to not know what difference a female perspective would have made?

[icewoman]

Covid enquiry.

Helen McNamara, deputy cabinet secretary says women were being ignored and disregarded and the female point of view was missing from most decision making

I have no difficulty believing that our revered leaders behaved like a bunch or ignorant arrogant chauvinistic pigs but I do wonder what, if anything, a female point of view would have changed about the decision making?

Interesting someone mentioning how women fought for the vote.

Some of the replies on here remind me of the ‘men know best’ and ‘women are too emotional’ arguments that were put forward to stop women getting the vote. They were completely rejected then and it was accepted that women’s voices needed to be heard.

Yet here we are 100 years later discussing the exclusion of women’s views in the political debate. And some people arguing they have nothing to add and it makes no difference. How depressing .

Maybe san pro would have started on the essentials list instead of being added later?Do you remember when you could only buy certain things?

Maybe allowing fathers at the birth of their child to support the mother? Or in an ultrasound scan where they may be bad news?

Maye PPE that actually fitted women and didn't leave gaps around the mouth making them useless. Particularly given the numbers of women working in health and care settings.

Maybe some thoughts about toilet breaks where women need to remove more clothing and PPE.

Some thoughts about childcare for single parents, who are usually women.

Not forgetting that the decision making was being advised on by people who have expertise. Hence the emails that are now coming out that were literally saying all the things we've been saying about how people live different lives.

I'm sure well-paid high grade civil servants don't all live in a 1 bed one toilet flat with no garden, and yet the emails that are coming out show that they were considering people who live in those conditions.

I hope that all of you with your right to a bank account, equal pay, a mortgage and not to have sex with your husband even if he wants it are even a tiny bit grateful that women of the past stuck their necks out for us. I know i am.

The stuff coming out of the inquiry is chilling. Every awful thing we may have thought about what was going on at No.10 pales in comparison to what's coming out.
Matt Hancock deciding who lives or dies? Dear God.
Why are there no consequences for these people?

Apologies if this point has already been made, but for me it was notable that barbers were allowed to re-open before beauty salons. Businesses that are primarily female owned and operated seemed to suffer disproportionately, and many didn't qualify for the reliefs and support grants. So yes, I do think a greater female input would have helped.

I have an extremely low opinion of our government's covid response but that even stopped me in my tracks.

But...but... Dominic Cummings claims he employed lots of younger women.

Women who wouldn't stand up to him and suggest stuff to him.

Never mind a female perspective.

It is becoming clear that just some fully functioning human empathy would have been a start.

I can't escape the impression that the Tories had some understanding of People Like Them and the rest of us were caricatures at best.

Our local pub landlord employs lots of younger women too @Reugny.

As you say, it's not for their policy input.

The Tories "know what a woman is" but they don't listen to any.

If the current crop of female Tories are anything to go by, sweet FA.

The people who made the decision to lock down a country were the ones least affected by it. Nannies were still working, they were still going out, they partied. We suffered.

And Labour run Wales locked down harder and longer

I've not heard of the Welsh government themselves all repeatedly breaking the lockdown rules they imposed on everyone.

Don't you know?

Rules like taxes and honesty are for little people.

They may not have broken many rules (except drinking together in the Senedd obviously) but everything else? Worse than the Tories. The only thing they improved was leaving children out the rule of 6. They decided winter coats were non essential ffs

The Tories are incompetent monsters but it's worth remembering that many people who are horrified at their decisions now totally supported them at the time.

I had friends (female and male) who were totally on board with all support being removed from vulnerable children. I had to explain to them, very slowly and carefully, why sending a child home with their abuser indefinitely, with no respite or outside adult input was dangerous. They really didn't seem to get it. One friend, who I previously considered not to be an idiot, said that 'all vulnerable children' were still going to school. That little piece of nonsense indicated to me that people were just telling themselves fairy stories to justify what they wanted - which was to protect themselves and their own families from covid, no matter what that meant for anyone else.

Boris is a complete and utter waste of human skin, but a lot of his policies were driven by the hysteria of the population (much of which, admittedly, was sparked by the government). The Tories wanted to reopen schools in January - it was a vocal group of teachers and parents who objected that got them closed again.

It's all very well to point fingers and lord knows they should be made accountable for their sheer stupidity, but I really hope anyone who supported that stupidity takes a long hard look at themselves too.

'It's all very well to point fingers and lord knows they should be made accountable for their sheer stupidity, but I really hope anyone who supported that stupidity takes a long hard look at themselves too.'

They won't. There are people who think that Boris Johnson walks on water, and won't have changed that view one jot after this week. I have a friend who has a never ending supply of excuses for his appalling behaviour. It's like she's in a cult. I'll never discuss him with her again because it sends me nuclear, but I've certainly lost a lot of respect for her over it

Well going by Sturgeon and the harsher restrictions which hurt women and children more not much.

But beyond that I agree the whole pandemic was everyone yelling for more and very little on harms to women and children.

Not just here but other countries with harsher restrictions saw similar (US states show this)

And of course this is a predominantly female site and very few responded well to the mention of harms to women and children.

If the public was focussed on demanding more lockdowns, as we saw on here, what did people expect?

To be clear, when I'm talking about people supporting Boris' stupidity, I'm not just talking about people who have respect for him personally, I'm talking about anyone who believed schools should be closed again in January 2021, anyone who agreed with people being denied access to their sick and dying loved ones, or being denied a proper funeral (among many pointlessly cruel policies).

Plenty of people I know who have never had an ounce of respect for Boris or the Tories were totally in favour of ridiculous, damaging and cruel policies. It makes me so angry that they're now criticising those policies as though they themselves didn't once defend those policies at length to my face, implying that I was some sort of granny killing evil monster for not being in favour of them.

It was echoed on here!

Posters were too obsessed with Covid over the harms.

And Scotland took away access to private nurseries, whereas England didn’t. Thanks to Sturgeon

Plenty of people I know who have never had an ounce of respect for Boris or the Tories were totally in favour of ridiculous, damaging and cruel policies. It makes me so angry that they're now criticising those policies as though they themselves didn't once defend those policies at length to my face, implying that I was some sort of granny killing evil monster for not being in favour of them.

Summing up the majority of mn at the time there.

I expected them to open the folder with the well thought out plan for pandemics and follow that

What did you want exactly?

Lockdowns, Sweden style or what?

Loads of posters spent their time demanding lockdowns / restrictions and hurling abuse at anyone who mentioned harm to women or children.

Maybe that was you I have no idea, but this thread was bound to happen although it didn’t need to be years later, it was bleeding obvious at the time.