Women's Equality Party

[EmpressOfTheVulvaCupcakes]

Just wondering really.... do they genuinely not give a fuck that an increasing proportion of Mumsnetters think they're pretty useless?

First they support Tara Hudson & when we express concern we get Sophie Walker's vague platitudes about anyone being able to be a woman. Now there's the question of their dads on maternity wards policy, which is apparently badly thought through and doesn't take the needs of women into account (again).

Do they really think that a post from Sandi Toksvig and a few straplines and platitudes are enough to get MNers on side? If so, they apparently have no respect for women at all.

I'd really, really love to be proved wrong on this.

Scarf there's a long thread somewhere else with a bit of a poll - hang on...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2515251-To-think-the-WEP-should-not-be-campaigning-for-men-to-be-allowed-to-stay-overnight-on-postnatal-wards

Scarf, your DH has stated overnight?

I think it would depend on how the survey was phrased. "Would you like 7 strange men staying overnight on the post natal ward with you?" For example...

Its not about people jettisoning WEP because it doesn't exactly meet their specifications. Its the fact that a party with policies involving forcing vulnerable women to be at close quarter with people who have penises, with no mention of these women's safety let alone wishes, is not a help to us. These issues are so fundamental that they simply don't deserve support if they insist on taking these, fundamentally male centric, positions. Its not ok to dismiss concerns like this is some Peoples Front of Judea situation.

Yy fanny. It's not even mentioned.. Eg"We want this but we will do that to protect privacy..."

I wonder how different the survey results would be among women before and after giving birth, and also women who have done it recently with the current level of care and those who did it 40 years ago.

Yes that's what frustrates me OneMore - it's so easy to skew the results by neglecting to mention the outcome of having your DP/DH with you.

Would you like to have your DP stay with you after you've given birth?
Oh yes please

Would you like to try to sleep with 12 people in a room designed for 6?
Probably not

Would you like to try to establish breast feeding when you're constantly surrounded by 5 non-patient strangers?
Not really

Would you feel comfortable discussing intimate medical details with a doctor with a strange non-patient man three inches away on the other side of a curtain?
I doubt it

Would you be comfortable walking across the ward to the toilet whilst bleeding at 3am, in an immodest hospital gown to find you had to wait because somebody's DH is already using the toilet?
Uh no, thanks

If you were in a situation where your DP couldn't stay, either due to requiring childcare or not having a DP, would you be comfortable sleeping with 5 non-patient men in the room?
Definitely not

Of course these subtleties don't come out using the first survey question. And that's assuming that these men are decent people that happen to make a woman feel uncomfortable just by their presence at a vulnerable time, but I think there are enough horror stories on MN to know that some men are vile, or even just ignorant to the importance of privacy.

Look at TheXXed's post - probably a completely nice guy who didn't realise the implication of his actions but 100% unacceptable behaviour which would never be accepted on any other ward in a hospital, but in maternity there seems to be a substandard expectation of care which women just have to put up with. It feels like misogyny to me.

Ah, I think most MNers are fine with men in en suite private rooms as they aren't using the facilities of patients or potentially making patients feel uncomfortable by their male presence in a female ward.

I haven't read twt yet, just wanted to jump in before I lose my thoughts. I saw CM, patronised a young working class girl at the first WEP Youth meeting. The girl found out about the meeting, made her way there and had the guts to stand up in front of everyone. She explained she wasn't highly educated and asked for help for a situation she felt was holding working class women and girls back. She offered a solution and was told to organise it herself. It was clear the WEP were not interested in hearing from working class women what their actual barriers are.

I had a lot of support from the other women when I was on a ward. It was lovely to share our experiences, highs and lows.
I helped 2 of them latch their babies pretty much consistently.

For women who are isolated the ward is a positive.

Scarf, partners are typically allowed on the wards 12h/day and other visitors 2-4h per day

In other types of wards, sometimes partners or relatives are allowed to stay overnight in exceptional circumstances. That is fine because it means there is never more than 1 extra person on the ward. But allowing partners to stay over could mean a lot of extra men on the ward all night.

And I would much rather be on a ward. Being in a single room is lonely, unless you have a lot of visitors.

www.womensequality.org.uk/jobs?utm_campaign=workwithus_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=womensequality

They are looking for a strategist. Anyone interested?

Just had a look at their equal opportunities monitoring form. Everything else is a ticky-box, but "gender" is a fill-in-your-own-answer option.

That'll be "genderfluid demiboi neutrois" for me, then. Possibly.

Isn't their name becoming increasingly meaningless?

I've decided that I'm agender. Makes no difference at all to me being a woman, but WEP clearly wouldn't agree.

I think I can count myself lucky to have been in a pretty good (not perfect) world - DP stayed with my for my first (private room, shared bathroom - in Canada), then for my second, I got home within 24 hrs - and wanted DP with DS1 anyway.

I didn't interact with anyone on the ward - barely even the nurses - couldn't care less about who was where, when (I'd just had a baby, TBH I had very little clue of the time of day myself). I had curtains, I'd like showers that didn't involve a foot hight step and a tiny door I could barely squeeze through (seriously... who does that to people who have just had a c-section!?) before I cared about visitors.

I respect the fact that I was lucky to have given birth for the first time in a country where the national health service could give me my own room. I don't think that would be an unreasonable aim for WEP.

I appreciate that other people feel differently, and from the second onwards have no strong feelings on the matter.

I see where they're coming from though - by involving the father heavily, from the very beginning, they're trying to avoid the mother becoming the default carer.

There are ways to do that which don't impinge the privacy of others though - encourage take up of paternity leave, have use it or lose it periods of paternity leave, improve the tax break if both parents (or single parent plus other close relative) contribute to childcare from earnings.

"Aww, They mean well" isn't enough for political decisions.

I realise that - but, if from the very beginning the father is expected to take care of the baby too then it just sets an expectation (DP held DS1 before I did - I was in recovery).

If it's the mother who's the one that's there when the midwife shows you how to wash a baby, how to put a nappy on (We had this in Canada - didn't need it, but had it - I don't know if this happens in the UK with baby number 1 before you leave hospital) then she naturally takes control once you get home.

I think for a second baby it all matters less. I just wanted to get home, and I wanted DS1 looked after - DP being the obvious choice there.

I understand all the risks the other way, and yes, we're grown adults, we can of course cope, and we should have the care to help us. But I do see where WEP is coming from.

If that's WEP's goal then they need evidence that the first couple of days has made a difference to outcomes for long term childcare plus evidence on the impact of women sharing wards with men eg PND rates.

Exactly. There's zero evidence that dads staying overnight has a positive impact on bonding or paternal involvement generally. They want to force ill postnatal women to be cared for around strange men 24/7 because of some hunch, basically. And if someone wants to be a useless tosser of a non-father, they can achieve that in or out of hospital.

There's a chat on the WEP Facebook page at the moment about Tara Hudson & their lack of interest in women's safety, including a link to the Sandi Toksvig thread. It's going quite well if anyone wants to join in.