Conservative landslide - how are we feeling as feminists?

This was clearly coming.......Labour has fractured, and has lost many of its traditional voters. The tendency is to suggest that the Labour party knew what these voters actually wanted and needed more than they did themselves. I reckon that was Jeremy's thinking, anyway.
And Losing Scotland has cost them dear.Difficult to imagine Labour winning without Scotland and Wales.

Since Jeremy Corbyn selection as leader there has been two Labour parties in parliament. Momentum Labour - and those they seemingly despised, and that were referred to as 'the Blairites'. A culture of bullying and intolerance has grown at grass roots levels - that has seen many MPs and other party members forced out. Revenge and hatred have poisoned the debate.

Gender critical women, and everyone else in the party, was not permitted to speak out openly...and the debate around Self Id and its implications were never taken to the party or the public for debate. dissenting voices were silenced. It took one Tory Mp, David Davies, to be brave enough to speak out on the issue. No senior Labour MP spoke out. Dawn Butler is just awful in her role as women's & equalities spokesperson - she has no credibility and little capability.

For me, the best scenario that it is now possible to see, is that the tories are now going to have to start representing the many disadvantaged and desperate communities it now represents. It can't all be about Brexit now. Hopefully a more 'one nation' sort of Toryism is the best we can hope for. Infrastructure projects, investment, building up public services. that remains to be seen, though.

Agree with the point about Johnson being a populist not an ideologue. Blair has shows how dangerous that is in a leader who can sway with the wind and make major national decisions on the basis of 'I BELIEVE' (a lack of argument, evidence and reasoning that would earn a Year 1 undergraduate a justifiable fail). When a gargantuan ego recieves a large majority it's never good news for the country.

As for Jo Swinson, the loss of her seat is one of the few bright spots I can see on a very day. For me, it's the attitude to women under her leadership that decisively lost them my vote. But because that's a 'women's issue', I'm not under any illusions that a 'fuck off out of my party if you don't believe TWAW' stance is responsible for their overwhelming defeat. That women should move over and be quiet is sadly almost a default stance that only people like us seem willing to question.

This was a Brexit election. In effect, it was the second referendum. Labour suffered catastrophic losses in their heartlands; the core Labour vote there went blue because these are the people who overwhelmingly voted for Brexit. The Lib Dems wanted to do away with Brexit entirely. I'd have voted for that, but it seems my compatriots felt otherwise. I don't think there is any mistaking that this election was a ringing endorsement for the national catastrophe that is Brexit, and many other important issues and consequences will have taken a back seat because LEAVE MEANS LEAVE.

If the majority still sits in the leave camp after seeing at first hand the serious implications, logistical issues and divisiveness that have manifested themselves since 2016, the country will get exactly the future and the government it deserves. Pity that they have to drag the rest of us down with them.

Kicking self-ID into the long grass is a very small silver lining, as is the opportunity of building a new and stronger opposition without the myriad difficulties Corbyn and Swinson brought to the table. In the meantime, it's going to be a long five years.

So despondent today.

Mixed feelings. I ended up voting Labour on the basis of my local MP being good. There wasn't any one party that jumped out as being 'home' for me.

I hope that a comfortable majority means that Boris can stop pandering to the ERG and the extremists.

I'm glad to see that more female MPs have been appointed, and I am hopeful that there will be sensible clarity about gender vs sex. I sincerely hope that Penny and Dawn stay far, far away from women's rights, on the basis that they don't seem to understand what a woman is.

I am worried about the impact to social care and the NHS. However there's a clearly appointed Government which can stand and fall on its own merits, without being able to cast blame on a lack of majority.

I am hopeful that Labour will stand back and listen to what people really want, rather than shouting down those who aren't woke enough or ideologically pure. Corbyn needs to go, pronto, if they are to start rebuilding any credibility.

I'm devastated. Labour are unelectable, at a time when a win for a more moderate and humane government should have been easy,

And its been this government that has pushed for self ID.
Self Identified rapists are in women's spaces including prisons, and included in crime statistics; ts been enabled by this Govt.

Gilead here we come.

More men making decisions about women and for women.

Opposition irrelevant in this parliament

New Labour leader will be female I think. The point about not having a female leader is one which bothers Labour members who will be voting for the leader.

The mistake that's likely to happen is mistaking a lack of female leader as the problem for the party rather than Labour's problem with small town versus metropolitan centres. It's the social justice warrior issue which fails to bring along people and instead imposes ideals and values.

Labour members will vote in their own image for a leader which is why someone less woke is unlikely to win a leadership election.

That's ultimately going to be an issue.

The self id issue is reflective of a wider problem of failing to recognise the problems of working class women and instead favouring authoritarian top down virtues.

One stat I remember from Caroline Craido-Perez's book is that the more female MPs a party has, the less likely the leader is to be a woman. Labour has had better percentages of female MPs than the Conservatives for quite a while, but always a male leader. I really can't see that changing.

