Labour lose 3 points - ALL women leaving the party

Men are way more like to be at the very bottom of society (I.e. incarcerated for violent crime) if they are thick, and more like to be at the top if they are very intelligent (CEOs and such like).

How very classist of you. The society I'm looking at seems to have a great many thick men in positions of power for which they completely lack competence.

"Men are way more like to be at the very bottom of society (I.e. incarcerated for violent crime) if they are thick, and more like to be at the top if they are very intelligent (CEOs and such like). But feminists only seem to have a problem with the latter... "

Feminists don't have a problem with men committing violent crimes? Since when?

“I'm a feminist. I am not sure I buy into the idea that gender is a social construct either, there are many different things meant by feminism.”

I’m not a feminist at all and would be offended if someone described me as such, purely because of what the word has come to mean to most people. I believe in equality of opportunity for everyone (not equality of outcome which is essentially socialism) and I believe in treating everyone as an individual. Saying that, I think it’s only right and natural for women to form female only groups and spaces and for women to campaign in groups about issues that primarily effect women. But men should have those same rights too. I would never normally even come to a forum like this, but it was mentioned on UKpollingReport so I was intrigued.

“and there are certainly more things to be concerned about that haven't occurred yet.”

And sadly, many of those things are all too predictable. But this is what happens when an idea that doesn’t conform to reality such as: ‘gender is nothing more than a social construct’ or ‘you are whatever you think you are’ is religiously accepted as true. Once an idea has been swallowed hook line and sinker the ideologue then sees the world through a distorted lense, often seeing problems where none exist and not seeing other things that are obvious to anyone without such a myopic ideological filter between them and the world. In a decade from now I do not want to be hearing about a jimmy savile type predator self IDing to get into a female prison and abusing vulnerable women, but I’ve a feeling I might be hearing about exactly that.

Once principles and ideas are accepted as true they are usually (eventually) taken to their logical conclusions. For example I followed a link from this thread to a site called feministcurrent where there was an article about feminists being called TERFs. The author was complaining about some trans people on twitter saying scary and pretty appalling things such as: if twenty TERFs were beaten bloody then they would be scared to speak. That’s simply violent and thug like/fascist behaviour in my opinion and such threats of physical violence should/would be reported to the police if they happened in the UK. But when the ANTIFA group was saying that about people with right wing political opinions people didn’t seem to care. That is an example of a bad idea like ‘it’s OK to attack certain people for their political opinions to scare them into silence’ being accepted, anyone else can be targeted next. Such an idea needs to be rejected out right, regardless of who the target is, because the next target could be any one of us.

I guess what I’m saying is that this nonsense has come about because a few bad ideas have become accepted as true and it won’t stop unless those roots are re-evaluated.

Things like anti hate speech laws can be used against feminists too as once the principle that certain opinions are illegal to express is accepted then there is no guarantee that it won’t be your opinion that is deemed hateful next. This seems to be already happening in Scotland. Anyway I really just wanted to gauge what people on such a clearly influential thread actually thought so all the replies are appreciated, but I probably won’t post here again as I don’t think this site is really meant for the likes of me. But thanks again:)

But I don’t think helping female prisoners is something most feminists are concerned about because once a person falls below a certain social status almost nobody with any power cares about them.
This is also false.

Bamc, you are arguing against or possibly for a Feminist position that you have misstated.
Writing laws based on the social construct of gender rather than the material reality of sex is not a Feminist position.

i don't know bamc lots of people on this thread have talked about 'people with penises' working in women's refuges, i do think that it matters about the rights of female prisoners, females incarcerated in MH facilities and there are certainly more things to be concerned about that haven't occurred yet.

I'm a feminist. I am not sure I buy into the idea that gender is a social construct either, there are many different things meant by feminism.

“Those people who have a penis - no matter whether they describe themselves as he, she or they - are statistically more likely to commit certain, serious offences against others than those people without penises.“

I think the reason men are way more likely to commit violent crimes is the same reason they are way more likely to become CEOs. I think it’s generally the same personality traits in people with very different levels of intelligence. Men are way more like to be at the very bottom of society (I.e. incarcerated for violent crime) if they are thick, and more like to be at the top if they are very intelligent (CEOs and such like). But feminists only seem to have a problem with the latter... I personally don’t see this as an unnatural state of affairs, because I don’t believe that gender is a social construct. I don’t believe in self identification either for exactly the same reason, because I believe gender more than a mere social construct and is based on biology and therefore thinking your gender is something doesn’t automatically make it so. Anyway self identification does seem to me to be the logical conclusion to feminist theory as I understand it.

