Women's Equality Party

Oh ok. The thread I saw didn't seem to be so much garnering support as asking what we wanted to ask but I guess that was part of their craftiness then :(

The difference is that the OP had about a dozen posts and only one of them was not trying to garner support for WEP.

Huge shame it's been deleted, I think there were some important points being made. There was loads of discussion about the labour leadership election, how was that thread any different?

Isn't it the case that political parties aren't meant to canvas on MN?

So it might be the line between fair political comment and discussion, and party spam.

I think it was deleted because it was started by a WEP member who has only posted about WEP and was spamming the boards for the last couple of days.

The thread has been deleted. So much for free speech. The irony.

Ok. I'm confused. Just posted on what I thought was the WEP thread, and the thread has gone poof....

I have had nothing but grief for the past 19 years because I went to the pub after our daughter was born. I am going to show my wife and daughter this thread. I knew I'd done the right thing, and now I have the official approval of Mumsnet FWR!

PS this page needs a beer icon

And I'd like a pet unicorn.

I've thought about it some more and WEP can still fuck off.

I've thought about it some more and WEP can still fuck off.

Some Mumsnetters on some of the Women's Equality Party threads appear disenchanted with a political party that is so young and whose sole aim is to promote equality for women, for not having defined the key issues as they would have done, or for being too middle class or middle aged, or too naive...

Please have another think about this.

Unlike other parties, this party does not have to be about 'them' and what 'they' are doing or aren't doing, but it can be about its members. It is so new in political terms it is a work in progress with some very good core policies. Before you think it needs knocking down (because these core policies do not include something you think they should have), please have a look at what they do include and think what the Party could be and help to build it up. Catherine Mayer is an extremely intelligent woman and one worth listening to.

I've posted on the chat page (and please tell me if I need to put it somewhere else I'm new to this) a thread inviting suggestions that I can pass onto WEP Mayoral short-list candidate Harini Iyengar. She's a barrister specialising in discrimination law, a single mum of three, and open to ideas. She's great and even if you think she's not going to be elected Mayor (despite having potential to be a fantastic Mayor!), it really is worth responding and informing the debate. The more attention and support people like Harini get, the more difficult it will be for equality issues to be ignored. She's also standing for selection to the a candidate for the Greater London Assembly elections. If you're a London WEP member, you can vote to select the WEP candidates...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2554887-Womens-Equality-Party

Other candidates are there too, so check them out and decide is this really something we should not be embracing?! If you have any policy ideas for Harini, let me know and I'll pass them on.

Thank you!

They are looking for candidates to stand. Your link didn't work for me.

I got an email from them today, check your inbox.

Exactly. There's zero evidence that dads staying overnight has a positive impact on bonding or paternal involvement generally. They want to force ill postnatal women to be cared for around strange men 24/7 because of some hunch, basically. And if someone wants to be a useless tosser of a non-father, they can achieve that in or out of hospital.

If that's WEP's goal then they need evidence that the first couple of days has made a difference to outcomes for long term childcare plus evidence on the impact of women sharing wards with men eg PND rates.

I realise that - but, if from the very beginning the father is expected to take care of the baby too then it just sets an expectation (DP held DS1 before I did - I was in recovery).

If it's the mother who's the one that's there when the midwife shows you how to wash a baby, how to put a nappy on (We had this in Canada - didn't need it, but had it - I don't know if this happens in the UK with baby number 1 before you leave hospital) then she naturally takes control once you get home.

I think for a second baby it all matters less. I just wanted to get home, and I wanted DS1 looked after - DP being the obvious choice there.

I understand all the risks the other way, and yes, we're grown adults, we can of course cope, and we should have the care to help us. But I do see where WEP is coming from.

There are ways to do that which don't impinge the privacy of others though - encourage take up of paternity leave, have use it or lose it periods of paternity leave, improve the tax break if both parents (or single parent plus other close relative) contribute to childcare from earnings.

"Aww, They mean well" isn't enough for political decisions.

I think I can count myself lucky to have been in a pretty good (not perfect) world - DP stayed with my for my first (private room, shared bathroom - in Canada), then for my second, I got home within 24 hrs - and wanted DP with DS1 anyway.

I didn't interact with anyone on the ward - barely even the nurses - couldn't care less about who was where, when (I'd just had a baby, TBH I had very little clue of the time of day myself). I had curtains, I'd like showers that didn't involve a foot hight step and a tiny door I could barely squeeze through (seriously... who does that to people who have just had a c-section!?) before I cared about visitors.

I respect the fact that I was lucky to have given birth for the first time in a country where the national health service could give me my own room. I don't think that would be an unreasonable aim for WEP.

I appreciate that other people feel differently, and from the second onwards have no strong feelings on the matter.

I see where they're coming from though - by involving the father heavily, from the very beginning, they're trying to avoid the mother becoming the default carer.

Just had a look at their equal opportunities monitoring form. Everything else is a ticky-box, but "gender" is a fill-in-your-own-answer option.

That'll be "genderfluid demiboi neutrois" for me, then. Possibly.