Conservatives For Women launch today

Any women here in the Scottish Conservatives? With the Holyrood elections in May, there might be potential for some sort of collaboration with Conservatives for Women?

Yes. I worked in a university and there were cases where young men had groped sleeping or drunk girls at parties. It was reported by the students thta it was a rampant problem. Bear in mind we start university at 17 and have mostly sex segregated schools so these are basically children with no life experience we are talking about. The university responded by hosting workshops on consent which I totally supported.

However, there seemed to be a push from the audience to say that consent should be explicit. For example if a woman sleeps with a man but doesn't explicitly say that she wants to, this could be rape. I have never explicitly told someone that I would like to sleep with them and I think most people my generation would prefer not to have this conversation and tend to rely on implicit consent such as an invitation home for a drink, provided neither is too drunk. I think this is adequate.

The cases where the women were too drunk or tired or even too young to consent are clear cases of sexual assault under even current legislation.

My partner is a member of a political/historical organisation. One night in a pub he frequents a woman aggressively pursued him to the point that his friends told her to go away. It was very strange for a woman to apparently be out drinking on her own and pursuing men in that country so people were suspicious. He ran away when she was smoking. Two years later we found out she was a journalist with links to a far right organisation. I have no doubt it was a trap and I am convinced it will become a more common one.

Can you expand lobelia?

What consent stuff

What workshops

If a woman can prove that she didn't consent then that's rape? What do you mean by 'explicitly consent'?

Why do you think that all and sundry will be done away with by false rape accusations in the face of the stats around rape?

Why are you politically inconvenient? In what way are you being accused by lots of random women and who is taking it seriously?

It sounds difficult and I'd be interested to hear more.

Is anyone else a bit worried about all this consent stuff? I find it weird and I don't know where it's leading to. Whenever I ask about it I get vague responses. I went to a workshop on it and all the women doing the workshop did was say things like "well what do you think?". I was asking straightforward questions like could a man be arrested for rape if a woman had sex with him and later proved that she never explicitly consented. Everyone acted as if I was stupid and just slowly repeated some mantras which were not self evidently true.

I feel like it is going to be used to get rid of politically inconvenient people - they will all be charged with rape. I'm politically inconvenient myself and a few of my friends including my partner have been aggressively pursued by random foreign women that we don't know.

Why are feminists saying this is what women want? I feel like women are never even asked about anything and these self appointed weirdos speak for us on all issues.

That's why they want us, women of all political persuasions to have input!

What are your policies with regard to ending (a) child poverty and (b) air pollution?

It is vital to build a consensus across parties. As others have pointed out, the success of groups like Stonewall is capturing people across the political spectrum so their version becomes the norm. Some issues have to transcend party politics eg IIRC the rough sex defence had cross party support. By all means join up with whatever political group best fits but where there are areas of agreement let’s work together. The only way to resist institutional capture is to show a broad consensus and shine light from many directions.

Yes, both the left and the right are bad for women, because they're completely dominated by men and historical institutional misogyny. We women need to work together for our common interests.

Good to see. I shall follow you on the Twitter. We need less of ‘I won’t work with x’ and more cross-aisle co-operating on issues that affect all women.

@jj1968 Like @KeepPrisonsSingleSex I too know someone who is in a position to verify that story, a cousin, not some friend of a friend of friend! Sometimes it is what it is!

@Anxioustoddler that will probably become a self flulfilling prophecy if enough people think as you seem to and refuse to engage with it. You can't help guide it if you don't engage with it! I'm willing to keep on reading and see where it goes. I can't denounce it, refuse to engage whilst it might be what it says it is!

me too, flo

But these days you can’t do that. Before you so much as follow someone on Twitter you have to forensically scour their entire history since birth and if they once disagreed with you on whether the cream or the jam goes on the scone first, then you have to denounce them. It’s absurd and exhausting and makes respectful public debate impossible.

I always thought the entire point of cross party working was a) to team up with people you don't vote for and b) to work together on the issues you agree on, as opposed to arguing about the ones where you don't

jj1968

That story has been reported in several newspapers and I have had it verified from another source.

The prisoner in question was reported in the prisoners' journal Inside Time as being in the early stages of writing a guide for prisoners about transitioning and the prison process.

What is CWO?

The left are certainly no saints I entirely agree but anyone who thinks the conservative government have anything but distain for women is lying to themselves and any group claiming they care for women who support this sexist, women hating government who have left poor, vulnerable women to suffer for 10 years is also lying.

I mention the ‘race card’ because black/Asian women have disproportionately been affected by and ostracised by this atrocious government and its batshit rules whereas white, middle class women are more likely to vote for them thinking they are somehow above needing to worry about it.

Turkeys voting for Christmas.

You’re right though, it’s not just about race. Making it about race would be almost as stupid as acting as if being on the ‘right’ side of the trans debate is all you have to do to give a shit about women.

@Anxioustoddler I agree that Tories have made life harder for women. However, going for the race narrative just feeds into the identity politics which is destroying the left. There are right wing regimes in many Asian and African countries too. It's not just for the benefit of white people. Also, Labour have a nicer face but they initiated a lot of unnecessary cuts, and destroyed secular regimes in the Arab world which has resulted in women going from relatively equal to banned from leaving home without a man. They are no saints, they laso represent corporations above ordinary people.

This is great.
Happy to be involved with this and the Baronesses party when it comes out.
They will strengthen and not diminish each other.

I'm done with the left. I may be slightly left leaning on economics, but the /woke/socialism crazy town combined with a disturbing authoritarianism has made me an unexpected Tory.
The treatment of women on this issue just underlines the whole rotten core on the left as it is now.

Lol a group who vote for a government who have made many women’s lives unbearable with austerity, benefit cuts and more yet claims they care about women.

What they mean is they care about privileged white women.

Pull the other one.

[quote NiceGerbil]I know it's the mirror but this irritated me. And I wasn't even one of the women in prison competing.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/outrage-transgender-prisoner-living-woman-12022675.amp[/quote]
For the record any story in the tabloids about a prisoner that comes from an anonymous prison source is very likely to be untrue, as we saw with Ian Huntley. Anonymous sources are considered the lowest possible standard of journalistic evidence, and as prisoners cannot sue then the tabloids know they can get away with writing whatever they like about them. This story has very likely come from a recently released ex prisoner, or a screw with a grudge, who's been given a few quid to tell a tabloid hack exactly what they wanted to hear.

We need a party on the economic left with family values. I am a big fan of Joti Brar for her brilliant political synthesis.

Contrary to what the fake left says, most women have fewer children than they want. Making feminism all about abortion and careers means feminism doesn't represent normal women anymore. We want decent housing, decent working conditions and decent childcare so we can be mothers and workers if we want.

I know it's the mirror but this irritated me. And I wasn't even one of the women in prison competing.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/outrage-transgender-prisoner-living-woman-12022675.amp

Fantastic. Finally someone sticking up for us! Womens sport is a huge one for me. It's slowly being eroded by transwomen who lived as men all their life, then suddenly decide to be a female weight lifter for e.gm and break our records.
This might seem like a minor issue, but female professionals, who rely on winning competitions for money are missing out.
I also played a match recently against a transwoman and she was clearly the tallest, strongest, most able on the pitch.
Just to add another thing to the already extensive list!

Representation even