And I think this is a real shame and women will be the ones that mostly suffer from it.
Particularly women being forced to share showers with “people with penises” as you put it, I just call them men myself. www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/transgender-murderer-crowned-prisons-miss-12022026

I think in the future the government will bring in laws to make expressing some of the views expressed in this thread (that people are not the gender they say they are) hate crimes. But again that is the natural conclusion to wanting to see another’s freedom of speech prohibited, the exact same tools and laws can be applied against you.

The transgenders in prison issue is the issue I find most concerning though, as many female prisoners tend to be vulnerable women who haven’t had a good start in life and have made mistakes. To think that they could be locked up beside and forced to shower with “people with penises” with a history of violence is something that bothers me. But I don’t think helping female prisoners is something most feminists are concerned about because once a person falls below a certain social status almost nobody with any power cares about them.

Anyway thanks for taking the time to reply.

if I’m wrong and the feminist author was right then why couldn’t anyone just pick their own gender simply by declaring it to be so and change it whenever they wanted to too?

Because sex differences don't just result in discrimination - it puts people at risk.

Those people who have a penis - no matter whether they describe themselves as he, she or they - are statistically more likely to commit certain, serious offences against others than those people without penises.

Removing the social distinctions between those with, and those without, penises, will inhibit crime prevention designed to keep people safe.

I think you've just answered your own question there:
' beyond the physical differences sex was irrelevant'

But the physical differences are there. Pretending that women and men are physically the same is pointless. Pretending that it's a symmetrical split of risk and physical ability is also pointless. Men are stronger and larger on average. Men never get pregnant.

Hi. I came across this thread from UKpollingReport and registered because it’s interesting. Something I wanted to say and a couple of things to ask, if I may.

Firstly, vote how you like but be aware that politicians are interested in power above all else, they wouldn’t be very successful as politicians if this weren’t the case. Therefore if your vote can be taken for granted your opinions are worthless to those seeking election. If you always vote X to stop Y those seeking election as X can safely ignore you.

Isn’t this trans thing just a certain part of feminist theory taken to its logical conclusion? I may have misunderstood this but I read a feminist article that basically said that beyond the physical differences sex was irrelevant and gender was all just a social construct, and that if you couldn’t tell who was a man or a woman simply by looking at them the sexes would do equally well at everything because their would be no sexist discrimination. Now personally I don’t believe for a moment (I believe the sexes are equal but different and left to their own devices will, on average, tend to behave differently and have different life outcomes), but if I’m wrong and the feminist author was right then why couldn’t anyone just pick their own gender simply by declaring it to be so and change it whenever they wanted to too? That seems to be the logical conclusion to ‘gender is a social construct’?

I think self ID will become law in Scotland and is a protected characteristic meaning that saying someone is not the gender they say they are will potentially become a hate crime, what are the views on this?

I'm so fed up of Labour, having been the type that would vote for them pretty much no matter what.

The government are handing them own goal after own goal, and they're not capitalizing on it whatsoever. Because Corbyn doesn't really give a shit about Brexit, and would rather appease UKIP voters than left-wing remainers.

And when they're not failing to do anything meaningful about Brexit, they're erasing my existence and endorsing Madigan's hateful Twitter campaigns.

There's very little left to like.

oh yes, let's not mention the right and brexshit :)

twitter doesn't help either - and this is how we end up with people with no experience running important things. The minimum wage policy was my light-bulb moment - I agree, both labour and the tories in recent times have decided to raise the min wage by dictat without getting the Low Pay Commission to advise, but labour were up for making the biggest (and possibly the most disastrous) untested change.

