Women on the left are responsible for austerity

[CarrotyO]

I've heard it said that women on the left actually support and are therefore in some way responsible for austerity. This is because both Labour and the Tories support austerity. Therefore any woman who supports Labour, or the Left in general, also knowingly and consciously supports austerity and are therefore also responsible for the 1000s of deaths of disabled people caused by austerity. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

So people must agree with and propagate smears against wp in order to show solidarity with Lisa.

Observable reality is not a smear. Observable reality:

Labour women are prominently involved WP -> check

These same Labour women prevented discussion of austerity before, because they were too invested in some ideological point (feminism =/ motherhood). (We have the Twitter feed) -> check

#Austerity hit mothers disproportionally and caused many deaths -> check

The core of WP, strongly influenced by same Labour women was so invested in some ideological point that they cast Posie out for said ideological point, blind to the actual consequences (in analogy to austerity) of painting a target on someone, which can be dire in the current climate -> check

Posie was, consequently, increasingly targetted, doxxed. -> check

The message of WP is streamlined to be compatible with Labour positions -> check.

The strongly Labour influenced core makes secret talks with politicians (of Labour), leaving their power base, the women who built WP in a grassroot movement in the dark -> check

Fazit: Pointing facts out and drawing logical conclusions from them is not a smear.

Related question: should WPUK give a platform to Tory-voting GC women? If not, why not?

Maybe it would be useful for the women's organisations in the political sphere to come to FWR and explain who they are willing to accept as members, supporters, officers etc.

And to outline whether or not they have an adherence to procedural justice when making their decisions and if there's a due process for investigating people, dis-inviting speakers etc.

That would be very handy, you're right arran

Does anyone here think that WP is not an 'organisation' in the usual sense of the word? We can't join or be part of a distinct group, as with FPFW who are letting us loose on streets up and down the country, under their branding.
I think WP are facilitators, in the sense that they put their name to the meetings but don't get involved more than that. They issue guidelines etc.
They did seem to handle the PP thing badly, however there was claim and counter claim. They issued their statement and then silence. It came off strangely and it also fits with the kind of shadowy impression that they're not revealing anything about the JMcD meeting?
Tbh I don't even know who they are. So
I don't know about all the things said about them on this thread. Other people may know more.
I can't see them revisiting the PP situation but it would be great if they could issue the guidelines / procedures mentioned upthread.

Labour women are prominently involved WP -> check

correct

These same Labour women prevented discussion of austerity before, because they were too invested in some ideological point (feminism =/ motherhood). (We have the Twitter feed) -> check

This is the main leap that I think many people are struggling to get. How does some woman tweeting about her issues with infertility "prevent discussion of austerity" ? How do left wing women working for women get told they are responsible for deaths caused by a system they do not actually control ?

Also, feminism =/ motherhood. True, it doesn't

#Austerity hit mothers disproportionally and caused many deaths -> check

Wrong. It hit people living in poverty disproportionately. Some of who were mothers but many because of disability, mental health problems, old age, unemployment, lack of education etc. The whole "welfare reform" was devastating to the supposed "weaker" members of society, not only directly through sanctions and such like but through the gutting of vital services.

Middle and upper and well-off working class (yes, they exist) mothers were insulated by ££.

The core of WP, strongly influenced by same Labour women was so invested in some ideological point that they cast Posie out for said ideological point, blind to the actual consequences (in analogy to austerity) of painting a target on someone, which can be dire in the current climate -> check

Being un-invited by one group from one meeting is not "casting out" nor "painting a target". Posie had already been targetted (actually deliberatly targetted) by Mermaids who had set the police on her. This happened way before WP decided they didn't want her at their meeting. Posie also had a huge amount of support from people who weren't the loony left WP core, so not exactly an outcast at all.

Posie was, consequently, increasingly targetted, doxxed. -> check

She was doxxed by the same gang who already had her on one of their lists (along with several other known trans-critical women), and, to repeat, had masses of support including fundraising for ££ and platforms elsewhere.

