Webchat with Catherine Mayer, author and co-founder of the Women's Equality Party - Thursday 30 March, 1-2pm

[RachelMumsnet]

We’re pleased to announce that Catherine Mayer will be joining us for a webchat this Thursday 30 March at 1pm.

Catherine is an American-born British author and journalist, and the co-founder of the Women's Equality Party (WE) in the UK. Her latest book, "Attack of the 50ft Women: How gender equality can save the world", asks why there's not a single country in the world which has achieved gender equality. She takes us on a journey to a fantasy gender-equal world she calls Equalia. What is it like? Does gender equality make for a society that is more equal in other ways too? Who does the low-paid jobs? How does gender express itself in a place freed from gender programming? The book is insightful, revelatory and funny and well worth a read.

Please do join us on the day here for a live discussion from 1pm on Thursday but if you can’t make it, leave your question for Catherine on this thread. As ever, please remember our webchat guidelines.

@EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans

I would like to ask why the amendment to Article 50 which WEP tabled with Caroline Lucas omitted sex as a protected characteristic, while including gender. Do the Women's Equality Party consider that sex-based protections are no longer necessary?

Thanks for the question @EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans. That is not the case. I wasn't involved with the amazing high-speed work to get that amendment drafted and tabled -- and BTW it got the widest cross-party support of all amendments. I suspect if it hadn't been done so fast, it would have more closely mirrored the Equality Act for clarity and consistency.

Have you any suggestions on how we can better educate our sons (and daughters) about feminism and equality?

@CoolJazz

Isn't it really sex equality that we are seeking, and isn't it important to state that now that there are 167 different genders based on self identification?

Can we define 'women' before we attempt to discuss women's equality.
Can we start with that please, as all it informs all the rest of the discussion.

@CoolJazz There's a lot of confusion around definitions -- which is one reason I devote a whole chapter of the book to sex and gender (and frankly these issues would easily fill whole books). One of the things I've tried to do with my book is to try to find a path through some of the most divisive issues in feminism in a way that I hope fosters understanding and ways to debate without heat. It's easier for me to do this on some issues than others because I've had to pick my way through and where the answers remain unclear to me, I say so.

Thanks Catherine.

To follow up, are you aware of Mumsnet feminists' history with WEP? A lot of Mumsnetters who would have loved to support you lost faith when you campaigned for the move of Tara Hudson to a women's prison, despite Tara's record of violent crime and the fact that Tara touted their "seven-inch surprise" on sex sites.

In a world where women are losing even the right to define ourselves and lesbians can be accused of transphobia for only being attracted to our own sex, we NEED a party to stand up for women as a sex, and I think a lot of us are very disappointed at your stance so far.

What do you think WEP could do to restore our faith in you?

@QueenOfTheSardines

Thanks for the link empress. I think they have covered protections for the old fashioned type of women - what used to be the sex based protections, under "pregnancy or maternity" and that is supposed to cover it. The concept of sex based protections or sex itself as a protected characteristic have however been removed.

The piece itself seems very transphobic with references to "breastfeeding mothers" for example. I am surprised at them.

I suppose my question as well would be, why do we need a women's equality party, when anyone and everyone can be a woman, that the state may change on different days of the week, and there are no shared characteristics that define this group (women)? Given the move to remove sex as a protected characteristic, this party seems to be working against people with vaginas (can I call us that?).

Hello @QueenOfTheSardines. In answering your question, I'm addressing the underpinning of several other questions. It's hard to do so in such a brief and quick-fire format which is why I deal with some of this at much greater length in the book. I certainly reject your characterisation of the party. But you are right that I don't believe secondary sex characteristics are a reliable determinant. People with XX chromosomes are sometimes born without vaginas but I suspect you would still be happy with them defining themselves as women. We are all on a series of spectrums.

What is absolutely clear is that people who identify as female are a huge structural disadvantage to people who identify as menthat to be perceived as a woman is an enormous disadvantage. Gender is heavily shaped by social and cultural factors and those factors can be changed. A great, unresolved question is what women would be capable ofwhat we would be--once freed from reductive notions of womanhood created and imposed by men.

Hi Catherine - what does the word "woman" mean to you?

@Auldspinster

Hi Catherine, which is your favourite Gang of Four Song?

Bloody hell @Auldspinster. I knew somebody would ask a really difficult question.

Natural's Not In It is a particular favourite (you might say that's a pretty obvious choice for me). I also love this recent track, recorded in English and in German with Herbert Grönemeyer

So the solution is easy - identify as men?

