An Open Letter to Sheilas' Wheels

I received an advert leaflet from Sheilas' Wheels. I kid you not, it makes the following absurd and insulting claim:

"It's official - women are better drivers."

Interestingly, I can't display it here, for legal reasons not related to this post - despite the fact that I'd be advertising their advert for free. There is a different version that makes the same claim, which can be seen by clicking on the link given on the above title [not available - see Addenda at bottom of post]. However, my copy is considerably more forthright in this assertion, and includes the following justification for this astounding 'fact' in the smallprint:

"Source: Ministry of Justice National Statistics Offences relating to motor vehicles England and Wales 2006, published April 2008. Based on motoring offences taken to court."

It is with the leaflet version in mind that I write the following open letter to Sheilas' Wheels in response. A copy will be sent both to Sheilas' Wheels and the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). I will post details of any signifant response. If you would like to complain to the ASA, you can use this link to find out how. Please feel free to leave a post about it, and good luck. Update: Three years after my letter was sent, in 2012, The EU finally came round to my way of thinking and banned gender discrimination in relation to insurance premiums. Sheilas' Wheels no longer pulls this stunt.

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Dear Sheilas,

I have to say that I and my intelligence are insulted by your leaflet that arrived through my door (see attached). It claims that "it’s official – women are better drivers." The given source for this is the Ministry of Justice National Statistics relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales 2006, based on motoring offences taken to court. And as the leaflet says, I indeed can’t "argue with the facts." However, I can and feel compelled to argue with how the facts are utilised and portrayed.

Neither Sheilas’ Wheels nor anyone else is in a position to make such a claim, regardless of the evidence quoted. Evidence is not proof, whether it be statistics, empirical analysis or otherwise. The claim is akin to me saying that, for example, based on the official statistics of people’s salaries by gender, "it’s official – men are better than women at more important jobs" (see refs. [1] & [2]), or that, again based on selected official statistics, "it’s official – black people are more criminal than white people." (ref. [3])

None of these statements is 'official,' regardless of the statistics used. As we should all know, it’s more of a complicated world than that. To this end, I of course do not believe that the references quoted do in themselves show either of the above claims to be factual or official. In fact, I’m sure I could find statistics showing the contrary. However, allow me for one moment to use your own rules for establishing "facts," and make a case in point. If you penalise men in general for being "worse drivers" for committing more motoring offences, do you also penalise black men additionally for being "more criminal" and thus "even more likely" to cause a motoring offence? If not, why not? It would certainly be consistent. If the answer is "because that would be illegal and unfairly discriminatory," then why are you allowed to use the same means to "show" that women are "better" drivers than men?

Just because it seems more socially acceptable for women to discriminate against men doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I apologise for pointing out the sorts of basic morals that we were taught as children, but it evidently needs reiterating.

I’d also like to express concern about what and who makes a "better" driver. Allow me take the source you quote as an example: It is not enough to say that, based on motoring offences taken to court, women are "officially" "better" drivers. Here are some of the more obvious reasons why:

• "Better" is a subjective word. What it means depends on the eye of the beholder. You cannot prove, or claim as factual, that something is "better" than something else.

• The claim does not take into account the possibility that men spend far longer on the road than women. I would have thought it obvious that the vast majority of truck and taxi drivers are men. Should this be the case, then it would be out of proportion to use the statistics cited in the leaflet in order to make such a statement. Using the crash statistics of Formula 1 Racing, it would be easy to say that women drivers are "better" drivers because they never crash, but of course this would be grossly unfair because of the number of men competing in F1 compared to the number of women.

• It may be the case that a small proportion of men commit multiple offences. The claim would seem to assume that each offence is committed by a different person. If a minority of men commit all of the offences taken to court, then it is unfair to say that all men are worse drivers. The statistics suggest that this is the case, but that doesn’t amount to an official confirmation.

• The statistics only take into account motoring offences taken to court in one year. What about other evidence that can equally validly be used in an attempt to evaluate who is a "better" driver? What about people who are not caught committing offences, or who commit offences that are not taken through court? There is no sense of proportion and thus no fair treatment given in the statement. The statistics used are entirely and deliberately out of context to reality.

• Official statistics could be used to establish the "excellence" of drivers, in the same way that your leaflet determines a "better" driver. It could then be argued that the "excellence" of male drivers might outweigh those men who are "worse" to the point that, on the whole, male drivers are still "better" than women drivers. In fact, does the absence of women in F1 not give this some credence?

