100 years of 'inclusive voting'? What does this mean??

[Albadross]

Today I got an email from someone at a well know establishment that has received criticism on MN for being very one sided when it comes to trans stuff.

I had asked this person to be part of an initiative about women in my field to mark 100 years since some women got votes and they said they were genderqueer, didn't identify as a woman and that it was actually 100 years since 'inclusive voting', so could I not focus on that instead.

Can anyone tell me what the hell this even means? And talk me down from responding with what I honestly want to say...

It doesn't mean anything, it's retrospectively trying to reframe suffrage in relation to modern day transactivism. Women were excluded from voting based on their sex, not their gender identity (if they had one).

I honestly don't know what you should reply with. I might not bother replying at all and just simply cross this person off your list, seeing as they aren't identifying as a woman.

It means fuck all. One hundred years ago all men and some women won the vote. 90 years ago, women and men were enfranchised on the same basis.

For the love of dog these idiots are beyond tiresome...

I would say that 100 years ago no one much cared what you identified as, they cared about what you actually were (i.e sex) .

Women as a class were not allowed to vote based on their sex not on how they presented, or what their feelings were about being that sex.

If this tiresome idot follows their own (non) logic then all women as a class throughtout every time period of history would have to do to avoid oppression would be to say they were men - ask the genderqueer how well that would have worked...

I'm with Assassinated as they're obviously quite happy to try and identify out of being a women and leaving the rest of us to enjoy our yummy cis oppression.

Sorry, forgot to say that I wouldn’t bother replyung either, though I am kind of curious about what ‘inclusive voting’ means.

This really fucks me off though as women’s suffrage is one of the few genuinely extraordinary wins for women historically. This country seems to be full of people who want to say, yeah but only some women, yeah but what about the working class men etc... Anyone who knows that history knows this was a huge victory and that the vote was won by and not given to women!

I feel I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, because not replying might also have negative consequences...

It's just so utterly ridiculous I can't fathom how these people get through life frankly. Talk about disrespecting rights women died for. I bet they'd bring up 'some females dressed as men to get xyz so nobody checked'.

Inclusive voting = what about the menz

They mean that all men over 21 were given the vote at the same time that some women over 30 got the vote. Previously only certain men had the right to vote.

Therefore you need to make your project about men as well.

That would be my interpretation of it. Could be wrong though.

I'd just ignore it.

Or would write back innocently and ask which men are currently undertaking these great projects to mark 100 years of inclusive voting. Because you'd love to see their material, it must be so inspiring.

Yeah, erasing any mention of women sure would be a great way of commemorating 100 years of British women having the vote.

Worth getting in touch with anyone else at their organisation seeing as they don't appear to have a grasp on the history?

I think I'd be tempted to take the playing dumb route and ask what they mean by genderqueer and by inclusive voting, and then if I got an answer I think I'd ask more questions. (If it is appropriate in your professional role to do so, but I don't see what's wrong with asking questions when confronted with terms that are outside the norm).

It wasn't very inclusive was it?

It only included women who had sufficient economic power and did not have a man to vote for them.

It introduced the principle that women could vote. It was inclusive for men, as they could all vote over 21 but women were not given parity until later. You could maybe say that this was when voting became 'inclusive' but that would negate the efforts of women like my working class great grandmother who put a lot of effort into getting the vote for women in the first place.

I would be thanking her for her response, saying that your intention was to be historically accurate, and that you understand why they feel unable to take part.
And then concentrate on facts and not revisionism.

That is a perfect response @mamaryllis.

Confusingly, this person is female too.

I can't ask anyone else at the org because my field is tiny but I think I'll just ignore for now and see what happens. I just can't see what they thought was so inclusive about it when only some female people got to vote, voting already included men so who the hell else does she even mean?

Mamaryllis has beaten me to it!

Time to channel your inner Sir Humphrey. Thank her for her contribution, make some sort of anodyne but totally non-commital noise (the non-commital is very important - don't allow wriggle room for her to get back to you) about valuing contributions from all voices, stress that it's public outreach work so you need to talk in terms the public will understand, and that it focuses on a historical event, so you'll be using the terminology as it would have been used by people at the time.

Think the worst example you've ever heard of a corporate "non apology" and go one (or two) further.

Then ghost her/them/zim. And get some people who'll participate in a sensible way.

I'm guessing it's a reference to transmen? Because some of those newly enfranchised women identified as male? So it's transphobic to talk about women getting the vote. Maybe.

I think what she means is that women with penises already had the vote. 100 years ago ciswomen and some vagina'ed transmen age 30+ got given the vote.

Thanks Hairy and Mam - I think the non-committal approach seems very much the way to go. I wish these bastard things weren't always cropping up in work, where I feel the pressure to say things I really feel strongly are wrong. It's soul-destroying

Sea Lioning is the best response to these kinds of absurd efforts at rewriting history. Lots and lots of questions.

Unrelated-ish butI found it infuriating that so much of the stuff I saw on TV etc around celebrating 100 years since (some) women got the vote inlcuded TIMs. What are they doing there? they would have been able to vote for fuck's sake, they would have been seen as men and I'm guessing most would have had no interest whatsoever in "transitioning" in those days even if it wasn't likely to get them beaten up, given that they would have had to give up their vote, possibly their job, loads of other stuff my history is a bit shoddy! It was legal to rape us if the assailant was our husband until pretty recently in the scehem of things so I'm guessing in 1918 things weren't super-rosy.

The trans movement has only come about now because things have got passably OK for women in this small corner of the world.

"inclusive voting" - that is incredibly insulting to women and diminishes the struggle it took to get the vote.

BlindYeo 😂😂