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Unlike the media, I have not exactly been fawning over the huge box office numbers this past weekend. But even I must admit that its rather fascinating to see this kind of success for a film that centers around one of the most devastating and deadly inventions in the history of the human race. Indeed it is not every day that audiences flock to see a movie about a weapon of mass destruction. And of course lots of people also went to see Oppenheimer.

But Barbie was the bigger film, and it tells the story of a vastly more destructive force. I dont mean the Barbie doll, but rather feminism. Not every man-made weapon of mass death is as obvious as a nuclear bomb. Mushroom clouds are easy to comprehend; the significance is obvious. But the more abstract, intangible threats to human life can be far deadlier than nukes.

With that in mind, a few days ago, I tweeted this factually true statement. Here it is:

This is a good time to remember that feminism has killed far more people than the atomic bomb. It is perhaps the most destructive force in human history. Trans ideology, its offshoot, is competing for the title.

Thats what I wrote. Predictably, there was outrage from the Left. That was always going to happen, of course, no matter what I said. I could tweet something really obvious like two plus two equals four or something really innocuous like I enjoy pancakes and theyd still call me a bigot and report my account, demanding that I be deplatformed. So it was no surprise that this admittedly slightly more provocative statement meant that I would trend on the site for multiple days as the outraged masses had a series of temper tantrums about it.

I dont need to give you examples of their responses. Theyre exactly what you expect. Matt Walsh is a fascist. He hates women. Hes a misogynist. Etcetera and so forth. The only mildly interesting feedback came from the so-called gender critical feminists the feminists who oppose trans ideology who reacted to my statement as if it was some kind of deep betrayal. We are on the same side on the trans issue, which means that I am apparently required to pretend that feminism is good. This is a contract I didnt realize I signed. But well return to the gender critical set in a few minutes.

Lets get, first, to the substance of my claim. As far as that goes, feminisms status as a historically destructive force in human history is as clear as day. To begin with, if you accept that unborn babies are human beings (which obviously they are, because they can be nothing else), then we can directly blame feminism for 60 million deaths in the United States alone. When I pointed this out, Martina Navratilova, tennis legend and outspoken feminist, responded:

A fetus is not a baby, what a moronic thing to say. You spout about language used by the trans lobby and then do the same calling embryos babies! Hypocrite much?

Well, Martina, I guess I need to ask you an even more basic question than the one I ask trans activists: what is a human? Can you answer that, Martina? I bet you cant. I guarantee you cannot come up with a coherent definition of human that excludes unborn children. You cannot coherently define human or person in a way that allows you to be one, but leaves unborn humans out in the cold. The word fetus, Martina, simply means offspring. You are pretending that there is some sort of innate, definitional distinction between offspring and baby a distinction that you believe is so important that it gives us the moral right to destroy fetuses en masse. But a baby is the young offspring of two human parents. They mean the same thing. The only thing that the word baby does is stipulate which stage of development the offspring is currently going through. A human in the womb is in a stage of human development. A 6-month-old outside the womb is in a stage of human development. Same for teenagers and middle-aged former tennis players. These are stages of development, they are ages. If you say it is okay to kill fetuses but not babies you might as well say it is okay to kill 41-year-olds but not 42-year-olds. The position makes no sense.

We are left with the harsh reality that abortion has killed 60 million human beings a death toll that can be laid squarely at the feet of feminism, since feminism has made the defense and promotion of this atrocity into one of its core tenets. That already puts it at least in the running for most destructive, competing perhaps only with communism. But the distinction between feminism and communism is not absolute. These are related ideologies. Marx and Engels called for the abolition of the nuclear family, just as many modern feminists do. Well get into that soon. WATCH: Why Feminism Is One Of The Deadliest And Most Destructive Forces In Human History

In the past century, feminists have succeeded in destroying the nuclear family to a degree that American communists could only dream of. According to a study from Child Trends, just 9% of children lived with single parents in the 1960s, before the rise of modern feminism. By 2012, that number had increased to nearly 30%. In 2019, Pew found that the United States has the highest rate of children living in single-family homes of any country in the world.

Divorce is a major factor driving these numbers. From the 1960s to the 1980s divorce rates in the U.S. more than doubled. Youll often see studies showing that, in the last few years, divorce rates are down but thats because many people arent bothering to get married in the first place anymore. Given what were seeing, its impossible to argue that the family unit hasnt been dramatically weakened due to the influence of feminism. If you accept that the family is an essential building block of civilization, then were left with an ideology that has murdered enough children to fill 800 football stadiums and eaten away at the very fabric of civilization in the process.