• Another thought occurs – which official body endorses this specific "fact"? Surely if there is no such endorsing body, this claim cannot legitimately be made.

I anticipate the claim that the leaflet is intended to be light-hearted, or tongue-in-cheek. If so, I fail to see the joke – mainly because there isn't one. It quotes evidence and attempts to assert facts, and its tone is portrayed seriously. There are no exclamation marks and there is no clue about any a jocular nature. Even if it were intended as a joke, it is certainly not in good taste. Instead, it simply seems to use a biased and severely limited set of statistics in order deliberately to portray women as better drivers, and then make the ludicrous jump to claim this as a fact. To say that men are statistically in a more high-risk category may have merit; to say that women are better drivers is simply an unfounded, sweeping statement.

As a consequence of this, I would ask that the claim be withdrawn and that people not be subject to such insulting, female-chauvinist propaganda. Furthermore, I would hope that more care and consideration be employed in the future to treat everyone, regardless of gender, with the same level of courtesy.

Yours Sincerely,

Alan Nyquist.

Footnotes/References

[1] Far more women are in part-time jobs than men - source: Office for National Statistics, Sept 2008 (link - PDF)

[2] On average men earned 17% more than women in 2007 – source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Office for National Statistics, Nov 2007 (link)

[3] According to the 2001 UK Census and the Office for National Statistics, 2% of the population was black (link). However, as of June 2007, 15% of male prisoners were black (source: Ministry of Justice Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2006, Oct. 2007 (link, see p91).

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Addenda

[19.01.10] I recently received an e-mail regarding the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I kid you not, it features this sentence. Spot the dubious bit.

"In the medium and longer term programmes will also include temporary shelters; nutrition for women and children; control of infectious diseases and helping to rebuild the livelihoods of those affected by this disaster."

[10.06.10] As of checking today, the link to the advert that made this claim has been removed. I like to think that I had a small part in it, but who knows. It's also suspicious that a Google search of "It's official - women are better drivers" with reference to Sheilas' Wheels yields no results, including cached pages.

So-called Feminism

I paid a visit to that most saintly of companies the other today, Tesco. The woman behind the till was talking to one of the packers, also a woman. As I approached the till, the packer moved to end the conversation. All I heard her say was,

“...typical man.”

Till Woman agreed, with a stern look. No-one in the queue so much as batted an eyelid.
Being too surprised to do anything about it at the time, I also did nothing. But I kick myself not to have asked her whether, if a man had exclaimed, “...typical woman,” she would have considered him a male chauvinist pig, or whether she would have considered it tolerable behaviour.

I doubt that the latter would have happened, because, while it’s perfectly socially acceptable for a woman to insult a man (indeed, all men) in this way, vice versa is not. “But that’s sexist, you can’t say that!” they would no doubt exclaim. If you can’t say something because it’s sexist, then you can’t pick and choose which sex can have a bash at the other. That would be… well, sexist, funnily enough.

So there you are: Socially speaking, sexism is wrong, unless a woman does it.

I wonder whether this social acceptance has wheedled its way into the public hive mind because of so-called feminism (i.e. female chauvinism). There is quite a big difference between feminism and female chauvinism: Feminists strive for equality between men and women. Female chauvinists strive for more power to women. It’s a subtle difference, I know, but it’s quite a huge one when you think about it. The former is a worthy cause; the latter is the same sort of reasoning that dictators and other compulsive egomaniacs use to fuel their never-ending desire for conquest.

The next time you watch someone spouting their spiel about women’s rights and woes, whether on the TV, in Tesco or elsewhere, just consider: Are they really fighting for justice, or are they fighting for their own selfish and vain desires? If it's the latter, then it's your duty as a citizen of humanity to point it out. You'll get it off your chest, they'll learn something (even if it's that they can't get away with such a remark) and society can go forward more positively.

Whatever it is, it seems to have given these women the power base that they obviously crave for shallow reasons. The men are just as pathetic for being weak about it and allowing it to happen as the women are for being vain and childish to do it.

The dawn of so-called feminism, at least in the UK, seems to have been around the time "girl power" entered the lexicon. I'm not sure whether the marketing team that came up with the 'Spice Girls' product invented the term or jumped on the bandwagon. Regardless, the effect was to amplify something evil and add to the descruction of the society. Even worse, it was all presumably for the sole purposes of cashing in.

The lyrics to their song, "Wannabe" has it all. Read those lyrics and you have the complete picture of female chauvinism. Of particular interest is the lyric, "If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give." That's what so-called feminism is all about: Gaining something without giving anything back, at men's (and, ultimately, everyone's) expense.

