Ahem.... FWR headlines in the Mail

Where has the term culture wars come from?

It has been widely discussed in political science for many years.

It is strategic and nothing to do with caring about the issues, but rather exploiting issues to divide everyone into us and them.

The Tories don't give a shit about women's rights, but in this issue they have found a way to counter their traditional problem attracting female voters, without having to pledge a penny of public spending on women's issues.

Where has the term culture wars come from?

I don't know the actual origins but I've taken it as a partial homage to C P Snow's Two Cultures Rede Lecture.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Where has the term culture wars come from? It seems to be around a lot all of a sudden not sure why this topic gets it as a descriptor.

I don’t see it as that, more that an issue is important to me and one party is ignoring that pretty well and has been for a while.

I’d also say this is something that has been pushed up by every day women - on here and elsewhere rather than stirred and forced upon us.

If you compare the posts on here it’s been prevalent for ages - and it’s taken time for any media to notice.

@MrsWooster I am not saying preserving women only spaces does fuck all for women, but I do not think the Tories are motivated by doing anything to help women. I think they are making a lot of this in order to stoke culture wars, encourage division and encourage women to vote for them. I think the issue is being used by the Tories - the Tories do not give a fuck about women full stop. They are using this issue as they would use any issue.

I wish they'd quoted some of the dinosaur username changes just after David Lammy's ridiculous statement. Might have had some impact

I too am green with envy at getting a text from Datun

It's a bit like being stranded on a deserted island, dying of thirst and hunger, and then a ship appears in the horizon. It's our ship, it will rescue us!

But it chooses to sail past, knowing that doing that will make us suffer.

Another ship appears in the horizon. It's their ship! It's a bad ship. But it stops, picks us up and gives us food and water. What to do?

That's great! Love the usernames being quoted in the paper

The DM has been fantastic on this issue and over the past few years I've gone from being a rabid DM-hater to quite a fan.

Labour opened the door. I don't know how they can be surprised that the Conservatives walked right on through. We have been telling Labour for years about our concerns, they didn't want to listen and basically told us to fuck off. It really is up to them to sort themselves out.

I see this as finally getting sunlight

Even the mn feminism board is part of the overall push back, many have been talking about it for a while

Sorry for the over-use of 'fuck' and 'fucking'

It is not possible to overstate how much I despair at the dreadful record of this government on women's issues.

I think it is disgusting that the Tories are using this issue to inflame disagreements and wage yet another culture war, the Tories do not give a flying fuck about any women's issues, ceratinly not:

• Equal pay
• VAWG
• Rape conviction rate

etc., etc.

This is just a fucking convenient way of stirring up anti-Labour sentiment whilst doing fuck all for women in real life.

It is because the Daily mail supports the Tories in the local elections, local election campaigns launched last week, Daily Mail wants to distract people with culture wars instead of:
Johnson is a liar
- Partygate
- Corruption and sleaze

• Cost of living*

Yes, this seems much more likely.

• Johnson is a liar
• Partygate
• Corruption and sleaze
• Cost of living
• Johnson is a liar

This issue is a useful one for the DM, it does not give a fuck about women's rights really but it is useful at this time.

It is still odd that the Mail coverage over recent weeks has been so turbo charged.

Could it be linked to the LGBT++++ conference that Boris had planned for the summer, presumably linked to a raft of LGBT+ announcements. The Mail ups the ante, ensuring that it’s naturally GC readers are aware of the issues. Boris reins back on his plans, upsetting Stonewall in the process, and Labour can’t make too much fuss because they know their line is not popular with many of their traditional voters.

With a bit of inwardness in that the person in No 10 seen as Stonewalls (and Carries) key ally seems not to have the Mail on his side. In a three way fight for Tory leadership between Boris, Rishi and Liz, I think the Mail would plump for Liz, who as equalities minister has done a good job of rowing back some of the extraordinary influence a single lobbying group, Stonewall, has had in Whitehall.

Shall all the left-leaning women who are sick of the Guardian ignoring this issue, write a letter to the Ed to tell them that, for publication? Maybe the three campaigning orgs could draft it and we could all sign it? Ditto the Independent? Newspapers don’t tend to ignore stories of proven huge reader interest for very long, so today could be a really good day to do this.

Great idea, Slothtoes. I’d sign it.

The old divisions are not as clear-cut here as I would have expected. The same might apply to the newspapers. The Mail has always been terrible on feminism and women's presumed biological natures, and they are unlikely to have changed overnight. Their motives in publishing here are not the same as ours, but right now they at least provide some sunlight. We can continue fighting them on their sexism and misogyny, while acknowledging that they are among the few outlets which publish gender critical views.

Let's get voters to argue about anything, as long as it isn't socio-economic class.
This is totally plausible, a political tactic that’s much easier to do in this age of social media and information overload. We need to be alert to protect democratic values and our democracy so that we can have debate and still be cohesive enough to resist authoritarianism together, wherever it comes from.

Great post MissLucy

They amplify our voices.

And we do their research for them!

Sanchez Manning in particular has been great. Journalists on tabloids tend not to get the same recognition as those on broadsheets, but she has been writing good articles alongside Janice Turner in The Times and James Kirkup in the Spectator from the getgo.

Chapeau!

Sorry meant "women" accused of male crimes.

The DM, MoS and MailOnline have covered the Gender Wars for several years now (at least as far back as the Man Fridays in 2018). Every outrage that we share on here and elsewhere has been picked up by them. They publish articles by people like Maya, Kathleen Stock, Jenni Murray, Julie Bindel. They publish pictures of wom,en accused of male crimes that make their natal sex clear.

They amplify our voices.