If it’s going to be 5 years til Labour get anywhere near again then one of the few positives is that so much can happen before we get near a law change. Think of the differences in the last year alone. We have time for sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. We will work hard and so will our favourite Sherpas.

With more female than male lab mps, statistically the leader is more likely to be female...

Just hope they pick a good one.
Just had a google of that Rotherham PCC, Sophie Wilson.
Sounds like it was a disastrous choice to put her in.
They replaced a 73yo bloke with decades of experience a 23yo councillor with silly woke views and expect the electorate to go with it.

Yeah bovary. From twitter below which sums it up. Rother Valley has been a safe Labour seat since it was created more than 100 years ago. It doesn't have one Tory councillor. Then Momentum selected a middle class 23 year old trans rights activist who called child abuse survivors 'trash' if they had concerns about a strip club

Seriously? That is just dire. Social media has created an self righteous, shouty echo chamber which informs Labour’s policies and this is the upshot. The electoral map shows wipeout in the North and Midlands. I do think that Swinson’s loss will really focus attention on the GC issue. I agree with what many posters have said about writing to their MP to press this point.

With more female than male lab mps, statistically the leader is more likely to be female...

The new Labour leader will be chosen by its members. Will there be time for new signups to get a vote? I know there is a minimum three month membership requirement in the Conservative party.

Wow, RedToothbrush - interesting to see the number of female Labour MPs!

I generally feel the same as the OP. I think the consequences of having a Tory government are going to be disastrous for women, particularly poorer women, but I doubt very much they will implement self-ID, and as they're going to be in power for five years, we can hopefully stop worrying about it for a while. Though obviously we still need to fight battles with the various organisations like Girl Guides, the NHS etc who are behaving as if self-ID is already law.

Yeah bovary. From twitter below which sums it up

Rother Valley has been a safe Labour seat since it was created more than 100 years ago. It doesn't have one Tory councillor. Then Momentum selected a middle class 23 year old trans rights activist who called child abuse survivors 'trash' if they had concerns about a strip club..

But they were talking about it last night and they felt patronised by corbyn and London labour and that labour now doesn’t have a clue about ordinary people’s lives

llittlebrowndog

I think that’s what has annihilated them in the North. Labour have lost constituencies they held for a hundred years. If that doesn’t trigger some sober analysis of their message, presentation and leadership? That doesn’t involve demonizing the voters they need, I don’t know what will.

Labour: 104 women, 98 men

Conservatives: 87 women, 277 men

Lib Dems: 7 women, 4 men

SNP: 16 women, 32 men

DUP: 1 woman, 7 men

Sinn Fein: 2 women, 5 men

He’ll = hell

I don’t like BJ and think he’s a privileged nob that is completely out of touch with society as a whole, however he’ll slap it up the Labour Party and all the woke bros. Aren’t we always being told that ‘every vote counts’? So they haven’t lost entirely due to their betrayal of women, but those women and their families that voted against them or spoiled their vote, helped put another little nail in Labour’s coffin. How’s that ‘right side of history’ working out for you ‘folks’? 😁

I'm also thinking of rejoining Labour now.

I feel mixed - sad yet oddly relieved and ashamed at feeling relieved. The only silver lining for me is that with Corbyn gone at least there is a chance to build a Labour party which isn't based on Momentum cult policies. Such a huge defeat must make Labour realise that they are unelectable in their current state?

My female Labour MP was replaced by a male Conservative MP.
In the adjoining contituencies, 2 more female Labour MPs were replaced by male Conservative MPs.
Not good.
Yet there are more women in parliament than ever before...mixed result on that front.

Relieved Jo Swinson has gone. Hopeful that gender neutral loos are consigned to history.

But pretty alert about maternity rights if we leave the EU. Not belligerent exactly, more aware....

What Lang said

I game with about 80 men they are plumbers plasters car mechanics who would have been labour voters

But they were talking about it last night and they felt patronised by corbyn and London labour and that labour now doesn’t have a clue about ordinary people’s lives

Good about self ID

Sort of relieved but also sad Labour have made themselves so unelectable.

Perhaps an organisation like Woman’s Place could request a meeting with all the new female MPs to set out the position of GC feminists. I’m sure there are some returning MPS who would help facilitate a meeting of some kind.

That's a great idea, CaveMum!

OP - in response to your earlier question, as a woman I can still call myself a woman and feel it means to the government what I feel it means to me. I believe that the people looking to undermine that viewpoint have less of a mouthpiece, certainly in the short term whilst sorting their own houses out takes the heat out of their movement, which will help stop the steam roller if momentum it has. There are more women MPs, that gives breadth to discussions. I think this is a good thing. Yes some good women MPs have lost their seats, and you never know - these might be better.