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

They were here to tell us what they thought were barriers, they weren't interested in what others thought were barriers.

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Yes, Stella, mothers are busy, especially working mothers. Most women have experienced that. That's exactly tly our point. Do you know who doesn't experience that? Men.

I find it a pity that a useful conversation couldn't be had because of the repetitive questions that MN themselves asked not to be asked over and over and that what could've been a constructive conversation was kind of overrun

There was never going to be a conversation though, Stella in particular was here to promote her this mum votes campaign. They were here to tell us what they thought were barriers, they weren't interested in what others thought were barriers. I raised a question about how the Labour Party ignores abuse aimed at women, that question was ignored. Other questions about misogynistic abuse were met with platitudes rather than meaningful action which would allow women to get involved in politics without fearing the inevitable abuse that would come along with it

We are over half the population. We usually do all the caring for the old and the young. We are the ones most likely to have been raped, abused, stalked, threatened.

And now, politicians want to expand what "woman" means so that males can identify into our group. But they don't want to own it. That's simply not good enough.

We are allowed to ask - in a chat about women and mums - what the terms and definitions are. We are allowed to ask for clarity.

Otherwise, what are we talking about?

A twinkly vanity project to get "mums" to go and vote? Or be kiiiiiiind and let those advocating that people "who do not yet (or perhaps ever) have a GRC" set policies and law that directly affect our lives, our girls' lives, and the lives of our elderly parents?

Yet another - I'm not telling anyone how to "do feminism right" I'm simply giving my opinion and if you read my first post here I explicitly said that I didnt understand. Posters explained and now I do. I hope you dont do this to all new posters here, they'll never get into feminism at this rate.

Eresh Thanks, I'll look out for them 😊

The thing is though that it is such a pressing issue that most women want to discuss it which is why the S&G board has become essentially the FWR board where all sorts of feminist issues are discussed and where most people post and the Chat board has become little used, mildly interesting board.

If you want to have a chat about feminist issues without having to discuss sex and gender, then the Feminism:Chat board is there specifically for your use.

Something I don't understand - The webchat was an important topic, so as feminists why wouldn't you forgoe the incessant and repetitive questions that you knew would lead nowhere, in favour of actually speaking about the topic at hand? What was the point?

I would say there are two points. The first, as a PP wisely pointed out, is that we are yelling "the house is on fire!" while Creasy et al are just focusing on moving the furniture around. You literally cannot talk about getting more women involved in politics when your definition of women includes men, and when a group of very misogynistic, aggressive and determined men are systematically attacking and undermining the idea of women as a distinct class of people.

The other is that Creasy and Nokes need to understand the strength of feeling on this. They are pretending that only a handful of women care about this issue. In fact, the feeling is both wide (ie lots of women are now concerned about this issue) and deep: the women I know - some of whom have never been politically engaged before - are absolutely fucking furious about it, more furious than they've ever been in their lives.

If we have managed to make Nokes and Creasy understand that this is an issue that might actually lose them votes (which is probably all they care about) they might, just might, finally start listening.

Something I don't understand - The webchat was an important topic, so as feminists why wouldn't you forgoe the incessant and repetitive questions that you knew would lead nowhere, in favour of actually speaking about the topic at hand? What was the point?

Because you can't, as a legislator, come to talk, specifically, about WOMEN in politics, to women, when your policy and proposals are not actually about women specifically at all.

If MPs came on to discuss barriers to those with disabilities and policies they wanted to implement for disabled people, and when asked who they meant by 'disabled people' they replied "anyone who wants us to consider them disabled, whether they are disabled or not" then people would, quite rightly, say that your policies won't work if you're going to allow people who are not disabled to benefit from them too, because non-disabled people do not need this extra support,and if they take this extra support then this will just further disadvantage disabled people who will be left with only the dregs of the resources which were for them, while the able-bodied disproportionately further benefited from them.

It would be absolutely outrageous.

But because here it's just women being shafted, nobody is allowed to mention it.

On Twitter it seems like Stella creasy is still smarting about the webchat

She's discussing it with Hadley Freeman and others. It's well worth a read and Stella isn't doing herself any favours.

