Webchat with Sophie Walker, leader of the Women's Equality Party and London Mayor candidate, Tuesday 19 April at noon

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to welcome Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, ahead of the London Mayoral elections, on Tuesday 19 April at 12 noon.

The Women’s Equality Party was set up in 2015 “to unite people of all genders, diverse ages, backgrounds, ethnicities, beliefs and experiences in the shared determination to see women enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men so that all can flourish.”

Sophie was elected leader of the Women's Equality Party in July 2015, and in January 2016 was voted to represent the party in the London Mayoral election. She says she is campaigning for “work that works, affordable housing, equal caregiving, equal enterprise, transport that works, affordable housing and an end to violence against women and girls.”

She worked as an international news agency journalist for nearly twenty years and is an ambassador for the National Autistic Society, campaigning for better support and understanding of autism, particularly in women and girls.

Please do join us on Tuesday at 12 noon if you can, or post a question for Sophie here in advance. And, as ever, please do remember our webchat guidelines and do be polite.

The London mayoral election will be held on 5 May and you’ll need to register to vote by 18 April, today. (Keep your eyes peeled for more mayoral candidate webchats in the next few weeks.)

Thanks
MNHQ

I messaged WEP to find out how to cancel my membership. No response thus far

The issue isn't being pro trans Lightbulbon. I'm pro trans. The issue is promoting the rights of trans or indeed any other group at the expense of women.

If the WEP take the very hardest pro trans activist stance in the world - as some of my best friends do (seriously)- then I would still prefer them to a bunch of people who use poorly done sophistry and a telling-off manner to try and distract us from the issue.

lightbulb for me the issue us they're a single issue party and they can't even define what "woman" means. By including men in the definition of woman, and supporting policies that are actively harmful to women, they are utterly pointless.

"If the WEP take the very hardest pro trans activist stance in the world... then I would still prefer them to a bunch of people who use poorly done sophistry and a telling-off manner to try and distract us from the issue."

But WEP are the bunch of people who use poorly done sophistry and a telling-off manner to distract us from the issue. Just read the "statement" that Sophie grandly pronounced at the beginning of this webchat.

"they're a single issue party and they can't even define what "woman" means. By including men in the definition of woman, and supporting policies that are actively harmful to women, they are utterly pointless."

^ This. Sadly.

It's like if the WWF said they didn't want to be constrained by the traditional concept of 'world' so they might choose to support Mars, the discworld or my fishtank.

That wildlife might also include twix wrappers, felt hats and garlic presses.

That they have no concept of monitory systems, fundraising or banking.

It might make sense to them and make them happy but it ain't going to raise much money to save the pandas, or even identify that the pandas need saving.

Cote, that's exactly what I mean, and that's what I complained about earlier upthread. I find the attempts to manipulate mumsnetters more annoying than any simple disagreement would.

If Sophie Walker had come on here and said "I know I need to address the trans issue, so I'm going to open with that. For the WEP, transwomen are women and it's as simple as that. All people self define as women or men (or anything else) regardless of their physical bodies, as far as we are concerned. I know this is at odds with many mumnsetters' views but we have thought hard about this and this is our position."

• if that had happened, it would have been far less annoying.

I am still really outrageously annoyed at "vicious". I don't go on twitter (for instance) but I hear that really aggressive things get said on there. I don't feel that mn is violet or aggressive but I do think that the tone in which the debate is carried on elsewhere, and the carefully nurtured howling outrage about it, has brainwashed some careless thinking into coming to believe (as they have been encouraged to) that all debate, agreement, even a simple polite question, on this issue, is necessarily hateful and vile. It is a fantastic coup d'etat in in a way

Movingonup

"Do we seriously think that standing up and saying "Women and the trans community are different and deserve bespoke solutions to the specific issues each face, while acknowledging the common ground they share by working in partnership where appropriate and refusing to collude in the oppression of the trans community or of any other marginalised group." is going to lead to death threats??""