Feminisms defenders, even on the Right, will point out that in spite of all of this, feminists gave us womens suffrage and allowed women to take out mortgages and credit cards. But even if I agree that we needed feminism, specifically, to bring about these changes and I dont they still dont begin to outweigh the cost. If I could trade in womens suffrage to get back the 60 million humans that feminism killed, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Another defense youll hear from feminists, and many on the Right, is that first wave feminism was good, and the second wave was okay but the others were where it went off the rails. These people will attempt to argue that the first and second waves of feminism are somehow distinct from the modern incarnations. All they cared about, supposedly, were basic human rights. This is a common misconception. Even the blessed first wavers were generally anti-man and anti-family.

Mary Wollstonecraft, considered one of the founders of the feminist movement, had so much disdain for marriage that she wrote two novels about it.

Jane Addams, another much-celebrated first-wave feminist, supported eugenics .

Margaret Fuller, one of the most widely cited first-wave feminists, wrote extensively about marriage. But she also argued that unmarried life leads to a greater connection with the divine. Heres a passage from her book Woman in the 19th Century, in which Fuller praises unmarried women, who she calls old maids, because they arent shackled to their husbands.

Not needing to care that she may please a husband, a frail and limited being, her thoughts may turn to the center, and she may, by steadfast contemplation enter into the secret of truth and love.

There are many more examples, but really, all you need to do is look at what happened after first-wave feminism. Just a few short decades later we got the legalization of baby murder nationwide, as well as overt calls for the abolition of the nuclear family.

They werent exactly subtle about it. One of the most famous second-wave feminists, Kate Millet, is known precisely because she wanted to destroy marriage and thetraditional family unit. That was her whole pitch. Heres a quote from Millets dissertation Sexual Politics.

A sexual revolution would require an end of traditional sexual inhibitions and taboos, particularly those that most threaten patriarchal monogamous marriage: homosexuality, illegitimacy, adolescence, pre and extramarital sexuality. The goal of revolution would be a permissive single standard of sexual freedom, and one uncorrupted by the crass and exploitative economic bases of traditional sexual alliances.

Millet goes on to admit, in the understatement of the century,

It seems unlikely all this could take place without drastic effect upon the patriarchal proprietary family.

She also argues that the nuclear family is an obstacle which precludes a womans contribution to the larger society and complains that the traditional method of child care i.e. a mother taking care of her own children is unsystematic and inefficient. This is feminism, 50 years ago, outwardly opposed to the nuclear family, the very foundation of human civilization itself.

It goes without saying that Millet was also a big proponent of abortion; she said she considers the legalization of abortion to be one of the great achievements of the feminist movement. This is the belief system that virtually all second-wave feminists endorsed destroy the family, and kill children.

Now, ask yourself this question: If feminism was such an obvious good in its original incarnation, then how in the hell could it have devolved into an anti-family, pro-abortion feeding frenzy in the span of a few decades? Its like saying the Bolsheviks had the right idea, but who could have predicted the gulags?

If most people will agree that every wave of feminism was a disaster except for the first one, then a thinking person must start to wonder whether that first one was really so great after all. A thinking person might start to see that even in its first wave there were the kernels, the poisonous seeds, that would soon sprout into this hideous, deformed tree that we all see today. A tree with many branches, and one of those branches is trans ideology.

The gender critical feminists, mentioned earlier, are critical of trans ideology but they dont understand how their own movement created it. The feminists are the ones who first argued that men and women are basically the same aside from meaningless anatomical differences. They are the ones who declared that most sex differences are social constructs. They dont want to admit any of this, of course. So, some gender critical feminists have tried to flip this around and say that those of us with traditional views on sex have been the ones to set the stage for trans ideology. The feminist writer Helen Joyce made this argument last year when she was asked about my film What Is A Woman? Watch: Helen Joyce articulated perfectly the problem with Matt Walsh and how he is part of the problem of trans ideology. They might want to watch.https://t.co/aILq2gPLLe

RachelKnewBest (@RachelBowljiffy) July 25, 2023

Thats interesting, Helen. You are saying that rigid gender roles give rise to trans ideology. Well, Helen, did you watch the section of the film where I go to the Masai tribe in Kenya? They have extremely well-defined gender roles, and have for literally thousands of years, and yet theyve never even heard of transgenderism. In fact, my traditional view of sex was the dominant view across the entire world, everywhere, in all places, since the dawn of human civilization up until just this past century. And yet for thousands and thousands and thousands of years traditional gender roles never led to any woman cutting her breasts off in an attempt to identify as a man. Have you thought about this Helen? If my view of sex is old and ancient which it absolutely is, I admit that proudly and if my view also leads directly to trans ideology, then why isnt trans ideology also old and ancient? Do you see the problem here?