The message of WP is streamlined to be compatible with Labour positions -> check.

mostly correct

The strongly Labour influenced core makes secret talks with politicians (of Labour), leaving their power base, the women who built WP in a grassroot movement in the dark -> check

I agree this is not acceptable, and think transparency is important - across the board and without double standards,

1. If WP can throw Posie to the wolves, they can throw any of us to the wolves. Are you OK with that?

2. The thing about grassroots bottom-up movements like this current resurgence of radical feminism is that a) we don't wait to be told what to do nor how to think and b) the peoole with high media profiles aren't bosses who can tell the rest of us what to do. So if WP or anyone else are coming along thinking they can tell the rest of us what to do, they will get a shock.

Related question: should WPUK give a platform to Tory-voting GC women? If not, why not?

I have voted Tory in Holyrood elections and potentially will vote Tory at next Westminster elections.

On the basis of this thread I have zero interest in engaging with any of WPUK, FPFW or WNTT.

Lisa's constant twisting of any comment she doesn't like as being a personal attack is ridiculous.

So far as not being famous- her denial is a little disingenuous. She writes a blog which regularly gets quoted with approval on here and she is regularly applauded on here and treated as a hero.

xxmarksthespot

Austerity did hit mothers disproportionately (particularly single mothers). This is precisely what Yvette Cooper pointed out, when said WP involved labour member insisted this was not a women's issue because women =/= mothers. Ignoring how women with children are in real life disproportionately hit by austerity as in real life women are the primary care givers, is hardly a feminist position that deserves its name, though. But said woman didn't have to live said reality, so she could easily pontificate about how this is not a feminist issue. Apparently a problem of intellect or class, most probably both, on said woman's side.

Posie's disinvitation was made very publicly. And who felt entitled to make the call that this was in the name of WP women and should be done in this public manner? Who called the shots? If you cannot see that this made Posie more of a target, oh well... Whoever called the shots clearly has never been is such a vulnerable position regarding the mob. The protection of class?

Surely all of the people in poverty listed, are disproportionately mothers (or at least women?)? Women are more likely to be carers, to be disabled, to live into old age, to be undereducated?

On the basis of this thread I have zero interest in engaging with any of WPUK, FPFW or WNTT.

Fair enough, Lass, but that's not really what I meant.

The US has an openly non party political campaign group in Hands Across the Aisle. It regularly gets attacked because it includes pro-lifers (hallmark of right of centre politics in the US in a way it isn't here).

I mean - I don't know what most women want. Separate campaign groups that largely align with other politics? Mostly bipartisan groups that don't take any other issues into account?

The potential issue I see with WPUK is that they started out with no other political branding other than women's rights but, as time goes on, seem to be aligning themselves with Labour/left generally. I don't mind which it is - whatever women want. But I do think it should be transparent and WPUK should not assume that people like me who have supported them have also given them a mandate to negotiate with politicians in private and on my behalf.

(I say this as a leftist politically. I might be more miffed if I was a Tory voting GC woman who thought she was supporting a single issue group.)

But I do think it should be transparent and WPUK should not assume that people like me who have supported them have also given them a mandate to negotiate with politicians in private and on my behalf.

^^ And also the shift in alignment.

I don't think WP made it publicly did they?
It BECAME public. And as I have mentioned there was a lot of whispering going on around that.
And there were some v dodgy things said by PP and I respectfully suggest that if someone else had said them, they wouldn't have been forgotten so quickly.
Plus, my comment above, WP SHOULD tell us all WHAT they are.
I don't see how they profit from us, by any measure, at the moment.
It's odd.

And there were some v dodgy things said by PP

There were very dodgy and explicitly antifeminist things said by the 'don't talk about mothers and austerity, this has nothing to do with feminism, I feel excluded' lady. (Reminds me a bit of those easily triggered people who whine that talk about FGM and menstruation and pregnancy makes them feel excluded btw.) And yet, there she is in the middle WPUK, as included as ever.

DeepWater Sorry, I don't know what you mean there. Are you referring to someone on this thread or someone affiliated to WPUK?

I am referring to someone affilated with Labour and WPUK, whom Lisa named on this thread.

Ok.

There's so much to get my head round. I tell you what though, I wish some of the women on here were in politics (maybe they are) because there's a LOT of feminism here and I admire and respect the women speaking who seem to have a firmer grasp of the issues affecting WAG than most of the women on the left.

