Webchat about women/mums in politics with Stella Creasy and Caroline Nokes - 1st February

[JuliaMumsnet]

Hello,

We're delighted to announce a webchat on the 1st February, from 12.30 to 1.30pm with Caroline Nokes MP and Stella Creasy MP about women and mothers in politics. We know that women - and particularly mums - are underrepresented in politics, and that the makeup of those walking the corridors of power affects the decisions that are made. The webchat is part of the work we’re doing to explore the barriers for women and mums and see what can be done to encourage more of them to get involved.

Caroline Nokes is the conservative party MP for Romsey and Southampton North and the current Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee in Parliament, where she is leading an inquiry into menopause in the workplace. Since her election in 2010 she has served as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Cabinet Office and was Minister of State for Immigration in Theresa May’s Cabinet.

Stella Creasy is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Walthamstow in North East London. She’s worked on legal loan sharks, legalising abortion in Northern Ireland, to tackle tax evasion and the impact of the private sector on the NHS and for stronger action on violence against women and girls. Following the birth of her first child in 2019, she became the first MP to appoint a locum while she took maternity leave.

Please join us here on Tuesday 1st February at 12.30pm. If you can’t join us on the day, please leave your question here in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is dominating a thread, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We may suspend the accounts of anyone who continues after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks,
MNHQ

[CarolineNokesWebchat]

@averylongtimeago

Are you concerned about the tactics of the police when dealing with women making political comments or protests?
Should women putting up stickers, or posters, or commenting on social media have their "thinking examined"?

No

[CarolineNokesWebchat]

@Letsthinkthisthroughtotheend

My, high profile, MP admitted in a response to me that she and others were afraid to speak out on the topic most here want tackling today.
She was honest.
Your skirting (excuse the pun) around the issue does nothing to assuage women’s reluctance to put themselves forward for political office.

Not sure I have skirted the issue at all - want up to support more women into politics, more people from different ethnic backgrounds, religions, more MPs with disabilities - Parliament is better for being diverse.

[JustineMumsnet]

[quote justaftb]@JustineMumsnet

"the trans debate"

THIS is part of the problem. It is not the "trans" debate, it is a debate about women's rights and how they are being eroded because the word woman has become meaningless now that it includes everyone!!!![/quote]
Yes and we've had a lot of questions on it - we don't need more

[StellaCreasy]

@Glinner

Hi Caroline and Stella. My name is Graham Linehan. I have been visited by police three times, banned from Twitter, lost much of my livelihood, because I think the question "What is a woman?" is actually a very good one. Here is my single question, which I believe can be answered by a simple yes or no.

Is Eddie Izzard a woman?

hello Graham we've met in Ireland when we were campaigning on the Article 8 campaign. Am bemused to hear from you and your view that a discussion about mums in politics needs to be framed by a question about Eddie Izzard - my undersatnding is that Eddie doesn't identify as either though not sure why that bothers you or is relevant to this as pretty sure Eddie isn't a mum and they aren't involved in This Mum Votes either. My feminism is inclusive of all those who are targeted by the patriarchy because thats my target as I believe it holds all women- those born them and those who become them- back. One of patriarchy's tricks is to use the power of men's existing status to command attention and then suggest how women should respond- Fwiw I received a high volume of abuse when you wrote a blog about why I wasn't a 'proper' feminist because of the work am doing on misogny hate crime. I'm clear no one should be abused for the views they hold and they can all be held accountable for their impact- i hope you will challenge those who abused me using your words and for my right to advocate as a woman in public life for something too without being abused.

[EastWellowBride]

I would like to ask Caroline Nokes whether she realizes that many women in her constituency who have always voted LD are looking for an alternative but it has to be an alternative that recognizes women?

Also, not a question but a clarification:
Have I ever said they are?
Yes, that is what you are saying if you say any male can be a woman whether you realise it or not.

[Glinner]

I think the fact they won't answer our questions is the reason there are so many of them.

[averylongtimeago]

Are you concerned about the tactics of the police when dealing with women making political comments or protests?
Should women putting up stickers, or posters, or commenting on social media have their "thinking examined"?

[CentenaryActionGroup]

How does Parliament need to change the way it does business to ensure it's a place that more women would want to work?

[Ereshkigalangcleg]

For what it’s worth I no longer advise my dcs to be kind. I tell them to always be fair, and have firm boundaries.

Absolutely. This is the best advice you can ever give girls. Don't teach them to put their own feelings last.

[SirSamuelVimes]

You're not raising the level of debate by refusing to answer completely reasonable questions. You are avoiding a debate.

[WandaWomblesaurus73]

What are Labour doing about how women feel unsafe with the current state of policing in the UK?

[justaftb]

@JustineMumsnet

"the trans debate"

THIS is part of the problem. It is not the "trans" debate, it is a debate about women's rights and how they are being eroded because the word woman has become meaningless now that it includes everyone!!!!

[TheRealShedSadie]

My question seems to have been overlooked.

So I’ll just say that, when women calmly set out well researched, evidence based and heartfelt views and are told that they should ‘be kind’ instead, we are not seeing high quality scrutiny by out political representatives. Being a well informed woman is not ‘shouting’.

For what it’s worth I no longer advise my dcs to be kind. I tell them to always be fair, and have firm boundaries.

[CarolineNokesWebchat]

@RoyalCorgi

Caroline: you say we all need to be a bit kinder, but do we, really?

JK Rowling strikes me as one of the kindest women in public life I have ever come across, and yet she is constantly bombarded with death threats and rape threats, as well as threats of cancellation. Why aren't you telling the people who send her death threats to be kinder?

