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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

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Original poster

53000 people have responded to the GRA consultation so far - still time for more!

49 replies

Forgotthebins · 21/10/2018 07:23

As shared by the Women and Equalities Office on Twitter: twitter.com/WomenEqualities/status/1053326798577197056
Of course we have no idea about the balance of responses but a huge well done to all of you who have been sharing info and getting the message out to make sure that women's voices have been heard. For anyone on here about to write in time for the extended deadline of noon on Monday 22nd, I thoroughly recommend Lost Lesbian's blog of her answers - wish I'd had them to hand when I did mine!

lesbianlost.home.blog/

Also I notice that the Government's "Women and Equalities Office" say that they are responsible for gender and LGBT equalities - a much more narrow remit than I had ever understood it to be before! I wonder where sex and all the other protected characteristics (race, disability etc) should go for protection.

OP posts:

AlecTrevelyan006 · 21/10/2018 23:03

it's going to take ages just to the basic admin and processing of all the responses. Then they all have to analysed and a report drafted for ministers and that could take many months. I would not be at all surprised if we do not see the sight of the consultation outcome in this parliament.

greenlanes · 22/10/2018 01:59

Finally completed. Hours off my life that I will never get back - just hope its worth it in the end.

Redkeyboard · 22/10/2018 03:19

Submitted email version using their word document. Took hours. Not got any acknowledgement or response from sending email - should I get something, how do I know it’s got through?

Redkeyboard · 22/10/2018 07:59

Bump in case someone can answer the question

whereisthatpenguinfrom · 22/10/2018 08:04

Completed.

Becles · 22/10/2018 08:10

Bump - Not Too Late To Complete Your response

Iused2BanOptimist · 22/10/2018 08:13

Redkeyboard I had an email acknowledgment for my one I sent in direct and so did DD using the quick FPFW one I sent in with her yesterday.
However I also sent in one via Stonewall for DH, see below, plus a pp warning about this. DH didn't get an acknowledgement for this, I did leave the tick box re further contact unticked so that may be the reason or could they have some way of filtering? Mainly did it to thumb a nose at them but hey ho. Cleared cookies etc afterwards so hopefully all safe.

Iused2BanOptimist · 22/10/2018 08:16

What time does it end? Although it would be very annoying having invested time and effort sending carefully considered responses, if you are concerned Redkeyboard and want to be sure of having a say there's still just time to send in one via FPFW one click link which is super quick. You may need to use a different email and phone number.

Iused2BanOptimist · 22/10/2018 08:18

It ends noon today according to pp.

catsnoozing · 22/10/2018 08:31

Did mine last week and two members of my family have as well.

clopper · 22/10/2018 08:31

Done

Original poster

Forgotthebins · 22/10/2018 10:59

That's interesting info from those of you who know about how the government manages consultation responses, i.e. that they count keywords rather than read in depth. That makes sense because even if only 1000 of the 53000 answered each of 17 questions with 100 words of free text that would add up to about 4000 pages of close spaced text for someone to read. I wonder how it works in practice - how could they know if someone using the word "rights" a lot was for or against the proposals?

I looked up how many people responded to the Home Education consultation because someone mentioned that one, and it seems to have been just over 3000 www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/home_education_consultation_numb - so this is a lot bigger, as is appropriate as it does affect so many more people.

OP posts:

Galvantula · 22/10/2018 11:05

I eventually completed mine this morning. I had to go get chocolate to keep me going and now I feel like I need a lie down in a darkened room. I wish I'd gone for the one- click submission, but I'd already started filling it in so I ploughed on. 😖

ScipioAfricanus · 22/10/2018 12:04

Submitted at 11.59 am! Takes me back to uni deadlines. At least I tried, and got my parents (with whom I disagree on most political things but agree with on this) to submit a response too.

Bonions · 22/10/2018 12:13

In the 11th hour I got a younger cousin who’s studying law to fill it out and she’s sent it to her friends too so hopefully some of them will do it.

olenna what would a more usual figure for consultation responses?

NoRunAround · 22/10/2018 12:18

Wow! The FPFW site had over 88,000 views. Thanks FPFW..

BettyDuMonde · 22/10/2018 12:35

FPFW had almost 20,000 responses through their form late last night.

Original poster

Forgotthebins · 22/10/2018 14:15

Betty that's amazing! I don't know exactly how long they've been going but for a very new organisation with no external backing to get such a huge response out is very inspiring! .

Bonions I found a figure of just over 3000 for the home education consultation but don't know what an average would be. In the sector I work in it's quite niche, so I've only ever seen figures of a couple of hundred mentioned.

OP posts:

UnderMajorDomoMinor · 22/10/2018 20:09

Average is under 1000.

Bonions · 23/10/2018 09:24

Wow, that’s a huge difference! So even if there were more responses in favour of the proposed changes, the fact that there would (presumably) be so many against is still noteworthy?

AspergersMum · 23/10/2018 12:12

Forgotthebins by data analysis I meant computers, not people, reading the responses and collating phrases or words for the questions. I cynically wonder at this point if the gov't will say We've had a lot of responses, we've looked at them (i.e. we saw that 56k people wrote in so we "looked") and we're going to think about this more in the future. Kicked into the long grass. If they hadn't put money aside for analysis of results, I can't think they really want to find the rather large sum to outsource it at this point. Could be wrong tho.

AspergersMum · 23/10/2018 12:17

Also @forgotthebins, in future it would almost be preferable to have people reply using the prefilled form as then the picture would be very clear for data analysis as the same phrases and words would be used each time. Stonewall, Green Party, those types of forms will be clearly "for" in this case and FPFW "against" the changes. As humans are unlikely to be reading the responses, it is just a vote to see how large the opposition is and how many were passionate enough to write in in favour of the changes. Home Ed consultations always produce enough "against change" written responses to cause a headache so certainly in this case I would hope for the same outcome.

OlennasWimple · 23/10/2018 13:05

Standard forms are a blessing and a curse, Aspergers. It makes it easy to dismiss swathes of responses as part of a campaign where the respondents don't necessarily know what they are saying - though it makes the analysis quicker

AspergersMum · 23/10/2018 14:44

I entirely agree Olenna. It also allows people from other countries to jump on a bandwagon and skew results. But if the future is data analysis instead of humans reading results, it seems pointless to put so much time and effort into studied responses. It makes it a vote of opinions instead of a debate.

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