Mumsnet Webchat about women/mums in politics with Stella Creasy and Caroline Nokes - 1st February

The Staniland question has been asked. Will they answer

There are lots of questions about the abuse faced by women on line and in the media, and if we all simply argue about the definition of a woman we are playing right into the hands of men who want us to do that.

Well that certainly answered my question even though it wasn't directed at my question.

'Women can not define themselves because of what men will have to say about it'

That certainly means that women in politics are not free to represent women without the 'approval' of men.

Which pretty much sums up my utter dismay at politics and how women aren't represented and female politicians live in a culture of fear.

Colour me absolutely shocked Noskes wants to include all the male women thereby rendering everything she says utterly meaningless.

There are lots of deletions of posts showing dissatisfaction with the answers. Caroline Noakes seems to have her fingers in her ears and is saying blah, blah, blah.

I think everyone should stop engaging with the webchat.
Do they not know that women have the vote ?

One of the early replies:

"I think it is really important to focus on this being a chat about how we get more women involved in public life. I want that to be all women, natal women, transwomen, and those who self-identify and do not yet (or perhaps ever) have a GRC.

There are lots of questions about the abuse faced by women on line and in the media, and if we all simply argue about the definition of a woman we are playing right into the hands of men who want us to do that."

Ive just looked through the profiles of the female members of the shadow cabinet.

Whats striking is how many studied at Oxford and how many had close family members already actively involved in the Labour Party or Unions.

Again given the subject of the webchat I find it hard to ignore when the webchat is about getting more women into politics.

It also seems exceptionally rare to have children and then go into politics late.

The cabinet women don't have the same background in party politics / unions on their wiki bios which is interesting. They also seem to have done a wider number of things before going into politics as a rule.

It could be the way they are written up on wiki, but I find it interesting.

Again Oxford and Cambridge feature significantly though.

I think routes into politics from those who don't go to university, routes into politics for 'mature candidates' (return to the work place strategies) and routes into politics for those looking to change career would be bloody good things to consider.

I forsee a positive LFT any second now

They are having a few technical issues...apparently

I wasn't aware of this before I just looked this up, but I think its extremely relevant to the conversation.

It is, good point.

Creasy's This Mum Voted was a really good idea but executed badly I think, just difficult to take someone seriously when they don't know what a woman - or a mother - is.

I remember her blocking people on Twitter when mums asked about their daughters and whether they should have privacy afforded to them in single sex spaces.

It's become impossible to ignore politically, that's what's happens with the bleeding obvious though. Very interested to see the answers, if the wind direction has changed...

The webchat is going to be very short if they ignore the questions around women's rights. It's great to see posters who aren't regulars on FWR raising these issues.

Having asked, early on, "What is a woman?" I was going to go back and ask Caroline Nokes about the mistakes she made in her Guardian article. However, I see TinselAngel has already done that. Various other questions I might have asked eg about women in prisons and so on have also already been asked.

Are you allowed more than one question? If not, could someone go on and pose the Staniland question? Here it is:

Do you believe that male-sexed people have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with teenage girls?

'Scripted' is exactly a word i was trying to think of. Scripted presentations rather than engagement.

But my overall feeling was one of 'what's the point?'.

I feel like women are an after thought in politics and even now its a dynamic of who is allowed to speak and its not women stating what political priorities should be.

Its not lost on me that women with young children are THE single most unrepresented group at all levels of politics.

We hear about diversity of representation and i think there this MASSIVE group who are effectively continually told that they aren't important in various different ways.

I think the result is we will get wet this is what labour want or this is what the Tories have done and you'll go 'is that it?' in a sense.

In terms of representation women cannot go into politics in the same numbers as men because they are too busy in the home looking after the kids. Thats still back decades.

If you want working class single parent womeb to be represented democratically, how do you enable that at all levels? I cant help but feel for all the talk, theres a deliberate missing of the point.

We get rather patronised second class status as voters. And we get told almost that we should be grateful when ever there is the most minor acknowledgement of sex being a politically relevant issue.

I don't think any party is really actively trying to change things. Theres too much self interest involved and no political incentive to say things like 'how do women afford childcare if their wage is less than the cost of it, and what knock on effects does that have?'

Until childcare is subsided enough, all other conversations about women in politics or womens political issues pretty much come second.

Then add a nice layer of abuse, harassment and institutionalised sexism and you do just give up.

Men get encouraged to speak up. Women get berated for having opinions.

No deep debate will come of it. Its just an opportunity to virtue signal rather than engage.

I will be amazed if its anything more than superficial box ticking and presenteeism. 'oh look we went on mn and debated with women, thats how involved we are and how much we care'.

There was a run of questions on topics not on biology/woman - I wonder if they will get the attention following a cleverly scripted non-answer to the other questions.

I expect a comment on the suicide stats, they should not be allowed to get away with fake facts.

All these webchats should start with:

1. What is a woman?
2. Is there a conflict between women's rights and men's rights to enter women's spaces?

In the unlikely event that they give truthful answers to 1 and 2, then a follow up:

1. Are they intending to choose a side?

Then at least we know where we stand. As it is, every recent webchat has resulted in bannings for asking questions so find them pointless. I would be very happy to be mistaken this time.

How lovely to see such great questions already asked. Well done, wims of Mumsnet.

Quite.

I'll bet on a general blurb that women is a mixed sex group and that's fine and in no way renders talking about women and mums in politics a bit of a chocolate teapot (but is jolly nice)

There is no elephant galloping madly around the room. Really.

Women's rights are in no way affected and single sex spaces will be protected while at the same time supporting male people to use women's spaces as they wish. How these two things can possibly exist in the same space will be avoided like the plague.

What we do with the female people who are completely excluded, access removed, diversity shoved under the carpet and marginalised females getting even more marginalised from key services? Whoosh there goes another elephant and nobody saw it.

Everything is lovely and none of this is happening.

Every question asked about female people will result in an immediate reminder of how difficult life is for male people who are trans - as if this somehow disappears the female issue and works as a logical answer. But there will no explanation of why.

This should be good.

Especially since if MNHQ delete all the questions on sex/gender then there will be only 2 questions left.

Both of which are about things which are due to sex.

But I expect both of them to say TWAW, no Co flict of rights, EA protects single-sex spaces, and I also expect both of them to whinge about how the worst abuse they've had as MPs is from feminist women.

Let's see.

“trans are the most marginalised blah de blah”. If they do this all the follow up questions should simply request the evidence for this statement.