The Spice Girls should be ashamed at themselves for what they purpetuated. They failed the cause of Feminism, by become female versions of the supposed oppressive men that resulted in feminism in the first place; and they were pretenders to the concept of Equality, tempting a lot of young, equality-driven admirers subtly across to the dark side towards bitchiness, anger and hatred. That the Spice Girls might themselves have been young and innocent to their crimes is no defense: As adults, they were (and are) responsible for their own actions, and they have never apologised since.

I’m sure this post will get some poor soles' hackles up. Well, good – I welcome it. If you’re one of those people, then the chances are that I’ve hit a nerve due to personal reasons you may not have considered or admitted to yourself. Understanding is the first step towards acceptance, and then self-improvement. There are no vendettas here, except regarding crimes against humanity. If you’re offended, it must be because you have an axe to grind to the contrary, or else you've been misled. Go and do some thinking, and find out the truth about (and for) yourself. See it as a challenge. It’s certainly a worthy one.

So, what do you think about that? Now you know how I feel.

Martin Creed

You could be forgiven for not knowing who Martin Creed is. Indeed, he should not be known at all. Unfortunately, he seems to be the subject of considerable media hype, and he’s currently “cool” in the modern art world (or should I say “scene”, to borrow a fittingly pretentious and fundamentally meaningless word).

The blame for the popularity of Martin Creed can only be placed in part upon Martin Creed. Again, it is the media interest and the pretentious art world (as distinct to the art world in general) that provides the advertising crap. Creed just supplies the artistic crap and goes along for the ride. But it’s all still just crap, nevertheless.

Let me refer you first to a Reuters story on his June 2008 creation, “Work No. 850”. The whole thing is so telling that I could just quote the whole lot and be done with it, really. But let me go through it in bits, for the sake of completeness, and justify my viewpoint.

The Reuters article mentions that Creed’s latest creation is a runner who runs from one end of the gallery to the other every 30 seconds. It would be easy to say that this isn’t art, but this would be wrong: Anything can be considered artistically, and it is to this tedious and tenuous argument that artists (particularly the worse ones, who cannot find their own justifications for their works), often use by default.

Unfortunately for them, it evades the real point: whether a work is worth being considered as a work of art. What is the point of the work? If its significance is not be justifiable, then it is not in a state to be exhibited or pondered over. If a work doesn’t show anything worth considering, such as something profound or new, then there really isn’t any point in anyone wasting time on it, the artist or the viewer. (See also, ‘Pop Music’ blog.)

That a work is popular with the public is not really a good justification: Given enough media coverage and hype (i.e. marketing), people would go and see a Tesco frozen chicken in a cage. Particularly if it were controversial in some way, let’s say if it had tattooed to it a naked picture of a dead man in a wheelchair holding a Nazi flag. But that doesn’t make it art: At best, it makes it meaningless, sick and attention-seeking. Besides, anyone can come up with that sort of tripe. It takes more than this to justify oneself as a good artist.

So, there are four fundamental things that Creed needs to identify in order for his work to be considered a worthy addition to art. The rule-set goes for any other artist and work of art (in any form), as well.

1. What does it try to show? Or: What does it represent?


2. Does it show something that hasn't been shown before in other works of art? Or is it just a weak imitation of the works of artists that have already been there and done that? In other words, what's the innovation?


3. Is his chosen medium the best one to use, in order to express what he wants to express?


4. Should anyone care what it is it's trying to say? How does it inspire people? Is it going to add to culture in any meangful and positive way?

Let’s start at the beginning, and then when we’ve reached the end, stop.

1. What does it try to show/represent?

In the Reuters article, Creed gives the following explanation for what his work tries to express.

“Running is the opposite of being still. If you think about death as being completely still and movement as a sign of life, then the fastest movement possible is the biggest sign of life. So then running fast is like the exact opposite of death: it's an example of aliveness.”

What? Surely that’s excusable logic for your average ten-year-old, but a fully-grown adult?

Here is his thesis in a nut-shell:

• Running fast is the opposite of death. (Funny, I always thought that life was. But what do I know.)


• Those living things which are the most alive move most rapidly.

Where do I start on that bombshell? Firstly, if running fast is an example of aliveness, then that does not in itself mean that it is the opposite of death. Secondly, literally speaking (as indeed Creed is in the above quote), how can anything be any more alive than anything else? Is a baby, who can only crawl slowly, less alive than Paula Radcliffe?