No, trans ideology came about directly on the high heels of feminism. Why? Because, again, feminists are the ones who first argued that men and women are effectively the same, aside from what they considered insignificant anatomical differences. Feminists are the ones who declared that all gender roles and gender stereotypes are social constructs. For many decades if anyone argued that women can compete with men in sports, and do everything men can do, it would have been a feminist. Now that argument primarily comes from trans activists, and you want to pretend that they arent saying exactly what your club has been saying for like a century. Its absurd.

Helen, you say that I understand that a man is a male person and a woman is a female person, but that I think a whole bunch of other things follow from that. Yes, you are exactly right. I think that being a man means something, and it means more than just anatomy. And being a woman means something, and it means more than just anatomy. What you dont understand is that your rejection of this principle, your claim that a whole bunch of things DONT follow from being a man or a woman, that being a man or a woman has essentially no significance aside from differences in sex organs, means that you and your ideology are to blame for exactly the thing you pretend to be fighting against.

But its no surprise that such a murderous and evil ideology refuses to be honest with the world. Feminism has brought about destruction, misery, and confusion. So much confusion that it is even confused about itself. Which is why, so often, the feminists themselves seem to understand feminism least of all. This is what you get from an ideology whose primary goal is to dismantle and destabilize. A goal that it has certainly achieved.

It was Oppenheimer who said the words quoting Hindu scripture but feminism has a much greater claim to the title: Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds. And that is feminism in a nutshell.

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Entertainment

Friends creators reveal final episode scripts were leaked by an insider in 2004

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Friends creators reveal final episode scripts were leaked by an insider in 2004

The creators of Friends have revealed that parts of the script for the final episode were leaked by an insider ahead of the show airing.

Simply titled The Last One, millions tuned in as the episode brought the hit comedy to a close 20 years ago, on 6 May 2004, finally resolving the decade-long “will they, won’t they?” romance between Ross and Rachel.

It was the end of an era for its stars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer – and fans around the world.

Friends: The Reunion sees the cast back together on screen for the first time in 17 years. Pic: Sky/ Warner Media/ HBO
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The six Friends stars got together on screen for the first time in 17 years for a reunion in 2021. Pic: Sky/Warner Media/HBO

Looking back at the final shows in an interview with NBC’s Today show in the US, Friends creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane revealed details of the leak.

“Oh my god, we tried so hard to keep it a secret!” Kauffman said. “We were desperate to keep it a secret and it got out. And it was an inside job.”

Scripts sent out ahead of the premiere of the final episode were numbered, Crane explained.

“We knew how many people knew what it was going to be,” he said. “So it did, through an element of… it became a behind-the-scenes detective show.

“It was frustrating, but at the end of the day, what are you gonna do?”

FILE - Matthew Perry arrives at the premiere of "The Invention of Lying" in Los Angeles on Monday, Sept. 21, 2009. Perry, who starred as Chandler Bing in the hit series ...Friends,... has died. He was 54. The Emmy-nominated actor was found dead of an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home on Saturday, according to the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which was the first to report the news. Both outlets cited unnamed sources confirming Perry...s death. His publicists and other representatives did not immediately return messages seeking comment. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
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Matthew Perry, who died in 2023, was given the final line of the series. Pic: AP

Part of the script that leaked included the details of Ross and Rachel finally getting back together, Kauffman said.

But when asked if the mystery of who released the information was solved, she replied with a smile: “Ish.”

“Ish,” Crane repeated.

After 10 series and 236 episodes, as well as Ross and Rachel’s reunion, the final instalment saw Monica and Chandler leaving their famous Manhattan apartment and moving to the suburbs as new parents to adopted twins.

Perry, who died last year, aged 54, wrote about the finale in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing.