The SNP were flat wrong about what oil prices would do when indyref was being debated, and afterwards they said 'our estimates were in line with some expert opinions'. So dangerous, being right doesn't matter, as long as you can find one 'expert' that will agree with you then you did your best and that's that. The fact that these things should be done by a balance of what most mainstream experts in the field think doesn't seem to play.

why aren't all the professional experts on their side and jumping up and down for this new 'revolution'?

both the far left and the far right are guilty of discrediting "experts"; so much so that it's become mainstream now.

I despair at the amount of money being wasted because public opinion refuses to accept objective, independent advice. From tree surveys by Parish Councils, to the appointment of Public Inquiry Judges, there is now so much suspicion of "experts" that every decision taken by public bodies is now challenged, questioned and rejected, no matter how democratic, and objective, the process is.

also hats where is the talent, where are the brains? If we were going to launch a revolution, and we believed that massive amounts of state control ARE the solution, why aren't all the professional experts on their side and jumping up and down for this new 'revolution'?

I don't want to see any more badly written blogs or videos making ridiculous claims by people purporting to experts, I want people with proper policy credentials to come forward and support it.

also think people have short memories for economics - we moved away from government control of the economy partly because it was discredited. That said, we need better solutions to runaway house prices, the un-affordability of housing etc for younger people.

I might also add we've seen some of the downsides of PFI and market solutions in the NHS etc, clearly we need better oversight of contracts, many improvements - a second wave of what we've learned about some of the failures of companies involved in the public sector.

I dislike Corbyn et al so much because I don't think they've asked the wrong questions at all, but they are not clever enough in the solutions they're offering. I despair when I talk to my Corbyn loving mates and I get statements about capitalism being bad, and community ownership of everything - pie in the sky stuff.

I'd rather consolidate, refine, improve and make progress on all the gains we have made for social justice and the poorer members of society than lurch for more untested policies. I guess that's why I'm a moderate :)

botanist that's how I see it too - rhetoric such as "irreversible re-nationalisation" implies a degree of state intervention that has not been seen in this country for decades.

Of course, it may be just that - rhetoric - but those moderates who support Labour may want to consider what happened in the USA - many of those who voted for him never expected DT to actually fulfil the promises he made during his campaign and have been somewhat surprised that he is.

governess, I'll have a go, I'm not sure they're far left, but re-nationalisations for example were abandoned by new labour because they weren't a priority, and people generally didn't care much about them as opposed to raising benefits and living standards for the poorest. This created a schism between 'old labour' and 'new labour' as some of the party never wanted to accept de-nationalisations:

So I might say that moderate left wingers (such as myself) take a pragmatic view of doing what works, which can include private sector finance, market based solutions, but the more left wing, like Corbyn, McCluskey, McDonell seem to have little faith in markets or capitalism, that i can discern. Generally they're happy with more state control, regardless of whether that works well in practice, or not.

So you can say that the left can be described as all wanting the best for the many, not the few, but the 'far left' always believe the answer to be government intervention, whereas the more moderate are open to pragmatic solutions.

The right extremes of the tory party, to close the loop, put more faith in market solutions than those of the tories in the soft right who recognise there are many market failures the state can help to correct.

at least that's how I saw that.

Any other new member campaigning against a Labour candidate and trying to remove long standing activists, would be considered a Tory plant.

But I WILL VOTE LABOUR TO GET THE TORIES OUT

Good for you. I won't vote Labour until the current leadership go.

Not sure why you are shouting.

Nothing has changed for women. All parties have always pissed on us from a height. I will ALWAYS vote because of the struggle women had to get the vote. Our struggle isn't physical at least is it? I will vote Labour to get the Tories out for the general good. I have been politically homeless for years and years- I am post-political. But I WILL VOTE LABOUR TO GET THE TORIES OUT

Someone told me last week they did not think current Labour were 'Far Left' at all - I was a bit stuck for an answer - can someone inspire to the reasons why they are far left wing ?

Having a problem with Anti-Semitism, Women etc - I guess doent make them far left per se - so what does far left actually mean ?

Has anyone received a response to their complaint about "the list" yet?

@Patodp Which candidate and where?

Nicholas Davies from Hastings and Rye Labour Party

Lifelong - thanks. I think you're right - a complaint needs to have a proper "hook" in order to be taken seriously and not just dismissed as terfy bullying

The Lily Madigan tweet may be something to do with Miranda Yardley - there seems to be something going on.