Indeed, this argument holds for any sense of the word: Even if you’re taking the word ‘alive’ to mean something less literal than ‘not dead,’ or even ‘close to death,’ then surely you can say that something that is brighter in colour is more ‘alive’ than something that is darker. Why hasn’t he created a work of art based on colour instead? How does he justify that his interpretation is the best one for his purpose? There are many interpretations of ‘alive,’ and I’d say that Creed’s interpretation was a pretty mediocre one at best.

2. What’s the innovation?

Even if it is innovative to represent aliveness as someone running, the reason why no-one else has done the same thing is probably because they rejected it as a crap idea.

The best justification of innovation I see is of the use of the medium (whatever the medium actually is, in this case. And don’t give me some pretentious claptrap about life or nature itself, being the medium). But it is severely limited. It’s easy to say “a human form in motion has many levels and shows many things that can only be felt and not expressed in words.” From what Creed has said about it, however, this is not what he’s trying to do.

All he is trying to do is to exemplify aliveness artistically. I can go into the street and see or do the same thing. It requires no thought on the part of an artist to represent aliveness in a live person in movement. Similarly, it is of no inspiration to the viewer. In any case, ‘nature itself’ shows us many more things than the human form to demonstrate aliveness, and it does it better. Nature can do it much better than we can, so the whole exercise is pointless – he may as well present his ‘work’ in the form of a directive: “go and have a walk in the park.” Why impersonate downwards? Why buy sterilised milk if you can get Jersey cream for free?

3. Has he chosen the best medium?

His reason for choosing the medium (if you can call it that) of a runner is that he likes running. The trouble is, I like Kung Fu, but I wouldn’t try to explain something by knocking people to the floor just for the sake of it. (Having said that, it would be an interesting justification for giving idiots what they deserve: “I’m a martial artist, this is my way of expressing my opinions, so it’s my prerogative to knock you unconscious.”) In terms of a medium, I wouldn’t say that his explanation was enough to warrant a justification.

4. Is it going to add to culture in any meaningful way?

Here, we can summarise the previous three points. He’s given a ‘full’ account of its purpose in just two sentences in the Reuters article (see quote in point 1, above). Its only innovative quality can be bettered by other means, and even if it is intended to be an innovative expression of nature, it’s a pretty weak one. It isn’t even an interpretation – it’s just taking something straight from life and presenting the thing iteslef as art. The same goes for the chosen medium.

* * *

If this is all the justification he can give, and that’s all there is to it, then what’s the point in trying to pass it off as art? It’s not clever, interesting, insightful, innovative nor inspirational. Thank God for artists like Banksy, who express what they want to express through real desires and with real talent, with none of the pretence and being free of the purely financial motivation to be “contemporary.”

The Notion of 'Love at First Sight'

Let me let you into a little secret. Whoever you are, you did not fall in love at first sight. Stop saying you did, because you didn't. By all means cling on to your pathetic delusions if you must, if it gets you through your life. But for gods' sakes, stop spouting them to the rest of us.

Am I the only person to see what a pathetic pile of crap the notion of “love at first sight” is? Let me be clear that I'm not on about Platonic love. I'm on about the sort of love that is a combination of friendship and sexual attraction, respect - an affinity for all aspects of a person. In other words, the sort of love that people are thinking about when they use the term, ‘love at first sight.’

Are you trying to tell me that you can get all of this information from a person within a few moments of seeing them? Even before you actually meet them? Wow, that's quite a powerful delusion. You must be the sort of person who believes that it's one of the unexplainable miracles of life that God throws at us. Well, that explains a lot.

Let's get back to reality. All you had, in those first few moments of seeing him/her/it/them, was a feeling of lust and (consequently) a drive to get to know them better. That's probably what they felt when they met you as well. Sorry to spoil your romantic mental masturbation here, but you're clearly living a lie. Any evidence that might seem to back your point up is coincidental. It must be. There are only two ways you could possibly love someone on first seeing them: You must either be telepathic, or you must have at least spoken to them beforehand, say on the phone, and decided that you were “in love” at this point instead. Both of them are ridiculous, and the second one is slightly missing the point about what the phrase is supposed to mean.

A common reply to such so-called “sceptics” as myself (I would prefer the term, “rationalist”) is this:

“Aah, you need to experience it, and then you'll know.”

What a brilliant non-answer. Religious people use this ploy to defend against arguments which “offend” their gods. (I’ve always found that one odd: If I were religious, I would try to refrain from believing that my god or gods were weak enough to succumb to vanity.)