Let's not forget the man who assaulted Maria Maclachlan, the men who stand outside Woman's Place UK meetings shouting misogynistic and racist abuse, the Stonewall executives who had barrister Allison Bailey removed from her job, the people who post "Die TERF c*s" on Twitter, the activists who bullied Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip out of their publishing contracts. Why is no one telling them to be kind?

I don't think at any point I have said there is not fault on both sides. In fact I have repeatedly said we need to raise the level of debate.

[Mumformum]

Stella and Caroline. What are your top three issues to resolve in order to get more women and mothers into politics?

[JustineMumsnet]

@SFabios

Wow, this chat was supposed to be about empowering women and mothers to take part in politics and its turned into a debate about what is a women, spiraling into the discourse of cys/trans etc which is a great debate but unfortunately is spoiling what this chat was supposed to be about. I don't think the aim was to trigger any one on the topics of gender/id but to include a group that is under represented in politics. What a shame.

Personally wanted to ask about finding balance and strength, how can you be committed to your family and also have a political career? Would you agree that in this type of work women supporting women is a lifeline? I imagine that so populated by men the path isn't welcoming to women in general or is that just an impression? Is the door open or is it reluctantly open? are there politicians who are men who actively work to include women...?

Agreed - we're going to delete any further questions re trans debate - there are plenty enough on the chat already.

[StellaCreasy]

@FOJN

Do you think the treatment of MP's such as Rosie Duffield and Joanna Cherry, by their own parties, will put some women off standing for political office?

yes. No women in public life should face abuse nor abandonment and all parties have to change the way they engage with women because public life has become a very toxic place. That doesn't mean we have to agree with what any other woman says, but we do have to recognise that the space for women has been driven by different rules. My unpopular opinion for mumsnet is that women can be complicit in that too by using the same tactics of generalising and dismissing- we don't have to agree on everything to be able to make progress on something if we talk about it. Like asking why there are so few mums in our political spaces!

[littlbrowndog]

Disappointed in Caroline nokes. So disappointed

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[CarolineNokesWebchat]

@viques

What are the priorities the police should be following to secure women’s safety?

Aggressively policing a meeting to commemorate a woman murdered by a police colleague?

Arresting a disabled woman in her home and questioning her about stickers highlighting the importance of women only spaces?

Ensuring that men who are charged with violence and assault against their partner are detained when they fail to appear for a bail hearing so that they then don’t attack and kill their partner several weeks later?

I am horrified that not every Police force has Domestic Abuse as one of their top three priorities, they all should and I hope Maggie Blyth as the new national policing lead on violence against women and girls will bring real change and focus. I want to see more being done to address the cultures underpinning male violence against women, highlighting that it absolutely is a gendered crime.

I also think there has been a huge omission in the PCSC Bill - it is all very well and good to seek to lock up violent and repeat offenders for longer. But I want to see the offender journey interrupted. Public Sexual harassment as a specific crime, so that the rapist is identified when he is a flasher and before he has committed a violent crime.

[littlbrowndog]

If we don’t know what a woman is. Useless having these discussions

Be kind be kinder be kinder than kind 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

What the heck is this

[babyjellyfish]

The honest answer to the question around appetite is, in my view, no. And that is part of the problem, when terms get conflated you get confusion.

Well exactly. But the Blair government legislated to give male people the right to be female and vice versa. That is not scientifically possible, since humans cannot change sex.

The GRA refers to the words "male" and "female" as genders, despite these words having an actual scientific meaning relating to reproductive role in all animal species, not just humans. The Act does not explain what a gender actually is.

As you correctly say, when terms get conflated you get confusion. But proponents of gender identity theory chose to use the words "woman" and "man", and later "female" and "male" for their gender identities, despite those words already existing to refer to biological sex. They deliberately created that confusion because they want to replace the concept of sex in law with the much woolier concept of gender. As a result, we no longer have words in the English language to accurately identify the two biological sexes.

And yet according to the Labour Party, it is "transphobic" to point this out.

[Glinner]

Hi Caroline and Stella. My name is Graham Linehan. I have been visited by police three times, banned from Twitter, lost much of my livelihood, because I think the question "What is a woman?" is actually a very good one. Here is my single question, which I believe can be answered by a simple yes or no.

Is Eddie Izzard a woman?

[RoyalCorgi]

Caroline: you say we all need to be a bit kinder, but do we, really?

JK Rowling strikes me as one of the kindest women in public life I have ever come across, and yet she is constantly bombarded with death threats and rape threats, as well as threats of cancellation. Why aren't you telling the people who send her death threats to be kinder?

Let's not forget the man who assaulted Maria Maclachlan, the men who stand outside Woman's Place UK meetings shouting misogynistic and racist abuse, the Stonewall executives who had barrister Allison Bailey removed from her job, the people who post "Die TERF c*s" on Twitter, the activists who bullied Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip out of their publishing contracts. Why is no one telling them to be kind?

[averylongtimeago]

Can either of you tell me: Do the police have the right to "question our thinking "?

[SFabios]

Wow, this chat was supposed to be about empowering women and mothers to take part in politics and its turned into a debate about what is a women, spiraling into the discourse of cys/trans etc which is a great debate but unfortunately is spoiling what this chat was supposed to be about. I don't think the aim was to trigger any one on the topics of gender/id but to include a group that is under represented in politics. What a shame.

Personally wanted to ask about finding balance and strength, how can you be committed to your family and also have a political career? Would you agree that in this type of work women supporting women is a lifeline? I imagine that so populated by men the path isn't welcoming to women in general or is that just an impression? Is the door open or is it reluctantly open? are there politicians who are men who actively work to include women...?