And JMcD STILL can't define woman so that was utter bollocks. Apparently that's still subject to debate so he can do one. Must think we were born yesterday.
And the Tories aren't saying, they don't need to do they? The other parties are making fools of themselves.

I don't think that people are deliberately misrepresenting Lisa, her prose is utterly incomprehensible stream of consciousness stuff, interspersed with aggressive personal assertions and appeals to victimhood. A lot gets lost in translation and you need both heaps of time and analytical mind to distill the verbiage in order to get at the salient points.

Having lost hours attempting to follow some of these threads, my overriding impression is that this is predominantly about the clash of big egos; Lisa's major beef and dominant theme over the past few years is that for whatever reason, she has not been one of the big names. In terms of this issue, it's because she's late to the party - FPFWG and WPUK have been organising for a number of years, while Lisa was still a trans ally until her eyes were opened and now she wants to impose her own brand upon the movement about make it as much about austerity as anything else.

It's in danger of becoming an internecine political fight and women squabbling and falling out with each other is every TRA's dream. For now WPUK and FPFWG need to be single-issue lobby groups, given what's at stake. The public at large are not going to engage with complicated and incomprehensible verbiage about systems failure and intersectionality etc no matter how salient the points.

The other thing I'd note is that I can completely understand why WPUK (and no I am not affiliated with them in any way) are keeping discussions with John McDonnell quiet. Politicians need to be able to engage with lobby groups with complete confidentiality and I can't think of any other organisation whereby they open their consultations/discussions with government ministers/shadow cabinet members to the public or produce minutes. It's up to donors whether or not they wish to trust the organisation and while I am very far from being on the left or anywhere near it, I would state that none of this squabbling or clash of egos is helping at all.

Nonetheless xxmarksthespot has perfectly summarised the issues with PP.

The scapegoating and gas lighting of the OP has been a disturbing spectacle. Lisa's schtick about what happens when a fragile identity is pierced is projection. You can't ask her a straight question without getting a shedload of abuse or accused of having ulterior motives and being part of The Conspiracy (TM) to sideline Lisa because she is so important and prophetic she needs to be silenced.

If anyone is trying to silence Lisa they are doing a piss-poor job. I don't want to descend into nastiness but it's impossible to hold any rational conversation with her unless it's explicitly on her terms allowing her to feel as though she is the expert, in control and we must all prostrate to her superior knowledge and intellect, which she frequently likes to remind us of.

Over and out.

In the early years of the coalition government when Miliband was punting austerity-but-nicer as the opposition position, a lot of middle class Labour activists (including women activists) behaved viciously to gobby working class women who pointed out that the cuts Labour were supporting overwhelmingly affected women.

Since Corbyn has taken over and is punting actual anti-austerity and a rebuilding of public services and restoration of a dignified benefits system as the opposition position, the same Labour activists have got just as shirty with gobby working class women who point out, for example, that the manifesto committed 4x the money to middle class students than it did to working class mothers.

If it weren't for the self-ID issue, I would still be voting Labour even though I know the above is entirely true. I would be advocating for better pro-woman policies from the inside. But I wouldn't be hounding and attacking other women for pointing out the truth of actual policy in order to protect my identity of anti austerity Labour voter and therefore a good person.

There will always be a gap between any party's political messaging and the cold hard facts of its policy. People who point out that gap shouldn't be targets for abuse; rather, causes of reflection.

Forgot to say, if WPUK are aligning themselves with the left it will alienate Hands Across the Aisle types who are deliberately not affiliating themselves with any one political party. I don't think this is a wise move, but I'm not sure of the proof that it's happening.

It does seem a wise idea to get Labour on side nonetheless. The Tories would allow next door's cat to identify as a woman provided it would vote for them.

I'm most comfortable with a plurality of groups, I think.

I'm most comfortable with a plurality of groups, I think.

^^ I agree with LangCleg. E.g., I like knowing that there is a group that looks at the impacts of social and economic policy and related financing on women. E.g., Women's Budgeting Group, aka WBG.

womencount.wbg.org.uk

Still waiting for Universal Credit in England & Wales to be split in the same way that WBG in Scotland achieved:

womencount.wbg.org.uk/what-gender-budget-analysis-can-show/social-security/universal-credit

Somebody is having some fun.

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1042388329273221121

This is the FPFW film released today.

TRIGGER - DVA