Well maybe not on mumsnet, no. But in some physical and online spaces, a speech like the one above would be considered hate speech and would invite severe retaliation. It contains the clear implication that trans women and born women will sometimes need to be accommodated separately; that they are not identical. This is considered hate speech. It is said to "erase" transwomen. People who do this are thought to be horribly abusive. Also, if women and trans women are sometimes to be accommodated differently, there will necessarily be spaces accessible to born women and not trans women. This is not considered to be ok and any such spaces will provoke angry attack.

I do think that the tone in which the debate is carried on elsewhere, and the carefully nurtured howling outrage about it, has brainwashed some careless people into coming to believe (as they have been encouraged to) that all debate, disagreement, even a simple polite question, on this issue, is necessarily hateful and vile. It is a fantastic coup d'etat in in a way

One can only hope that completely shutting down debate or comment will come to bite them on the bum in the future - though I can't quite think how, except by shutting down people with 'unacceptable' questions or views it will take much longer for those individuals to welcome transgender people into their space.

"a speech like the one above would be considered hate speech and would invite severe retaliation."

If it were even left to stand. Pretty much everywhere online except on MN, saying or even hinting that transwomen are not the same thing as women will get your post deleted. Dissent is not allowed.

You know - Mumsnet is one of the only online spaces where actual debate about this is still taking place. Where it's ok to say, 'Actually, I have concerns about trans-issues dominating feminist discourse'.

I don't believe that transwomen are predatory rapists in disguise, but I do worry that abusers will take advantage of the current political situation and pretend to be transwomen in order to gain access to women's spaces. Even to say this would be inviting abuse and accusations of being transphobic on any other chat forum or social media site.

I have every sympathy for those who don't want to publically make statements on this topic, but that's the job of a politician. If you can't lean out the window, and fly your flag, then you don't deserve to get the gig (to mix metaphors!)

I am still really outrageously annoyed at "vicious". I don't go on twitter (for instance) but I hear that really aggressive things get said on there. I don't feel that mn is violet or aggressive but I do think that the tone in which the debate is carried on elsewhere, and the carefully nurtured howling outrage about it, has brainwashed some careless thinking into coming to believe (as they have been encouraged to) that all debate, agreement, even a simple polite question, on this issue, is necessarily hateful and vile. It is a fantastic coup d'etat in in a way.

HowBad you have it exactly right. I have lost count of the number of times I see the "violent TERFs are directly responsible for the death of trans women"-type statements, when what they are describing is some pretty mild gender-crit stuff, no personal attack at all, while the men who actually attack and murder trans women are rarely mentioned. Meanwhile "die in a fire" and "kill all TERFs" and stuff far worse I will not repeat are all apparently totes justifiable responses to gender-crit women, and totally the fault of the women who are the recipients of these death threats.

It's gaslighting to an extent I have not seen before, and god knows I've seen enough gaslighting to last me a lifetime.

There is NO common ground between transwomen and women.

The only concrete common ground for all the women alive today is our biology, something transwomen can never share with us.

Transwomen deserve respect, safety and dignity but not at the expense of women's rights to the same things.

Incidentally, I searched twitter to see if this thread had generated discussion and found a trans activist who is pretty suspicious that mumsnetters are talking to other mumsnetters at all. I won't link to their account, but here are some of the gems:

"Organising as feminists around the identity of motherhood is already a bit of a red flag." (Women! Don't you dare talk to other women, especially when you have something in common!)

"a group of mums is a subset of women that excludes some other women, some times as a power relationship." (Women! Be sure to include all non-mothers in your conversations about your cracked nipples! Otherwise you are excluding them, and that's baaad.)

"organising as mums tends to be extremely cishet" (All you other lesbians and bi women on this message board - where did you steal your children? Because everyone knows they can't be your own children - it just isn't possible.)

"and tends to exclude people without kids, which is the red flag" (...I can't come up with anything clever on this one, sorry, as it's just too stupid.)

