Mark Drakeford, First Minister Wales: women's concerns a 'shrill dogwhistle'

I love that Enfield/Whitehouse sketch.

Excellent tweets from Merched Cymru! Archived now, too: https://archive.ph/LDLTx

Good. Well done, all of them.

https://www.facebook.com/979485022187968/posts/pfbid02UffQEVW6iH5mUMy8Y3gu34p7x7WEpdaQFNKM5u3vYZwNe1zCEwGgCYrA7URMxvMAl/?sfnsn=scwspmo

Link if you have FB apparently only Tories would think that Drakeford was out of order.

Just been following the FB comments on the nation cymru page the misogynists have crawled out in force

Merched Cymru have made a formal complaint to the Senedd Commissioner for Standards about what has happened: twitter.com/MerchedCymru/status/1656370180472074245

Laura herself made a formal complaint to the Senedd’s Presiding Officer, Elin Jones regarding the use language which she says was “discriminatory, sexist and offensive”.

Nation Cymru has covered it too.
https://nation.cymru/news/first-minister-accused-of-sexist-jibe-in-senedd/

It's a pity a man in the senedd doesn't stand up and support her. Drakeford would have to whistle up another demeaning adjective.

Very interesting post, @ArabeIIaScott Thank you.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/27/eight-words-sexism-heart-english-language

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-shrill-bossy-emotional-language-gender.html

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-century-of-shrill-how-bias-in-technology-has-hurt-womens-voices

https://www.bustle.com/articles/140093-5-ways-to-stop-describing-womens-speaking-habits-because-shrill-is-a-gendered-term

https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/the-taming-of-the-shrill/

'Low voice pitch, a highly salient marker of maleness, is also strongly associated with authority. In 2012 an experimental study using digitally manipulated recordings of men and women saying ‘I urge you to vote for me this November’ found that judges of both sexes preferred the lower pitched version of each recording. Both men and women were advantaged by having a lower voice than their same-sex ‘rival’.
This association is what makes the word ‘shrill’, which combines the concept of high pitch with the idea of an unpleasantly piercing sound, such a common criticism of female public speakers. The linguist Nic Subtirelu has investigated the use of ‘shrill’, along with two other terms that do a similar job, ‘shriek’ and ‘screech’, in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. He calculates that the media are
2.17 times more likely to describe a woman or a girl as “screeching” (or a related form of the word) than a man. A woman or girl is also 3.14 times more likely to be described as “shrieking” (or a related form of the word), and she’s 2.3 times more likely to be described as “shrill”.'

https://time.com/4268325/history-calling-women-shrill/

IME men call women 'shrill' when they want them to be silent.

Nothing to do with the tone of their voice; it's a not-very-subtle reminder that they are female, and should know their place, and be silent.

To all you said here -
what an accurate analysis, thank you for laying that out so clearly, OldCrone · Today 13:30

Mark Drakeford in January:
Wales should have a gender self-identification system similar to the one approved in Scotland, Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.

Mark Drakeford yesterday:
I'm simply not going to get drawn into the shrill and deliberately divisive debate that the Member continuously attempts to raise on the floor of this Senedd ... The Member and people like her spent the whole of April trying to raise these dog-whistle concerns ... Don't come here and tell me that I don't understand people's priorities when you pursue an agenda that is designed exclusively to divide people, when our job should be to try and unite people in pursuit of basic decencies.

So in January bringing in gender self-ID for Wales was something that Drakeford thought was really important. Now debating this is a 'dogwhistle concern' that the Tories are trying to draw him into.

If he doesn't want to discuss his position on this issue, perhaps he should withdraw his support for a change to the GRA which would remove women's rights.

He wants to bring in a deeply divisive law without any debate, while claiming to try to "unite people in pursuit of basic decencies" but accuses his political opponents of pursuing "an agenda that is designed exclusively to divide people".

How can it be democratic if your responses are muted?

Anyone who watched that would know that Laura Ann Jones was far from "shrill". She spoke calmly in a normal tone of voice. But I guess whenever women say things men don't like, that makes them "shrill".

Drakeford is vile. Just vile.

Not wanting to answer questions on this topic is a standard Labour position though

I wouldn’t feel too comfortable that it’s only for a man going through sad stuff

There's more detail in this article about the rape and assault and the child sex offence he was also jailed for:

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/jonathan-drakeford-jailed-rape-assault-15181933

At his trial the court was told that he had an IQ of 68 and is autistic.

His son was convicted of a very nasty rape preceded by beating the woman, he’d gagged with her underwear, with a paddle. She will never get over it.

He had also tried to meet a 15 year old for sex.

He sounds mentally unsound though with autism, and the IQ of a 10 year old. He must be very vulnerable in prison. Perhaps he does say he is a trans woman now.

His father must be very disturbed by what has happened, and his wife’s death. But that does not give him the right to take his fury and unhappiness out on a female member of the Senedd.

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/jonathan-drakeford-jailed-rape-assault-15181933

His son was convicted of rape (and may be autistic).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45600558

Pluvia · Today 10:43
I don't know if your parents are aware of the rumours going round that Drakeford's son, in jail for rape, has transitioned in prison and may be having a hard time as a result — hence Drakeford's apparently emotional involvement in this issue. To some people this seems the only explanation for the way he is behaving

Ah. His son may be a misogynist too if he was fairly convicted of rape, and he would be another rapist saying he is really a woman. Can this possibly be true though? It would be such a coincidence given the recent events around the (male) rapist “Isla Bryson” wanting to change gender in prison.

If this is true Mark Drakeford should recuse himself from this subject.

You can see who his rapist Son got his views on women from.

Personal sadness aside I think Labour are buoyed by local election results and will react like this generally

AlecTrevelyan006 · Today 08:21
Why is he so angry?

I read his wife died in January, and that during lock-down he was mostly separated from her because of vulnerabilities.

His behaviour here was unacceptable though. He should step down if he is not OK.

And yet despite everything he says and does he'll still get voted back in here. I don't know what it would take for Labour to lose power, I blame the people like my Grandmother who won't vote for anyone else because apparently "Labour have done so much for Wales" 🤦‍♀️

worrieddragon · Today 09:49

It's extraordinary that in the floor of the Senedd a question can simply go unanswered, with just a response that 'Only a bigot would ask that question'.

Drakeford is an odious moral pygmy. He couldn't answer the question, because he didn't want to, as he knows that any response from a TRA angle would make him look utterly ridiculous.

He's playing to the "righteous, right on" brigade, who see fascists round every corner. I hope he does a Full Sturgeon, too, with legal investigations into him and his nasty chums.

It reminds me of the politician in Aus calling women turds

Left wing men are cut from the same cloth

Anyway due to this thread I’ve sent a thank you to Laura Anne Jones, the more the support is recognised the better