Wait what - My interpretation of the first "be kind" comment was referring to the thread itself, not the whole topic in general, but could definitely be wrong about that.
I do agree with your points though and dont think that some of the questions were answered in a "good enough" manner, the whole thing seemed a little pointless.

They were trying to sell us something

On Twitter it seems like Stella creasy is still smarting about the webchat

Does she not get that ordinary people don’t believe that anyone can form themselves into woman and they are worried about their children

I think it’s called luxury belief

I'll keep an eye out for the next one and will indeed prep questions if I feel I can bring anything to the conversation.

Great, sounds good. They are usually advertised a couple of days in advance and pinned on the main board.

The main reason I wouldn't go into politics is because of the abuse women in politics get, no matter what their viewpoint. This question was asked during the webchat but the answer was heavily couched in 'be kind' and 'raising the level of the debate' language because politicians across the parties are condoning abusive behaviour if the woman in question has the 'wrong' opinions - there was no indications during that webchat that there is any concrete moves to support women who have views which aren't Stonewall approved.

It was, I also asked a general question about societal misogyny based on JK Rowling's quote and asked what we could do about it, which they didn't answer.

Cosmos - I did search you and I did read both your posts on the previous thread.

I always get curious when posters with names I don't recognise because I've not seen them in any discussions about feminism before come into FWR and lecture women about feminism, how we are 'doing it wrong' and how we should 'do it right'.

I'm just checking their credentials, that's all :)

Until they bit the bullet and were honest about what a woman is, how can we respect anything else that came out of their mouths?

They were talking bullshit and both deserved the bollocking they got.
They were patronising and vastly underestimated us.

Eresh - Yes, you're entirely right about that. I'm simply saying that as an "outsider/lurker" on these boards, I find it a pity that a useful conversation couldn't be had because of the repetitive questions that MN themselves asked not to be asked over and over and that what could've been a constructive conversation was kind of overrun, that's all. I'll keep an eye out for the next one and will indeed prep questions if I feel I can bring anything to the conversation.

Why are people so averse to the idea of female politicians claiming to care about women in politics being asked to justify their contradictory position and define their terms?

That's a 'women, be nice and think of others before yourself' appeal isn't it?

The main reason I wouldn't go into politics is because of the abuse women in politics get, no matter what their viewpoint. This question was asked during the webchat but the answer was heavily couched in 'be kind' and 'raising the level of the debate' language because politicians across the parties are condoning abusive behaviour if the woman in question has the 'wrong' opinions - there was no indications during that webchat that there is any concrete moves to support women who have views which aren't Stonewall approved. The webchat was asking what barriers women face - that is a barrier which is putting women off going into politics but as long as politicians are steeped in the whole 'no debate' agenda of gender ideology, there's clearly no point in engaging. We can have a lovely chat about improving Crèche services for standing MP's until the cows come home but it's not encouraging women into politics, especially those with the 'wrong' views.

The use of the word 'progressive' in this context makes me shudder - it's very 1984.

@YetAnotherSpartacus Did you seriously just search me, take a comment out of context from friend entirely different thread and stick it on this thread? 😂 Good god. If you actually read my posts instead of copying and pasting posts from other conversations, you might see the whole story.

I didn't post a question because I didn't know it was happening, I only read it later on.

Yes, you need to be on the webchat to have any influence on how it goes. It's not the fault of women with important questions that you missed it and don't agree with how it went.

You think questions about women didn't have a place in a convo about women!?

That makes literally no sense.

Simply from what I've seen here on Mumsnet in regard to conversations on these topics, both off and on the FWR board, conversations are "taken over" by the exact same topic time and time again and puts people who arent yet really involved in feminism off the whole thing. It just makes it look like there is only one topic and one topic only and that puts off people, like me, from getting involved. Which is a pity.

In response to your OP, don't feel scared to complain about something you deem worthy, just don't be a dick about it and you won't be considered a Karen

I don't think this is particularly feminist either, Cosmos Lily, but it was something you said on a different thread.

Just saying.

But you and others could have and did post questions and these were also addressed were they not?