Read more from Sky News:
Matthew Perry obituary: The one who made everyone laugh
The Friends reunion: The one where they got back together

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“Before that final episode, I’d taken Marta Kauffman to one side,” he wrote. “‘Nobody else will care about this except me’, I said. ‘So may I please have the last line?'”

His character Chandler did indeed have the last line. As the Friends decide to go for one last coffee before the move, he simply asks, “Where?”, in a trademark sarcastic but poignant joke about the fact that so much of their time on screen has been spent in the Central Perk coffee shop.

“It’s incredibly poignant. It’s a legacy for him, one of his many legacies,” Kauffman said.

Friends has found a new generation of fans in recent years after being picked up by streaming sites.

Earlier this year, two scripts for The One With Ross’s Wedding, season four’s famous two-part finale filmed in London, sold at auction for £22,000 after being found in a bin.

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Business

P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite says he couldn’t live on £4.87-per-hour staff pay

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P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite says he couldn't live on £4.87-per-hour staff pay

The boss of P&O Ferries – known for its fire-and-rehire of nearly 800 workers – has said he could not live on the less than £5-per-hour some of his staff are paid.

The ferry company is paying employees an average of £5.20 an hour, two years after making 786 people redundant, and rehiring cheaper workers, P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite told the Commons’ Business and Trade Committee.

Money latest: Britons prioritising Netflix over restaurants

Some earn as little as £4.87 an hour, Mr Hebblethwaite added, as MPs on the committee presented him with evidence that some staff were paid as low as £2.90 an hour for their first eight hours of work.

P&O CEO Peter Hebblethwaite appears before a committee in Westminster
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P&O chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite

During exchanges, committee chair Liam Byrne asked Mr Hebblethwaite: “Do you think you could live on £4.87 an hour?”

Mr Hebblethwaite replied: “No, I couldn’t,” before admitting he earned £508,000, including a bonus of £183,000 last year.

While he said he could not live on such pay, the CEO said the rates were “considerably ahead of international minimum standards”.

More on P&o

“These are international seafarers who we are, or our crewing agent is, recruiting from an international field, and we pay substantially ahead of the international seafaring minimum wage,” he added.

The UK national minimum wage is £11.44 since last month for people aged 21 and over.

But P&O Ferries uses maritime workers employed by an overseas agency, who work on ships which are foreign-registered in international waters, so the rates do not apply.

When he last appeared before the committee in March 2022, Mr Hebblethwaite said P&O Ferries workers would receive at least £5.15 every hour.

“People who could work anywhere in the world on any ship choose to come over to us and make a choice to come back,” he said on Tuesday.

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P&O chose to break the law by not consulting before sacking 800 staff because it knew

Fire-and-rehire fallout

Despite the move to get rid of the nearly 800 staff in March 2022, Mr Hebblethwaite said P&O Ferries has always complied with national and international law.

That decision is still under investigation by the government.

While a criminal investigation conducted by the insolvency service concluded in August 2022 that it would not commence criminal proceedings, a civil investigation by the government body is ongoing.

“I confirmed that this decision was legal,” Mr Hepplethwaite added. “That is not to say I don’t regret it, I regret it. I am deeply sorry for the impact it had on 786 seafarers and their families. I wish we’d never had to have made that decision.

“We will never make that decision again.”

Read more
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Had it not been made, Mr Hebblethwaite said the operation of P&O Ferries would have been at risk.

“Without that difficult decision I would not be here today and we would not have been able to preserve the 2,000 jobs that we have been able to preserve.”

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Workers rights

Despite the widespread condemnation and political lens that zeroed in on the company, a seafarers’ rights charter has not yet been signed by P&O Ferries.

Mr Hebblethwaite couldn’t say whether workers were allowed to leave the ship during a 17-week working period and will write to the committee with an answer.

“I believe they are, but I believe there are some technicalities,” he answered.

Responding to the evidence, the head of the TUC (Trade Union Congress) Paul Nowak said: “It beggars belief that P&O Ferries has faced no sanctions for its misdeeds and that its parent company DP World has continued to be awarded government contracts.

“For too long, parts of our labour market have resembled the Wild West – with many seafarers particularly exposed to hyper-exploitation and a lack of enforceable rights.

“It’s time to drag our outdated employment laws into the 21st century. Without this, another P&O Ferries scandal is on the cards.”

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World

Vladimir Putin thanks soldiers ‘fighting for motherland’ as he is inaugurated for fifth time

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Vladimir Putin thanks soldiers 'fighting for motherland' as he is inaugurated for fifth time

Vladimir Putin has thanked soldiers “fighting for our motherland” in Ukraine – as he was sworn in as Russian president for a fifth time.

