bloom MEP in a Durham Union Society debate sparked a protest by a number of students.
Protests were organised by Durham University Students Against Austerity.
Mr Bloom was invited by the Union to propose the motion “This House believes that it’s a woman’s world”. This was his tenth visit to the society.
During his speech, protesters shouted “No Room for Bloom!”, “Women’s rights now, no debate necessary!” and other slogans although the MEP carried on seemingly unfazed.
Later he said he had been able to hear the protesters but was “deeply flattered” by them.
Also attending was Sebastian Payne, Online Editor for the Spectator speaking in favour of the motion.
Flo Perry, Social Secretary of the Durham University Feminism Society and Columnist for the Durham Tab, and Angela Towers, from NoMorePage3, spoke against the motion.
The chamber was full to capacity, with many students having to sit on the floor.
The debate started with the President of the Union Society, Rishiraj Goenka, welcoming everyone to the chamber. He also sternly warned audience members that: “It is essential to emphasise the rules that we follow for a debate in the Durham Union Society.
“There will be no personal attacks against any of the speakers or members of the audience, or by any of the speakers or members of the audience.
“While we are a bastion of free speech, this does not give the right to anyone to be offensive. Any offensive remarks by speakers or the members of the audience will be called to order immediately…
“If anyone tries to disrupt the proceedings of this house…they will be called to order and might be expelled from the chamber.”
Mr. Bloom, sporting a walking stick after hurting himself this morning, spoke for thirteen minutes.
He said: “There is no question about it – [women] are, without doubt, the stronger sex.”
The MEP, who will become the President of the Driver’s Union later this year, used a driving analogy to describe why. When God made women, he “built a better chassis”, referring to the decision of the car manufacturer Bentley to make new cars.
He said, “they learned a lot from the Mark 1”, just like God, in his parallel, learned a lot from creating man.
He told the audience that man had “a predilection for violence” and women had “caution and patience…in greater measure…and intuition”.
Defending his motion, he said: “Elected [female] Presidents and Prime Ministers in my life time have been at the forefront of so many countries in the world.” He also pointed out women’s roles in other important positions, such as Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, Hilary Clinton, who was the American Secretary of State until last year, and Mary Jo White, the Chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States. He said this was “right” and “proper”.
He called quotas for the proportion of women on boards “patronising” and said he had “never met a senior professional woman in business or politics who believes that to be true”.
He joked to applause that he did not understand why, as an anti-austerity politician, Students Against Austerity were protesting against him: “nobody has ever suggested I do anything in an austere manner. My Bentley is outside the hotel to prove the point.”
Flo Perry, opening for the opposition, said: “Globally, 1 in 3 women will be beaten or raped at some point in their life, how 99% of girls and women in Egypt have been sexually harassed, like how female genital mutilation is still commonplace in many parts of the world.”
She said, however, it was hard for people “to empathise from Bongo Bongo Land”, referring to Mr. Bloom’s description of Africa.
The Tab writer also listed times she had experienced sexism, including when she had been groped in a local Durham nightclub.
“If this world, where you get constantly harassed, interfered with and shamed, is a woman’s world, then that is a very strange way to define an environment that you live in. Not only are women unequal in power and in wealth and in status, we can’t even control much of what happens to us in our everyday lives.
“This is not a woman’s world because it is not the world we would choose to live in, it’s not the world we would want to live in.
“A woman in this world is living by somebody else’s rules. She’s living for someone else’s pleasure and someone else’s game.”
She also said: “It might seem like nothing but as well as the big things, the violence and the pain, it’s the little things which add up which make life as a woman slightly harder than life as a man.”
Sebastian Payne, giving his first speech to the union since graduating from Durham, said he believed that the strong reaction to Mr Bloom’s comments that women attending his speech at a UKIP party conference last year were “*****” showed “precisely why we no longer live in a man’s world. If Mr Bloom had joked all women in politics were *****… 50 years ago, barely an eyelid would have blinked.”
He said there had been “a huge shift in cultural attitudes” and there was “a gender revolution” underway.
After describing the success of women in education, Mr Payne told the audience: “We are living in a woman’s world because they are on the cusp of being the dominant force in the workplace.”
He described the alleged takeover of the economy by women as a “Trojan Horse takeover”. He also said that the only thing “saving men” from this was “women stopping work to have children”.
