Labour is betraying women

That's a really good point @Thelnebriati

The idea that its feminising men for them to be allowed to have feelings other than anger and a sense of injustice about 'unfairness' is toxic masculinity.

Women's anger is metoo, and that was about actual injustice. Men sneered at it and it drove them into the arms of Andrew Tate apparently.

We don't really give young men any kind of positive sense of a role model who is moral and upstanding, and also masculine, who don't shit upon for being part of the patriarchy, or who we don't treat cynically.

There was an incident among some friends of mine that stuckin my heard a few years ago. Some pop culture magazine reported that Bono had said that it was kind of a shame that all the pop music for angry young men had given way to stuff like Ed Sheeran, the only genre left for young people like that - which would have been himself as a teen - was rap music.

And of course rap music has some issues with masculinity- I took his point to be that young men need some cultural outlets for their feelings of injustice etc and if the only one has some pretty negative elements that's what they will imbibe.

Anyway, a friend of mine on FB said that Bono was an idiot, it was a good thing for young men to get in touch with their feelings and become less toxic. Her vision of what a young man ought to be like was basically, they should be like women. It was unbelievable to her that young men might find that unsatisfying, because fundamentally there are no differences between the sexes - the desire to be mannish is just a kind of toxicity that can be extinguished.

Personally I think that's a recipe for failure.

I have thought for some time that a significant element of this idea that Labour is the only moral party (or the left., if you like) comes out of a very deeply imbibed narrative that the Conservatives explicitly stand for evil principles

This is so true. I have only just realised that the Left ( I used to be on the left myself btw, now politically homeless), actually believe their own propaganda. I just assumed it was all grandstanding conscious hyperbole, all this calling Tories evil and saying they want to kill disabled people and such like. Now I realise they actually, sincerely mean it. They have actually swallowed their own propaganda.

The terrifying thing is they really don't have a clue about the real world. Still spouting platitudes while denying unintended consequences.

www.thetimes.com/article/33115c18-7eed-4898-aff1-3af7346f5676?shareToken=b4fd3c519175aa6898322b12bcc6cd10

The open letter stated that, according to a Rape Crisis England and Wales survey report, a third of rape crisis centres were expecting to issue redundancy notices before the end of the financial year and 30 per cent of directors were concerned they would have to close their centre.

Both the funding cut and the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions will take effect from April next year. The charities said that the national insurance increase alone was likely to cost them many millions of pounds.

The letter, signed by leaders from the five organisations and addressed to Sir Keir Starmer, said: “Our vital support services are needed now more than ever, so by cutting funding and raising national insurance, this government is putting their future in danger and potentially denying a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of women and girls who have experienced gender-based violence.

“If these moves go ahead, we believe your mission to halve VAWG is in jeopardy.”

If they don’t believe their own promises, it was highly cynical of them to make them. And ridiculously stupid political messaging because it was 14 years of broken promises by the Tories that got Labour elected.

But Lord help us if they do believe their promises. Then it’s not stupid messaging but just plain stupid. Though many in the party including the cabinet may well fall into that category. Who knows.

I have noted a significant increase in the number of single professional woman in their twenties. Many of my friends' children are now mid to late twenties and around 25% have been in, or are in, medium to long term relationships. Most of the young women have not had serious relationships.

Young professional woman now have disposable income of their own (they don't need or expect to be taken on dates to have a nice meal out or go to the movies). They aren't of the mindset that they need to settle for any man who will have them in order to be able to move out of their parent's home. In line with this, they have no desire to enter into a relationship with a man unless what he has to offer them enriches their lives. 'Talking to' and dating men rarely progresses to the boyfriend/girlfriend stage as the young men don't shape up to 'boyfriend material'. The narratives of these young woman is often about young men who are self centred, childish and sexist.

Meanwhile, the young men's narratives are often of 'demanding' young woman who expect too much from them, are controlling, and seek to stop them having fun.

My take on it is that young women are now voting with their feet, they can see where relationships with sexist men end up and would rather be single than in an unsatisfactory relationship . Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be leading to the young men who 'can't find the right girl' seeing the light and changing their ways. I think misogyny is so embedded in society that the default is to blame women for this predicament.

I'm not sure where this is going to take us, but unless it involves sexist men recognising that their values and attitudes give women 'the ick', I fear that this is one of the factors at play that has led to 'going backwards' in terms of sexism and misogyny.

I read an article a couple of years ago about the myth of the 'dried up, undateable older woman'. It questioned how the narrative of older woman being unable to 'find love due to men not finding older woman attractive' survived when the facts are that older woman find it far easier to date and be in relationships than their male counterparts.

It's very weird, MeToo did not cause domestic violence - did anyone think that somehow it could stop it?

There is a very naive kind of activism that seems to think that if only you tell people a certain things is bad, somehow that thing will stop happening. You don't have to even understand the causes much less address them.

There's no real engagement in the actual causes of violence, which is why they don't seem to understand that some of them (some people are just bad) can't really be fixed, while others (alcoholism, say) are very difficult to eliminate.

That was always a crazy promise, how could anyone make a promise like that? What was their plan?

To me it seemed like a clear case of just saying what people wanted to hear.

Are they seriously considering this? It hammers me too! 😀Or, more generally, older people. Who may well be mostly women, I don't know the stats. On top of the WFA?

If the 25% council tax relief goes for single occupancy as threatened that is also going to directly hammer women and children. Many of those single occupiers will be single mothers

You are right.

Toxic masculinity is spreading because the MeToo movement did not bring teenage boys into the debate

Jesus. If that’s the extent of the analysis that underpins their VAWG policy we’re definitely all doomed. Apart from Weinstein’s conviction, the Me Too movement accomplished precisely zero. It was an infinitesimal moment in time so why on earth is she even referencing it?

Exactly, women doing it wrong again.

Interview with Jess Philips in the Times. The VAWG strategy will be out in the Spring. It's a bit of a strange framing, I thought we were all agreed it was not women's fault. Not any mention of pornography.

Toxic masculinity is spreading because the MeToo movement did not bring teenage boys into the debate, allowing influencers such as Andrew Tate to dictate the agenda, Jess Phillips has said after the Gisèle Pelicot case

www.thetimes.com/article/3d03d2c7-73f5-4092-8820-48a9a91b0358?shareToken=4e7527eb35295f6f52b3702cc2fec6b0

Depressing to say it, but that halving of MVAWG seems hopelessly optimistic. What is the trend over the last ten years, say? Has any government of any country achieved anything near comparable in recent times? As the pieces points out, some things are happening behind the scene, but I think they've made a rod for their own backs.

@IwantToRetire apparently the BBC wont play it

I don't think the Tories would want an election now. It's too soon.