Gender Criticals - how are you going to vote in the election?

I’ll be voting Tory for the first time ever because my MP is onside and I don’t trust Labour on this issue at all.

@FKATondelayo I agree. I’ve never seen anything about the “rolling back of reproductive rights” as Tory party policy so I can only assume that a) somehow all right wing parties are lumped together as having the same policies and American right wing is the same as UK right wing etc, and b) it’s Project Fear to scare us all into doing The Right Thing and voting Labour.

But there are now extremists in the centre, it seems to me. I don't want to vote for a party which is going to roll back rights that women won, for example, 200 years ago thanks to Elizabeth Fry.

@Kucinghitam "What I've learned from many years of scolding by Good People on here, is something along the lines of...

Expressing an opinion that is different r

I'm perfectly aware no rights can be taken for granted but I find the chatter about reproductive rights being at risk in the UK under a Tory government quite bizarre. There is simply no evidence that the Tories are anti-abortion. - we've had them in power for 13 years (including in partnership with the DUP!) and the direction of travel has only been towards more liberalisation (tele-abortions, northern Ireland). Thatcher was pro-choice ffs.

While we should never take our eye off the ball (northern Ireland again) I am very cynical about those import US culture wars into UK discourse. I'd go further and say pro-choicers who are trying to centre abortion in mainstream British political debate 50 years after legalisation should be very careful what they wish for.

Plenty of people in the Labour party want safe auto-erotic asphyxiation on the school curriculum and managed sex work zones like Leeds Holbeck. Plenty of weirdos on both political party fringes (or mainstream).

No idea. Labour is most likely to reduce the SNP majority so that’s v tempting - but they don’t seem to have grasped that humans can’t change sex so because this issue is so important to me I might hold my nose and vote Tory.

What I've learned from many years of scolding by Good People on here, is something along the lines of:

• Don't not vote, that's Not Good.
• Don't vote Tory, because that's Not Good.
• Don't spoil your ballot, only idiots do that and anyway nobody will notice and it's Not Good because you owe Good Parties your vote.
• Of course, Good People won't go so far as to instruct you where to put your X, because that doesn't seem quite like a Good Thing to do... but... You do want to be Good, don't you? So you know what to do, don't you? Don't you?

You're allowed to want that.

Meanwhile I would like to have a mainstream party to vote for that doesn't actively hate women.

Since there isn't one, I can't vote for one.

I have done that and can't vote for either of the main parties.

Not that it makes a jot of a difference in my area which is, and always will be a Tory stronghold.

I don't believe that voting for a party you don't agree with on a fundamental issue will remove extremism either, it supports it.

A vote for Labour as it currently stands is a vote for gender extremists.

Look at how they are promoting Eddie Izzard whilst stabbing Rosie Duffield in the back and tell me that they are not extremists!

@lifeturnsonadime "
So what would you have people do CurlewKate?

You can't force people to vote for a party whose views oppose theirs!

You can't shame people into voting,"

I'm not trying to force or shame. I just want
people to know that spoiling a ballot or not voting makes absolutely no difference at all, and in fact may well lead to a more extremist government. What would I like people to do? I would like them to look at the policies of the parties they have to choose from, and vote for the one that has the most that they agree with.

I'm actually quite optimistic that we'll see some good independent candidates next election. Even aside from this issue, I think there's a lot to be said for having some MPs who aren't party affiliated.

As for ballot spoiling - I've counted votes too and I'd say a good agent goes through the spoilt ballots but that some are too lazy / arrogant to bother. It would be my very last resort but I'm not discounting it.

Bloody prudish auto-correct! Should be a big WILLY!

Oh, and I don’t think ballot-spoiling works. I used to count votes. They just got put in a basket and sniggered at. The parties don’t read what you write. An eloquent comment on global warming or women’s rights is treated just the same as the drawing of a big will.

I don’t trust Labour. They’re arrogant and wilfully blind to the conflict with women’s rights. Moreover, Starmer is a total and utter wet blanket.

I used to vote Green, but I won’t now while they’re in thrall to non-science and are so eager to appear ‘down wiv the yoof’ they overlooked paedo links.

The LibDems are pretty similar to the Greens and a waste of a vote.

So, I’ll either vote for an independent, or, more likely, vote to keep Labour out - which means voting Conservative. If we all voted Tory, I reckon you’d see a big turnabout from Labour and co. To my mind, a vote for any of those parties, is a vote against women’s rights and I can’t and won’t do that.

So what would you have people do CurlewKate?

You can't force people to vote for a party whose views oppose theirs!

You can't shame people into voting,

"The winners are the people who turn up."
So spoiling your ballot paper or not voting is just handing victory to extremists.
At either end.

There's another thread been started that may be of interest https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4951787-floating-voterspolitically-homelessballot-spoilers

People who can't vote any party have 2 choices-

1. spoil the ballot
2. don't vote

Women died to give us the right to vote, it is a piss poor situation that the opposition leader does not care enough about women to be unequivocal that he will not remove the rights of women as a sex class.

I don't think any of the women who died fighting for the vote would be happy to vote in a way which removes women's rights. Women should not be shamed for protesting in this way, we are being given little choice.

Yes. I wonder this all the time. my mother would say it's cutting off your nose to spite your face.

People who are planning to spoil their ballot papers won't change the election result.

The people who are planning to spoil their ballot papers-what do you think this will achieve? Won't it just make an even more non representative government?

Also a centre-left voter. Current ponderings:

• Greens/Lib Dems: creepy, unhinged.
• SDP: Good, but wasted vote.
• Tories: amoral, incompetent, lecherous. But likely to support free speech and know basic biology (if only for seduction purposes).
• Labour: wokey-blokey-transy, anti-Rosie.

Conclusion: if there's SDP candidate, will vote for them. If not, will grill Labour candidate. If not satisfied by answers, will grit my teeth and vote Tory.

I think if enough people wrote on the ballot
"Lesbians don't have a cock" or words along those lines..
Some people would take notice..

I had no idea about that. That was the only issue making me feel guilty about not voting conservative to keep labour out. Now, if I do end up voting conservative this time around, I can at least do it with a clearer conscience.

This is generally me. I expect people to take as much financial responsibility for themselves, their family and their future as they can, but we need supportive social networks for the few that cant manage this. But yes GC views are top of my voting list. I live in a constituency which is unlikely to ever change from blue at a national level - but despite that I was very impressed by my MP's knowledge on the single sex arguments earlier this year. He knew his stuff. He seems better than the Tory MP (female) - 1 constituency over - who just seems a bitch!