Let's just suppose I tell you that I have seen the tooth fairy in my back garden. The sane-minded amongst you might argue that this cannot be, to which I can reply “aah, wait until you see it, then you'll know.” In a way, it's a perfect argument - the arguer cannot battle against that one easily, without waiting in garden until my tooth fairy appears. The response to its inevitable non-appearance is, “well, you haven't waited for long enough.” If, eventually, you believe that you have seen the tooth fairy, then in all probability you were so focused on it that your brain mis-associated it with something else. Imagine all the times you've desperately searched around the house for something you needed urgently. After a while of looking, you get fatigued, and your mind will trick you into thinking that you've seen it in the corner of your eye. You look around and it's not there. I would expect that mirages are a similar experience.

Love at first sight is this unwavering belief, the stubborn, irrational, religious clinging-on of an ideal that you want to believe in, that eventually tricks the mind into thinking it is real. As far as I can see, there are three ways of succumbing to the delusion:

1. Introspectively, by deciding from the outset that you want to fall in love at first sight, probably out of sexual or egoistic desperation, or a hyperactive sense of romance. In this case, you are likely to assume that any person you meet who you “fall in love” with was down to that first encounter. Here, “I knew from the start that we were in love” translates as, “I assumed from the start that we would fall in love,” which of course is somewhat different.
2. Posthumously, by changing the way you remember first contact in order to suit the retrospective situation. Here, “we were in love from the start” translates as, “I remember that we were in love from the start because that's how I want to remember it.”
3. Mistakenly, as one Henry Velez suggests. On first contact, a person fits the stereotype of who they would like to “love.” Later on, if this develops into a loving relationship, they mistakenly and lazily assume that the initial spark must have been love at first sight, because of a lack of alternative explanations that are immediately apparent to them. It is easier to latch onto a well-known idea that is easy to understand (because there is no explanation to understand) than it is to search endlessly for another explanation. Rather than subscribe to the idea that there is no explanation to search for, this sort of person will choose the “love at first sight” explanation because it is both decisive and conforting.

I find this article from RomanceTracker.com particularly engaging, although for unfortunate reasons. I'm particularly interested in the way it tries to justify the supposed existence of love at first sight. Let's take a look at all the points it makes to this effect.

“the concept of Love at First Sight has been lauded in countless stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions. Poets and romantics regard Love at First Sight as an unquestionable truth”

All of these poems, stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions are, no doubt, works of romantic fiction. No wonder they contain concepts as fanciful as love at first sight. Based on this observation, the second sentence almost invites its own answer:

“millions of lonely people around the world pray every day that it will happen to them.”

The fact that millions of people want it to happen doesn't make it real. What’s more, the sentence just derogates a section of society, painting them as pathetic, weak individuals who would cling on to a flimsy and unlikely hope rather than going out and doing something about it. I'm not sure how this goes in their argument's favour.

“So, how do you know if you’ve experienced Love at First Sight? Well, if you have to ask, you probably haven’t.”

Aha! One of those nonsense circularity responses that I was talking about in paragraph 5.

“before you roll your eyes and underestimate the power of romance, be careful [...] Love at First Sight can happen to skeptics [sic], too!”

I had to summon a lot of willpower to avoid using swear-words in response to this patronising, childish, demented tosh. Having failed at proving, or even providing valid evidence as to the existence of love at first sight, which is both the basic and the fatal assumption of the entire article, it then presumes to impose authority over the subject by offering pity to those not self-admitted into the asylum of fantasy.

And that's it! They are all of the points that this great authority on the subject has to offer. It doesn't even attempt to define the word ‘love.’

Look, you can't have it both ways. Either you can own up to the whole package – believing in love at first sight, telepathy, mysticism, astrology, superstition, deism, little people in the garden – or you can drop the charade and admit that you think you fell in love at first sight, simply and only because you want to believe it. Please, open your brain to rational thought, and stop degrading yourself. Frankly, it's painful to have to witness.

- - - - -

Unfortunately, this BBC News Article on the subject seems to lose track of the “at first sight” bit, which is quite pivotal really. Or perhaps it's just BBC News making up any old headline to grab attention, gutter-press style – it is BBC News, after all.

This Guardian article makes the same overall point as me. I would be surprised if it is “new research,” as the article claims, though – not only have I (and, no doubt, many other rationalists) found it patently obvious for a very long time, but philosophers must have been spouting similar for centuries.