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

But its an influential book in many ways and on many people.

(which I should probably actually get my arse into gear to read!)

Why ‘This mum votes’?

Is the underrepresentation of mums in parliament particularly bad compared to that of women as a whole?

Or is it that motherhood is something that recently happened to Creasy?

Just something I’ve been pondering

The biggest problem with politics. People who decide the solution based on ideology and then fit the problem to it to suit the solution, rather than people who identify the problem and then find the right solution.

Good management is based on the principle of identity the problem correctly, think of a range of solution, assess the solutions and work out the pros and cons of each solution, then adopt a strategy including plans to mitigate the negative consequences.

Politics traditionally used debate to do this. When you ditch debate and instead just install soap boxes or recruit people with similar ideologies and deliberately exclude those who don't share the same opinions, what do you think happens?

You get runaway ideologies without restraint.

Madness.

I'm all for respectful debate, but Stella's tweets today have convinced me of two things.
I would never support her Misogyny bill because she has no bloody clue what a woman is. I am definitely with Joan Smith on this one now. Stella would end up with a bill that TRAs would use to persecute women.
And secondly however terrible this current govt is (and my God they're bloody terrible) I cannot vote for people who spout such disingenuous, offensive rubbish. She thinks she knows better than all the hundreds of women in her replies, no attempt to see why we are so angry. No attempt to engage and answer their questions about real life situations.
Oh and thirdly she's so bloody offensive to Sarah Everard's memory. Just mind boggling.
Just a bit gobsmacked by her puerile nonsense. I'm done giving these people the benefit of the doubt.

Good quotes, Red. Is that where Douglas Murray got his title from?

Re Stella Creasey - she may be talking mince, but I'm slightly impressed she's still engaging at all.

I reiterate an invitation to her to come back and have a webchat where we really get into the details of these issues.

I am also wondering about why politicians agree to do MN webchats, and am suspecting it might be a form of hazing or a forfeit or part of an archaic and elaborate dare game:

'Either run round Parliament Square stark bollock naked on a Friday afternoon, or do a Mumsnet webchat'

I think there's some merit to the idea, but you still need people to pull it all together and that still involves gatekeeping.

You need to improve the gatekeeping.

There is a book from 1841 which discusses how cultures 'go mad'

It has some great quotes, which you can find at the bottom of the wiki summary here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

"We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first."

and

"Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome."

What is twitter, but a vehicle which is driving a number of these follies? Also see FB and conspiracy theories.

May I just saw that this thread is utterly fucking awesome.

So many women who are furiously politically engaged. I love all of you, you keep me going when I'm thoroughly heartsick of it all.

I'm copying my limerick over from the haiku thread just because I'm so pleased with it:

There once was a woman called Stella, who said misogyny could apply to a feller.
She came on this site, women thought she was shite,
And decamped to Twitter to tell her.

Nice ratio on that Wayne Couzens tweet. 3hat the hell is she thinking tweeting shit like that?

Lots of different groups 'suffer' under patriarchy. But it's not the responsibility of feminism or women to fix it and crucially it's not what the debate between women and TRAs is about. Ask TRAs who suffers most ... and they will - despite all facts and statistics to the contrary - say its transwomen. Now, any Labour politician should be familiar with class analysis and be able to see why that is bullshit from earning potential to caring responsibilities; from DV and sexual harassment to lack of representation.

The other thing Stella is doing and has been doing all over Twitter since this was picked up - is trying to show she is firmly not GC. I think she's doing that because she doesn't want the TRAs looking too closely at the webchat. She won't want them to see she supported Rosie. She won't want them to read that she thinks women should be able to talk about periods, pregnancy and cervixes without being told its exclusionary. And she won't want them to read that she thinks there's no excuse for abusing women. Any one of those points could bring the TRAs down on her head.

There are many fiercely intelligent, well read, highly life experienced women who post here who would make outstanding MPs. With things like integrity, sense of duty and knowledge of basic things in real life like safeguarding.

I suspect Stella knows that she is wrong on this issue.

There are better ways to do this. Like organising an event for grown ups - women who like politics but would never go into it, and see where that gets you rather than coming up with 'Mums in politics' which goes with the stereotype of prams and baby brains from the get go.

The whole damn thing was set up on the basis of really quite backward stereotypes. Whether that was Creasy/Nokes or MNHQ but boy did it set the scene for a clash of politicians dumbing down to women who can eat them alive because they are so politicised.

I kind of despair tbh.

What do we pay MPs for if it's not to take the time to fully consider important issues like this. It makes me so angry that she is being paid a handsome salary by us, refuses to sort out child care and then is so ignorant on such an important issue. It has made me reconsider my views on our whole parliamentary system. I had quite a serious conversation last night about the merits of a randomly selected parliament. People would be called up to parliament like we are now for jury service. The current system is simply not giving us the calibre of people that we need.

This means that the room for parties to make fundamental changes to allow women to be more heard, effectively lie within parties, not so much as council meetings where people are elected.

I'm sure most people are 'lost to politics' long before they ever even consider sitting on a parish council in this way.

Its a big of an eye opener to find out that the important decisions and priortisation has already been decided before it even reaches somewhere, which has public accountability or transparency.

It means if you are deliberately shut out of party discussions, you are even less likely to get heard at council level. If you cant get someone to support your issue, then it can be binned off straight away. Its an easy dynamic with this set up to term anything you simply cant be bothered with as 'niche' and bin it off as unimportant.

The village hall commitee I'm on is almost entirely composed of women but the only two men used to take over the conversation entirely at every meeting. It took women threatening to resign, stating that as an issue, before the (male) chair took it seriously and changed the format of the meetings. Men always seem to take over these sorts of meetings, even if there is a majority of women.

Either we are neighbours, Red or this is a common pattern ...

And if you did make it there, you'd need Jackie Weaver levels of sufferance to handle the raging power-mad egodicks.

Wow, you've met my local council?

Oh wait.

Stella askes

'What barriers have I had to overcome?'

When the real question is

'What barriers STOPPED other women?'

Fundamental but crucial difference.

She's so nearly there with Wayne Couzens but somehow fails to put 2 and 2 together.

What happened if Wayne Couzens decided to identify as a woman tomorrow so he didn't have to serve his sentence in a male high security prison?

a) what would stop him doing so?
b) what is the process he would go through, and would this potentially be 'transphobic' or put women at risk?

If the answer to a) any is anything but 'he couldn't' then how do you deal with b)?

There is nothing in law to stop Couzens exploiting this. Thats the point!

What safeguards women if you just blindly accept that any male can just decide they are female?!

Oof. More a demonstration/performance than an actually useful, informative, galvanising session?

Both have benefited - it seems - from various lucky circumstances. So we'd be better off having ... oh, I don't know. Any working class mothers in the HoC? Who didn't go to Uni? Who don't have access to childcare? To hear more about how women could overcome some of the barriers we face.

I did think the points about local politics were very pertinent. I can't and most women/mothers can't attend our wee retired boy's club community councils. No attempt to even consider the situation of mothers/carers, etc. And if you did make it there, you'd need Jackie Weaver levels of sufferance to handle the raging power-mad egodicks.

Stella, for goodness' sake. Step away from Twitter. Come back on MN and have a calm, chilled out discussion on here. You'd be very welcome, we could explain things clearly.