Brighton shows why you shouldn’t vote Labour - Julie Burchill (and a mention of IamSarah)

@AndThatWasNY couldnt agree more. Truly scares me that people think the tories give a fuck about women - no evidence of this at all in the horror show of the last 14 years 😩.

No one is shouting at you but you have stormed in with a strong view on posters and glossed over some fundamental facts

If you took a moment I’m sure you’d find no one is rattled, angry or shouting

But you might find people aren’t as generous with Labour and if that irritates then hopefully Labour will change their stance and women won’t demand it so much

Who is saying the Tories are GC saviours? Read any of the many threads on the subject here, there’s lots of people saying they’ll “hold their nose” and vote Tory or similar. Hardly announcing the Tories as saviours. But they DO know what a woman is and Labour do not. Why are you blaming women - and making insinuations that a “grassroots” movement could only possibly be acting the way is is because it’s been hijacked, rather than sentient women freely CHOOSING to act as they do - rather than blaming Labour for not being good enough?

Maybe “three people are shouting” because we feel you’re wrong and - like many of our Resident Scolders - bloody irritating and dismissive.

Anyone that genuinely wants to improve the day to day lives of women in the UK would never enable the Tories another term. They've had 13 years to sort this out. Why aren't they doing it now? They have a majority it would go through?

Instead they are using it as populist tool not because they give a toss about women's rights but because it gets them some votes. Labour are so pathetic on this issue but at least they won't cause as much endless misery to women through austerity, allowing Brexit, trashing the economy especially impacting the poorest especially in jobs over represented by women, destroying the NHS, running our schools and on and on.

Only a fool or a wealthy self interested person would vote for them in their current hideous guise.

@NecessaryScene you've made my nerdy heart so happy with that! “Ad locum” indeed!

sonia sodha has done another fantastic article today about Jo Phoenix which is on the guardian website. Would it somehow be far less fantastic if it was in the telegraph?

if this article from the spectator has been in the guardian would it suddenly be ok?

this isn’t a left and right issue, this is the actual biological reality of sex v people who think being a woman is liking pink, sparkly handbags & dresses issue

You can spot a campaign when...

Why, do you think we’re all pre-election Tory shills? Check our usernames, many of us have been here years.

There are three people shouting at me purely for not thinking the Tories are GC saviours - why do you think I'm pushing back, Eastern? Of course I'm angry to see how throughly what was a grassroots women's pushback is being co-opted by politics-as-usual.

I can see some are getting quite rattled for getting called out on this

Oh I’m not tired of anything, I just disagree with you and bored of being scolded by those who think they have the right to tell others how they should think and vote.

For the record, I WANT to vote Labour. I’ve voted Labour for years. But I will not vote for them all the time they think men can be women and I have genuine concerns that they will make life worse for women in terms of our rights, safeties and even identities.

So I may well vote Tory, much as that pains me. Want to be angry about that? Then be angry at the Labour Party who sold down the river all the women who would otherwise have voted for them. I didn’t leave Labour, Labour left me.

No one is rattled. But you seem quite jumpy on this, maybe you feel rattled?

If we’re going to go back to see why we are where we are the law is why

No I'm not, and I can see the "talking points" are out in force now. You can spot a campaign when...

“You just save time and effort by having a go where at where they're making the argument. So "ad locum" (at the place)?”

That’s such a shrewd observation. And “ad locum argument” is a great shorthand description of that phenomenon.

You are writing paragraphs on Mordaunt and glossing over the law that led us to genderism

That is oddly dismissing the root cause of where we are

The GRA does concern me, so whoever gets in at the next election will need a lot of lobbying to repeal it - and I don't for one second think any party is going to prioritise it.

I can see some are getting quite rattled for getting called out on this. Please, enough of trying to shout me down for not being a card-carrying lobbyist.

I mean some would say feminism itself is political...

It's an election year, we can expect it all to ramp up.

I agree on the reading a wide range of spices point MissLucy, but the article in question is about not voting Labour because if you do your constituency will turn into Brighton. This has been immediately turned into a not-so-subtle Vote Tory opportunity.

Honestly, I've been on MN for nearly 20 years and ever since Brexit the political campaigning here has become absolutely fevered. The feminist board used to be a rare exception, but at the moment you can't move for someone trying to turn our righteous anger at genderism's capture of parties and institutions into a vote for Their Side.

Could I care less what you think?

If you say you’re against genderism why doesn’t the GRA, which underpins the entire system concern you?

We wouldn’t be here without that law

Could you make your partisan campaigning here any more obvious?

Agree with that, but that's also exactly why it makes no sense to reject helpful interventions from either the left or right.

There used to be a fancy Latin term for attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument - "ad hominem" (at the person).

I've realised that that's actually kind of old fashioned - these days people often don't even bother attacking the person making the argument.

You just save time and effort by having a go where at where they're making the argument. So "ad locum" (at the place)?

I don't think I'll ever forgive the Tories as most of them voted against equal marriage.

What about Labour who laid the foundations for the GRA by FAILING to bring in gay marriage?

Ha yes

I don't understand how you can turn a blind eye to the other articles published in the spectator just because they also back a cause you back.

Because thankfully I’m a sentient adult with a brain between my ears, and who can cope with a magazine saying something I disagree with as well as it saying things I do agree with. Maybe it does us good to hear both sides of an argument, @Dinoland, have you thought of that?

And because I don’t indulge in tribal nonsense or call magazines “hate rags” or think that everything the Tories do is “evil” or whatever. Black and white thinking like @Dinoland demonstrates just lacks any kind of nuance.

And I’ll read what I like and make up my own mind about that (AND how I’ll vote) without being scolded into Right Think and Right Actions. Ironic really, given the magazine article’s content.

you mustn’t vote Tory because you don't like some of their policies.

you must Vote labour even though you disagree with some of their policies.