"The red flag is not that mums are talking and advocating for things specific to motherhood." (Ladies! You may talk about babies!)

"The problem is when a group of mums starts to speak for all women, as this excludes many women." (But ladies, do not under any circumstances speak to one another of things beyond babies, such as the wider world!)

In a just world this person - who has a male-presenting name, but whose pronouns I do not know - would be laughed off the internet for their ridiculous sexism, and the fact they appear to have time-travelled from the 1950s, but no, people appear to think this is all perfectly sensible stuff.

Very disappointed. The very first sentence got things off on a wrong footing for me

A lot of you have asked about our position on trans, so I'm going to elaborate on that here and then hope to move on to all the other important issues I'd like to discuss with you.

So, basically, pay lip service, and then expect everyone to get over it and move on.

It's like Sophie has been schooled in the art of misogyny and how to apply it.

ArcheryAnni

*"The red flag is not that mums are talking and advocating for things specific to motherhood." (Ladies! You may talk about babies!)

"The problem is when a group of mums starts to speak for all women, as this excludes many women." (But ladies, do not under any circumstances speak to one another of things beyond babies, such as the wider world!)
*

The red flag for me is that this person seems to have forgotten/ignored/misunderstood the plain fact that the role of motherhood (not mothers/women as a whole purpose, necessarily - why define us as one thing, eh?) is to bring up the next generation with the right attitudes and substance in them to help make the world a better place for them and their generation. Mothers are the greatest influencers of all. Which is probably where misogyny arose from - all about the power, innit?

Show me a male politician who has had any better a response to the trans question.

As usual women are held to a higher account. Even by other women. Even by feminists.

Part of patriarchal indoctrination is to groom us all into knocking down other women, especially those who seek to contradict feminine norms such as by running for political office.

It's cognitive dissonance, and takes a lot of self reflection to see it.

Nothing to do with having to define one of three words in your political partys name, then?

lightbulbon surely its more a view that Sophie should understand our gripes as she has grown up from babyhood a woman rather than us expecting more of her.

I don't think many men are commenting on the issue. Why walk into the cauldron.

I do agree that women are held to higher account

I just would have expected a teensy nod to the fact that eg women's sport is transformed once transgenders are in all the teams - it isn't women's sport if women with the strength and sporting skills of men are now in the team (and who benefitted trainingwise from the increased monetary investment that is in men's sport). It's not as entertaining if there is huge differential in strength eg Scotland v N Zealand rugby games. NO one is much interested in that, the games that count are the closely fought ones like England v NZ.

Why are WEP fighting the mayoral seat at all - I thought they would be fighting parliamentary seats. If you live north of watford you don't much care who is mayor.

I'm not sure that having a definition of "women" when you've founded the "women's equality party" is an impossibly high standard.

If cancer research started to include other causes, no matter how worthy, and also started supporting things that actively cause cancer, we might think them a little muddled.

My issue with this webchat isn't that Sophie is a woman who is being held to a higher standard. It's that her party is purporting to represent WOMEN. And she can't define what 'woman' is.

We have a friend who is one of very few women in her company and industry, which is very male-dominated. She's a very lovely and very competent transwoman. As much as I admire her for what must have been an incredibly difficult transition in a company that is extremely conservative, it's clear that she benefited from her childhood/ adulthood as a man to get to this position. There are very few women in the company and even less in positions of authority.

What shared experience do I have with their that would identify us both as women?

I wouldn't claim to be the same as she is, because I don't have the same experiences. I don't know what it's like to have people snigger and gossip behind my back. I don't know what it's like to go through the physical process of transition and live for the rest of my life on hormone medication. I don't know what it's like to grow up feeling that I don't fit in this world.

I don't claim her experiences as my own and she doesn't claim my experiences as her own.

Doesn't mean I don't support her, and her fight to exist without prejudice and fear. But we aren't the same and to pretend this is highly disingenuous.

Why are trans men less vocal and have less of a lobby?