The final speaker for the opposition, Angela Towers, told the audience: “Women do globally two-thirds of the world’s work. In return for that, they receive 10% of the income and they only own 1% of the property…Those statistics alone say it is not a woman’s world.”
During her speech, Mr Bloom told her: “Lap it up while you can young lady.”
She said that domestic abuse is a “society problem”. She reported that the highest cause of death for a European aged 16-44 was domestic violence.
“If this were a woman’s world, the number one threat to our health wouldn’t be something which was preventable. If it were a woman’s world, 603 million women would not be living in countries where domestic violence isn’t considered a crime at all.”
According to her, the term “domestic violence” appears in 869 news articles in The Sun but the word “sexy” appears over 18,000 times. She said it seemed that “female body parts are more important than female welfare as far as the media is concerned”.
She concluded by declaring: “We live in a global patriarchy.”
During the questions, one member of the audience was ejected after he heavily criticised the Union for inviting Mr Bloom “in a bid for controversy”.
After questions, Mr Bloom was allowed to conclude the debate for the proposition.
He said: “If I do not pay an Italian or a French girl a compliment on a new frock, I’m in trouble. If I do it for one of the girls from Denmark or Sweden, I’m a sexist pig. You can’t really win, can you, with women.”
He described the squeezing of people’s backsides as “this is life”.
“There are bad things going on but generally speaking… it will be a woman’s world if you have faith. I have faith in women to get to the top on merit.”
He also described the feminist ladies as “a little bit shrill and loud”.
Read more...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLjA3rC3Stw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQBp6Uh5Jw
"Feminists are shrill, bored, middle class women of a certain physical genre." LOL! So true. :D I have to sit through feminists talking utter rubbish in one of my philosophy modules. Dire stuff.
He's stepping down as an MEP come the 22nd May which is a shame, I know a lot of people don't seem to like him on here and think he puts his foot in it (which he does to an extent) but he's by far my favourite MEP for that exact reason and I hope he'll stick around winding up feminists and the rest of them. Go Godders, go.
Thoughts?
http://www.palatinate.org.uk/wp-content/uploadedImages/potest.jpg
The participation of Godfrey Bloom MEP in a Durham Union Society debate sparked a protest by a number of students.
Protests were organised by Durham University Students Against Austerity.
Mr Bloom was invited by the Union to propose the motion “This House believes that it’s a woman’s world”. This was his tenth visit to the society.
During his speech, protesters shouted “No Room for Bloom!”, “Women’s rights now, no debate necessary!” and other slogans although the MEP carried on seemingly unfazed.
Later he said he had been able to hear the protesters but was “deeply flattered” by them.
Also attending was Sebastian Payne, Online Editor for the Spectator speaking in favour of the motion.
Flo Perry, Social Secretary of the Durham University Feminism Society and Columnist for the Durham Tab, and Angela Towers, from NoMorePage3, spoke against the motion.
The chamber was full to capacity, with many students having to sit on the floor.
The debate started with the President of the Union Society, Rishiraj Goenka, welcoming everyone to the chamber. He also sternly warned audience members that: “It is essential to emphasise the rules that we follow for a debate in the Durham Union Society.
“There will be no personal attacks against any of the speakers or members of the audience, or by any of the speakers or members of the audience.
“While we are a bastion of free speech, this does not give the right to anyone to be offensive. Any offensive remarks by speakers or the members of the audience will be called to order immediately…
“If anyone tries to disrupt the proceedings of this house…they will be called to order and might be expelled from the chamber.”
Mr. Bloom, sporting a walking stick after hurting himself this morning, spoke for thirteen minutes.
He said: “There is no question about it – [women] are, without doubt, the stronger sex.”
The MEP, who will become the President of the Driver’s Union later this year, used a driving analogy to describe why. When God made women, he “built a better chassis”, referring to the decision of the car manufacturer Bentley to make new cars.
He said, “they learned a lot from the Mark 1”, just like God, in his parallel, learned a lot from creating man.
He told the audience that man had “a predilection for violence” and women had “caution and patience…in greater measure…and intuition”.
