Mobilising our vote

[cailindana]

Anyone with me in discussing the various parties/candidates in order to ensure a feminist vote in the general election? I'm quite clueless about politics so need to do quite a bit of thinking/researching.

My first thought is to aim for a female candidate if possible.

Thoughts?

yes i would welcome this, thanks for starting the thread

i don't have any thoughts at the moment as i'm either disgusted or disillusioned with most of them at the moment. trying to find somewhere to place a vote where i'm not actually voting to harm women would be good start

Great Pumpkin. I started to get interested in politics at the recent EU elections, I emailed one candidate and she got back to me really quickly and answered my questions, which I was really impressed with.

I feel all at sea with the whole thing but I really want to make my vote count.

yes. i feel like i'm often voting for "least harm" iyswim.

I look at it as a sort of weighting amongst all other factors. When a candidate is a woman it's a positive factor when set against a male candidate. It would be be a deciding factor on it's own unless all else was equal (on the things that were important to me).

The greens seem to be quite switched onand having a female leader is a great start. You can't help but like their approach. Wearing a no more page three tee shirt to work was a great move.

Very good idea for a thread but nothing to add at the minute.

I'm definitely going to look into the greens what does. Some of their policies are a bit naive I feel but they could be the best of a bad lot.

I am not overly keen on the green party simply because quite a few seem to be pushing very Christian agendas. I have no problem with anyone wanting to believe in anything but when religion influences elections then it becomes unrepresentative.

Two new parties are Mike Buchann's Justice for Men and Boys and the Sexual Freedom Party. Both are close to being single issue parties designed not to win too many votes but to influence other political parties by highlighting issues. In some ways it feels like the green party when they first started. This suggests that a feminist party would be an idea but the issue would be on what issue(s) would the party campaign. The concept would be to make politicians take note. If people can mobilise support then the main parties may take note. The issue(s) would have to be carefully selected as some may alienate large groups of us which could lead to a backlash.

Sweden has a feminist party although having heard things about their agenda not sure that would be my selected role models.

i have voted green in local elections in the past, because having read the candidates' profiles and statements at the time of campaigning they have best fitted with my views.

I vote only for women. Obviously in the order that best represents my views, but as far as I can see, unless women get a large proportion of votes, political parties aren't going to bother their arses promoting and developing women. My biggest political aim is the liberation of women, voting to increase the visibility and viability of women candidates is part of that.

Interesting thread. I tend to agree with Cameron (yikes) in his statement that the next election is a choice between him and Ed Miliband in no. 10.

i think you are probably right yonic

and it is a question of whether i vote ideologically or for "least harmful" of those two

God, if that's true, we have a real Hobson's choice. It won't stop me voting Green though. I've washed my hands of mainstream politics for a while and I'd rather have my actual toenails removed with pliers than vote UKIP or any of the other.... eyebrow raising?... parties.