Did anyone see the ITV News piece about of water bills on customers?

Yep.

I deplore any sort of online abuse for any reason, just to be clear.

But this tweet did make me laugh, for other reasons.

It’s such a brain-twisting load of nonsense 🤣

Come on Rosie. Cross the floor and bring the other few sane minds left in Labour with you.

Also with the so called logic that’s being banded about if a man sadly lost his wife and became the only carer of his children and took over the laundry and washing up he would morph into the mother .

it’s ridiculous and insulting . But am I surprised ? No .

@TeaKlaxon

its not policing everyday private conversation , this was on ITV .

And the law says that Mika can call themselves a mother but equally we don’t have to accept that .

All they had to say was “parent” . Don’t really care how mika was dressed or what they were doing ( even though it came across as a parody of what a woman’s work is.

This was deliberate just to wind women up . No doubt about it.

and it has resulted in Rosie Duffield being attacked from all sides . Can you believe it attacked for telling the truth , an MP telling the truth .

it’s a parallel world .

This 'you don't get to dictate what another person chooses to define themselves as' line is getting trotted out a lot.

As a busy yet benevolent Queen Victoria, I'm saying that they can define themselves to me as they choose. And I can in response say that they are talking bollocks and I'm not participating in their fantasy. And that they're actually not just being silly, but extremely offensive to others.

Do you apply that logic in all things? You see no issues if I call myself a policeman in everyday conversation and share my views on crime and disorder? If I call myself a vicar and share my views about the church? Can I call myself a doctor and suggest some improvements to health? Can I call myself 8 years old and join conversations about childhood? Can I call myself gay and give you my thoughts on homophobia? Can I call myself trans and chat about what being trans is all about? Can I call myself TeaKlaxon and explain in conversation how for me, being TeaKlaxon is all about being a person who enjoys being sanctimoniously judgemental?

Or is it just words for women that don't need objective common meanings?

"Mika, can you have the camera crew round your house to film you pretending to be a "struggling mum? ".
Do you think it was actually Mika's place? Mika was so clumsy doing the dishes - it looked like Mika had never encountered a washing-up sponge before. And it could explain why Mika used a washing up bowl as a laundry basket - Mika couldn't find the real thing in somebody else's house.

Yeah , considering that this family are supposedly struggling to pay for "what the kids need" ....why the fuck are they putting on such tiny loads of washing that it doesn't even fill a washing up bowl?

Mika was smiling quite a lot for a struggling mum in dangly earrings and a swishy skirt putting a load of washing on. I don't find it that much fun tbh.

I'm guessing in this case it was directly via TUC. ITV would call TUC press office to say they're doing a story on Thames Water/cost of living/inflation, can the TUC provide a quote/spokesperson/case study. Press office would then call Mika. But that's where it gets weird. You would expect them to say "Mika, can you speak about your policy area as a spokesperson?". But it looks like somehow that turned into "Mika, can you have the camera crew round your house to film you pretending to be a "struggling mum? ". Very odd. Don't know what the TUC were thinking. This was never going to pan out well.

It's because men ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WOMEN.

KNOW YOUR PLACE MERE FEMALE....

Quite. I'm an amoeba now. And a giraffe.

He says he get's whistled at (or cat called) & called a laydeeeeeeeeee 😂

That article absolutely nails it, thank you for sharing. Language and words have power - and no, we didn't all agree collectively that the word 'mother' could be redefined.

'the idea that a biological male can be a mother radically changes what the word mother means. It empties the word of its biological, relational and social truths, of its historical essence, and rules that from now on anyone can be a mother. Male, female, neither, whatever: if you feel like you’re a mum, you’re a mum. ‘Mother’ no longer describes a real person, a real relationship; ‘mother’ is now a mere feeling, as likely to be felt by a man as by a woman.It is hard to think of another word as important to human society as mother. If we let them redefine even this word that binds families and communities together, then we are granting them dominion over reality itself. The power to overhaul a word like mother is a power no one should enjoy. It is cultural autocracy.'

From O'Neill's Speccy piece upthread.

This person has appeared several times on TV shows, so there will be various contacts who have their details on file.

It'll be some connection with someone in the production team. Sure as hell won't be because they knocked on doors in Random Street supplied by Thames Water and asked householders if they'd like to comment as struggling mothers on rising water bills.

I was approached many years ago by a newspaper for a comment on something from a particular 'angle'. They didn't pick me randomly from a list of people in the relevant sector or through any research or publicly available information. It was because the journalist was a friend of another reporter at a different paper who I'd had some brief contact with through work and who still had my number scribbled in their notebook. Yes, it was that long ago.

The looney left attacking a slightly less looney left aspiring PM, over a sane woman pointing out to a looney left union, that a man isn't a mother as known by everyone, bar the looney left.

What a great illustration!

The Spectator's take
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-the-tuc-understand-what-the-word-mum-means/

It's one of the end games - remove the words mother, women etc from women and hand them over to certain men to colonise as their own.

Interesting tweet