Defending his motion, he said: “Elected [female] Presidents and Prime Ministers in my life time have been at the forefront of so many countries in the world.” He also pointed out women’s roles in other important positions, such as Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, Hilary Clinton, who was the American Secretary of State until last year, and Mary Jo White, the Chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States. He said this was “right” and “proper”.
He called quotas for the proportion of women on boards “patronising” and said he had “never met a senior professional woman in business or politics who believes that to be true”.
He joked to applause that he did not understand why, as an anti-austerity politician, Students Against Austerity were protesting against him: “nobody has ever suggested I do anything in an austere manner. My Bentley is outside the hotel to prove the point.”
Flo Perry, opening for the opposition, said: “Globally, 1 in 3 women will be beaten or raped at some point in their life, how 99% of girls and women in Egypt have been sexually harassed, like how female genital mutilation is still commonplace in many parts of the world.”
She said, however, it was hard for people “to empathise from Bongo Bongo Land”, referring to Mr. Bloom’s description of Africa.
The Tab writer also listed times she had experienced sexism, including when she had been groped in a local Durham nightclub.
“If this world, where you get constantly harassed, interfered with and shamed, is a woman’s world, then that is a very strange way to define an environment that you live in. Not only are women unequal in power and in wealth and in status, we can’t even control much of what happens to us in our everyday lives.
“This is not a woman’s world because it is not the world we would choose to live in, it’s not the world we would want to live in.
“A woman in this world is living by somebody else’s rules. She’s living for someone else’s pleasure and someone else’s game.”
She also said: “It might seem like nothing but as well as the big things, the violence and the pain, it’s the little things which add up which make life as a woman slightly harder than life as a man.”
Sebastian Payne, giving his first speech to the union since graduating from Durham, said he believed that the strong reaction to Mr Bloom’s comments that women attending his speech at a UKIP party conference last year were “*****” showed “precisely why we no longer live in a man’s world. If Mr Bloom had joked all women in politics were *****… 50 years ago, barely an eyelid would have blinked.”
He said there had been “a huge shift in cultural attitudes” and there was “a gender revolution” underway.
After describing the success of women in education, Mr Payne told the audience: “We are living in a woman’s world because they are on the cusp of being the dominant force in the workplace.”
He described the alleged takeover of the economy by women as a “Trojan Horse takeover”. He also said that the only thing “saving men” from this was “women stopping work to have children”.
The final speaker for the opposition, Angela Towers, told the audience: “Women do globally two-thirds of the world’s work. In return for that, they receive 10% of the income and they only own 1% of the property…Those statistics alone say it is not a woman’s world.”
During her speech, Mr Bloom told her: “Lap it up while you can young lady.”
She said that domestic abuse is a “society problem”. She reported that the highest cause of death for a European aged 16-44 was domestic violence.
“If this were a woman’s world, the number one threat to our health wouldn’t be something which was preventable. If it were a woman’s world, 603 million women would not be living in countries where domestic violence isn’t considered a crime at all.”
According to her, the term “domestic violence” appears in 869 news articles in The Sun but the word “sexy” appears over 18,000 times. She said it seemed that “female body parts are more important than female welfare as far as the media is concerned”.
She concluded by declaring: “We live in a global patriarchy.”
During the questions, one member of the audience was ejected after he heavily criticised the Union for inviting Mr Bloom “in a bid for controversy”.
After questions, Mr Bloom was allowed to conclude the debate for the proposition.
He said: “If I do not pay an Italian or a French girl a compliment on a new frock, I’m in trouble. If I do it for one of the girls from Denmark or Sweden, I’m a sexist pig. You can’t really win, can you, with women.”
He described the squeezing of people’s backsides as “this is life”.
“There are bad things going on but generally speaking… it will be a woman’s world if you have faith. I have faith in women to get to the top on merit.”
He also described the feminist ladies as “a little bit shrill and loud”.
Read more...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLjA3rC3Stw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQBp6Uh5Jw
"Feminists are shrill, bored, middle class women of a certain physical genre." LOL! So true. :D I have to sit through feminists talking utter rubbish in one of my philosophy modules. Dire stuff.
He's stepping down as an MEP come the 22nd May which is a shame, I know a lot of people don't seem to like him on here and think he puts his foot in it (which he does to an extent) but he's by far my favourite MEP for that exact reason and I hope he'll stick around winding up feminists and the rest of them. Go Godders, go.
Thoughts?