At a ceremony in the gilded Grand Kremlin Palace, Mr Putin placed his hand on the Russian constitution and vowed to defend it as a crowd of hand-picked dignitaries looked on.

An artillery salute marked the end of the official presidential inauguration, and as he left the palace to the sound of the Russian national anthem, a round of applause erupted from those in the audience.

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin claims he could work with West

Pic: Kremlin.ru/Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin places his hand on the Constitution as he takes the oath during an inauguration ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia May 7, 2024, in this still image taken from live broadcast video. Kremlin.ru/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT.
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Mr Putin places his hand on the constitution. Pic: Kremlin.ru/Reuters

Tuesday’s inauguration marks the start of another six years at the top for Mr Putin, 71.

He is already the Kremlin’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin, having been in power for nearly two-and-a-half decades – 20 years as president, four as prime minister.

By the end of this term, only Catherine the Great will be ahead of him – she ruled Russia way back in the 18th century.

His new term does not expire until 2030, when he will be constitutionally eligible to run again.

When he succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 1999, Russia was emerging from economic collapse.

Under his leadership, most notably since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the country has become a pariah state that threatens global security, reliant on regimes like China, Iran and North Korea for support.

Russia’s enormous advantage in resources has gradually turned the tide in Ukraine in Moscow’s favour, but both sides have been suffering heavy casualties.

Following his widely-anticipated re-election in March, Mr Putin suggested a confrontation between NATO and Russia was possible, and he declared he wanted to carve out a buffer zone in Ukraine to protect his country from cross-border attacks.

Vladimir Putin
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The ceremony took place at the gilded Grand Kremlin Palace

With major changes at home and abroad over the past two years, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the circumstances do not make it more important to give the public the right to speak out.

“It needs tougher measures to ensure the victory, to ensure that we reach our goals,” he told Sky News, when asked if Russians should not have more say during a war.

He insisted that is a democratic stance in “the same circumstances Western media exists in Europe and the US” and denied Mr Putin has made the country a dictatorship.

“This is not the case absolutely, absolutely, it’s just propaganda, it’s rough propaganda, nothing else,” he added.

“So, we are living in our country, in our own environment and it’s purely democratic. We choose our power. We elect our power. We elect our president.”

Pic: Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks before an inauguration ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia May 7, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/Pool
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Pic: Reuters

As the country’s economy remains on a war footing, analysts say that, with another term in office secured, the Kremlin could take the unpopular steps of raising taxes to fund the war and pressure more men to join the military.

The repression that has characterised Mr Putin’s time in office continued when his greatest political foe, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony in February.

Mr Peskov told Sky News opposition remains in the country, but added “of course the conditions are much more tough around here because we are in war conditions”.

Other prominent critics have either been imprisoned or have fled the country, and even some of his opponents abroad fear for their security.

Defiant and determined – Russia’s leader is in it for the long haul

The speech was vintage Vladimir – talking up Russia’s greatness, blaming the West for Moscow’s isolation and doubling down on his current path.

If there was any hope of him mellowing in this next term of office, President Putin dispelled that right at the beginning, referring to the security of the Russian people as a matter “above all”.

Translation – we’re in the confrontation with the West for the long haul.

But whose fault is it? Not ours, he said. All part of the Kremlin’s narrative to portray Russia as the victim.

What might concern western officials, is the tone of the speech, especially the last line: “We will realise everything we have planned, together we will win.”

With things going his way at home and on the battlefield, the Russian president appears increasingly confident, and increasingly defiant.

Laws have been promising long prison terms for anyone who discredits the military.

The Kremlin also targets independent media, rights groups, LGBTQ+ activists and others who do not adhere to what Mr Putin has emphasised as Russia’s “traditional family values”.

Read more:
Another inauguration – and more of the same for Russia

US soldier ‘detained in Russia’
Cameron defends Ukraine’s use of UK weapons

Sky News’ international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said Mr Putin “has taken a country that was emerging from communism and economic collapse towards reform and reintegration into the international community, and he’s turned it in a pariah state threatening global security while he and his kleptocracy have stolen billions”.

He added: “In his inauguration speech, Putin said Russia stands united [but] an estimated 900,000 Russians have voted with their feet and left the country since his invasion of Ukraine.”

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