Feminist pub XIX: The Bluestocking meanders into May

[YonicScrewdriver]

We're running at about six weeks per pub at the moment! So if you want chat with a feminist flavour, or with fellow feminists, or just want to admire our patriarchy blaster cannon and goat - welcome!

Last pub Here

I got some sleep. Enough to be able to attempt to deal with her in a rational manner today. Although woe betide anyone who annoys me - I'm not in the mood to suffer fools gladly.

Hap, I'm afraid that this election day is the prelude to a lot of ugly politicking, one way or the other.

sera I hope you have a good graduation ceremony and that your dd is feeling better today.

Dd really wants to watch the votes coming in and watch the results live on TV, but I don't feel comfortable with her staying up all night, she has took a big interest in the whole process though, talking about various policies that she understands, dh will be watching it all and said they can get duvets out on the sofa with snacks etc. I keep going between "sod it, it's a one off" to "but it's a schoolnight"

Talking of election day, someone on the politics board just put up a link to this really interesting american viewpoint demolishing austerity politics if anyone's interested www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion

Gives me a placemarker in the new pub anyway!

Took DD to vote today, felt a bit weepy introducing her to her right to vote. A friend goes and puts flowers on the Pankhurst memorial every Election Day. Sometimes she's the only one.

It's a right we too easily take for granted and undervalue. I was thinking as I walked back that it's rather wonderful that the electoral machinery apparently consists of a couple of women, paper and pencils in the parish room.

I'm about to take dd2 to vote. She's 5 and has no idea really why we're voting, but she thinks it's quite exciting that we get to decide who runs the country. Dd1 is 15 and has been really interested in the run up to the election, I think she knows more about various parties policies than I do, she's quite disappointed that she doesn't get to vote yet.

My school did a mock election for the pupils and they showed quite categorically why children aren't allowed to vote, a lot of my form (year 10) had no idea about any of the parties, couldn't name the leader of any party other than UKIP, and told me they were voting for UKIP because that's what would wind me up the most :(. I hope the results from my school are not representative of the country as a whole.

dp's school had all the candidates come and do a Q&A with y10, y11 and sixth form. dp said they got some really good questions (some of the answers had something to be desired...). there is one pupil who turns 18 tomorrow - wouldn't you be gutted!

My DD is 16 and is firmly of the opinion that she and her peers are too young to vote. They did do something about the election in citizenship a few weeks ago, each group had to research a different party - there should have been one group per party (the 7 in that leaders debate) but for some reason they couldn't find anything about Plaid Cymru so her group ended up with the Monster Raving Loonies. She went through their A-Z 'manicfesto' with me so probably engaged her more than some of the other options!

INicked - nothing much happens for ages. If she's really interested, then an early night followed by an early wake up call might be an option (I hear that around 04:00 is when it starts to get interesting).

We're doing the early night then early morning thing, but 6am is as early as I'm prepared to get up for anything other than a life and death emergency.

A friend goes and puts flowers on the Pankhurst memorial every Election Day.

This is one of the loveliest things I have ever read.

I'm American, and I'm staying up to get the results, mainly through MN. I did the same thing with the Scottish referendum.

Is getting the results via MN a thing? It wouldn't have occurred to me although I might have followed Eurovision via MN

I was watching BBC online during the indyref results, as well as a US cable news channel, but MNers were posting results faster and with more detail.

It will be a bit more complicated with the GE, though.

Yep, I turned 18 three weeks after the 2005 election :(

Hang on, that can't be right, or I've lost two years somewhere.

Was it 2006 maybe?

Hmmm - I think it was 2005. I'm sure I voted in Cambridge once, and by 2006 I'd moved to Bedford...

I'm pretty sure the first national election I voted in was 2005 as I was in my first year of university and I remember going as a group from our halls

There were three bunches of flowers on the statue today, including hers and the friend she
went with.

(I first voted in 85 #old)

Feeling old now - my first general election was 1997 (and I wasn't far off being old enough to vote in 1992).

The first time I voted was in the 1992 referendum in South Africa where we voted yes for racial equality. I am rather proud to have been part of that.

My first general election vote was in Cambridge (1992), and Anne Campbell got in with a margin of something like 543 votes. That sort of result makes you feel your vote counts.

My first time voting was also in the UK. I was a student in Edinburgh and voting absentee in an election in the US. At the time US absentee ballots sent from foreign countries had to be certified by a US official. I went to the consul's office, and he ushered me into his office and made a very big deal about it, calling in a few other people from the office and administering an oath. It is a very vivid memory.