I heard you on Radio 4 this week after "Legs-it". Do you think Theresa May should have called out the Daily Mail?

Hi Catherine, and thanks for coming in MN. Do you think people with male bodies who commit crimes (and particularly violent crimes) should ever be put into women's prisons, since women prisoners are often particularly vulnerable?

What is absolutely clear is that people who identify as female are a huge structural disadvantage to people who identify as men

With respect, an infant girl undergoing FGM is unlikely to identify as female. Female foetuses that are aborted for being female don't identify as female. Females (sex) are at a disadvantage, it is not about identity, it is about biology.

Really? People who "identify" as men would be mostly non binary and transmen as I suspect most biological men don't "identify" as anything. Does the Women's Equality Party consider that transmen's (i.e. females that "identify" as men) maternity and breastfeeding needs are women's issues?

@HelenaDove

What do you think needs to be done so that more working class women feel included in feminism.

This is a huge and vital question @HelenaDove. One answer is that feminism has to be intersectional... It has to recognise the diverse experience of women and the ways in which different forms of disadvantage interact and intensify. That has the be the starting point and the foundation of all theoretical approaches but there are also huge practical issues to address. Feminism can only make working class women feel included by including them, but many women are on or below the poverty line, working on zero hours contracts, juggling caring duties and not exactly in a place where they have the luxury of involvement. So it's incumbent on any of us working in this area to try to find ways to make activism more accessible. One thing the Women's Equality Party has done from the start is to fundraise for bursaries to help candidates who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to stand and also to pay for childcare costs.

Hi all - there are already quite a few posts on sex/gender, so no more questions/points on that topic from hereon in please, so that the thread doesn't feel focused only on that issue.

I associate feminism with confidence - is it possible to occupy a male-dominated space confidently but without confrontation?

Catherine - what's WEP's plan to get its first foothold in Parliament? Are you looking to field a by-election candidate or hoping to get someone to defect a la Carswell?

Then I'll rephrase my follow-up question, Kate.

Catherine, are you aware that much as many of us would like to support a Women's Equality Party, Mumsnet feminists have not been over-enthusiastic about your policies in the past, to the extent that some who were members have resigned and cancelled their subscriptions? What do you think WEP could do to win us round?

there are already quite a few posts on sex/gender

Asked, but not answered (any of them)

so that the thread doesn't feel focused only on that issue

Even if that is the issue that most posters would like a proper answer on, hence why they asked the question..

Hi Catherine,

I find it disappointing that you feel that we are all on a spectrum.

Biologically there is only the binary of male and female.

It is women's biology that disadvantages us as a sex do you really believe that someone socialised and brought up with male privilege is at the same disadvantage as a born female?

The web chat is to promote a book about gender equality, but we are not to ask further questions about gender.

I think the world would be a better place if we could dump the concept of gender altogether and not put any expectations on people because of their sexes.

Hi Catherine
I agree with posters above. Biology is not a spectrum. Female is not an identity it is a fact.

@Shashashashoepeople

Hi Catherine

The older I get, the more I think that in the West, it's all about who does the shitwork in the house.

I am a feminist, articulate and committed. Nevertheless, I still do more than my share of the domestic labour, and almost all of the family thinking. Things are much better than they were, but it's taken a really long time and a lot of misery, tbh, to get my other half to walk the feminist walk (he can do the talk bit quite convincingly).

I have at least five close friends in the same position. What should women like me do? My purportedly feminist teenage son acknowledges that, if he's relying on someone else to do his shitwork, he's part of the problem - but still leaves his pants on the floor.

It sounds comical and ridiculous - but it doesn't feel it from here.

It's not comical or ridiculous @Shashashashoepeople. Men in OECD countries spend 90 mins per day on housework and caregiving compared to women's 208 minutes. One of the reasons the Women's Equality Party is organising a Women's Day Off next year is to show exactly what that looks like. In 1975 ninety per cent of the women in Iceland stopped paid and unpaid work for the day. That's one of the reasons Iceland is now top of the global gender equality rankings.

It sounds like you need to stage your own Women's Day Off on a daily basis and that goes for many women I know. Sandi is always teasing me about how much I'm missing out on by being in a heterosexual relationship. She means sex and I respectfully disagree but I fully accept that working out power relationships at home is more trying for women in hetero relationships.

No more questions about sex or gender to the co-founder of WEP!

Is Sandi aware that lesbians nowadays are accused of transphobia for only being sexually attracted to biological women? And that Stonewall's silence on the subject is deafening?