Who to vote for as a feminist

I came across this the other day which might possibly be relevant... parliament's list of which mps (all 39 of them) who supported an early day motion welcoming the stop the war on the poor initiative in America and the possibility of starting one here.

www.parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/249

I think anyone who is concerned about poverty need to take a good look at any existing mps whose names aren't on there, and question them very closely before voting for them. And anyone who is not concerned about the rise in poverty in the uk ought to be!

To be fair to labour they actually did an enormous amount to try and lift children, women and single parents out of poverty. It wasn't perfect but they did engage with the issues on a social level in a way that many other parties don't.

I thought conservatives would not fair well due I believe to 11 of them being against the pay equality bill that someone posted earlier, I don't think there were any other parties.

There are though the odd rumblings that Teresa May as a potential candidate after Dave, but that could be abotehr 5 yrs i guess.

With the Lib dems they had Lord Rennard sexual harrassment debacle.

So I guess leaves greens and labour?

Florafox:
Fair enough, I'm sure many places that have legalized it have not done it well, and exploitation still happens. I think if it was well regulated it would be better, but there's no saying that would happen.
I don't think the current system we have is working though as many women are too worried about the punishment from police if they report being exploited.

Tackling poverty would definitely be the way to go, but I don't think Labour would be any good at that. They certainly haven't been in the past.

Prostitution and exploitation go hand in hand. Exploitation based on poverty is certainly important and tackling poverty and drug addiction is certainly important. I don't think the Labour Party has a policy on prostitution which is at least better than a policy to legalise / decriminalise.

labour are sort of on my list, against my better judgment, simply for having the better proportion of female MPs

but is still only about a third, it's not very persuasive

plus they are labour

Somewhat naively, I was hoping not to get into a discussion over whether or not prostitution should be legalized, as it always gets heated and I didn't want to derail, just to say that I'm very conflicted re. voting green and that was the reason. I am aware of the law re. prostitution (i.e. legal, but not if more than one person working together, no soliciting/kerbcrawling) but realise that my post did not make that clear.

Well that was the question, who to vote for as a feminist

You're voting labour, I get it

Poverty and prostitution go hand in hand, how many rich people choose to be prostitutes? Tackling poverty, giving opportunity and looking at drug addiction is the answer - Labour

I wouldn't have a problem with it in principle though, if all else in society was equal, the average age of entry to the industry was over 21, people were queuing up to do it so nobody ever had to be forced into it, it was as normal for one sex to purchase such services as any other. That all seems quite a long way off though.

I don't think anyone anywhere really supports the criminalisation of those supplying sex, I just can't get my head round the harm minimisation argument of decriminalising the demand when the demand IS the harm. It's illogical.

Still say as a feminist I want policies that support all of us. Good social care, supported Nhs, good education-money invested in us. Women rely and work in these areas and a party that supports these things can only be good for women(and our children)-Labour

I think it is perfectly reasonable to agree with most policies of a party but feel that you cannot vote for them as you can't stomach a particular policy you don't agree with

I don't think anyone expects a party to have all policies that you agree with - no one here is daft

But you weigh up the ones you don't according to your own views, and against their policies that you do agree with, and decide whether the good outweighs the bad or that the ones you disagree with are tolerable enough to vote for that party

The OP's question (and the title of the thread) is who to vote for as a feminist. You might say you don't care enough about the prostitution or any other feminist issue to base your vote on that, in which case you're not voting as a feminist.

maiscout there are many threads on here discussing prostitution in detail and in particular, the fallacy of legalisation or decriminalisation. The Nordic model removes criminalisation of the women in prostitution. I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion about prostitution but here is an article about the situation in Germany where it is legalised:

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html

I'm surprised so many people wouldn't vote green just because of their prostitution policy. I don't think prostitution is a good thing at all, but it's going to happen whether it's legal or not. Better to protect the women that are doing it instead of adding a criminal record to their probably huge list of problems. If prostitution is black market, women are more likely to be treated badly as they can't go to the police to say they've been abused.
Just my opinion though. I'm gonna be voting green.

I used to vote tactically to keep tories out - which meant voting Lib Dem in my constituency (despite being a labour supporter all my life - not a cat in hells chance here). Never again. I have looked at policies and overall agree with more Green policies than any other party so will be voting for them.

No parties' policies are going to perfectly match your own, so it's a matter of looking for the best fit. I used to vote tactically to keep Tories out, but now I'm not doing that again I'm voting green.

I'm not sure it's even worth looking at policies, there is nothing to make a party stick to it's pre-election promises or pledges - they seem to get tossed to the side once actually elected - just look at the promises compared to actual action when it comes to the NHS.

I will vote but I really don't know who to vote for, I feel entirely let down by the lot of them. I think it's between Labour and Greens but I don't like how freely Labour seem to like to go to war and I think the buying of sex should be illegal.

"Wouldn't it be better to put gender aside and vote based on policies?"

Yes wouldn't it. Except that isn't what happens now and redressing the balance is not unreasonable.

I am so lucky with this. I have a female Labour MP who really gets it and is likely to be voted back in. Because she is good. And she gets it.

I am less lucky when it comes to councillors so as a rule of thumb I would try and vote for a woman (for example we had mayoral elections a couple of years ago and there was only one female candidate out of about 20. She was Green Party and got my vote even though I don't agree with their stance on prostitution). If the only women are right wing I would probably go Labour (even though left-wing men don't have a great track record on prioritising women).

Caught between a rock and a hard place sometimes.

I don't think the Greens would be effective in holding the balance of power so I don't think they would necessarily improve things for the poor. Also, poverty is only one reason women go into prostitution and helping the poor would not help women targeted by pimps. I don't like that their policy is based on individual liberties, it makes me concerned about how they would behave when making compromises with other parties.

Fortunately the sitting Labour MP in my constituency is a woman and very good, so it's an easy decision.

The Greens seem to be reinventing themselves as the protest party of the left, which is not a bad thing but disinclines me from voting for them.

I was talking to a friend the other night who said he liked the stance of the Scottish National Party on the major issues much better than that of any of the English parties and wished he could vote for them down here! I can see his point, actually.

My feeling is perhaps the greens would improve things in other areas, thus making life easier for the poor, thus meaning fewer women need enter prostitution ... Just a thought.