Caroline Lucas calls for an all-women cabinet

[Gone2far]

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I think she's lost the plot and that an all-women cabinet would have no special powers. Why are women supposed to be innately better at governing than men?

And today's prize for the most idiotic letter in the Guardian goes to Dr Tim Reinke-Williams of the University of Northampton who wrote:

'I vote for the Green party, oppose Brexit, teach and research women’s history, and consider myself to be a feminist, but I do not agree with Caroline Lucas that assembling a cabinet of women is the means by which to solve the problems of Brexit (‘A cabinet of national unity’: Lucas urges female MPs to put aside parties and fight no deal, 12 August).

'We need to encourage cross-party discussion, and the voices of women are underrepresented in the current cabinet, but of the 10 women whom Caroline Lucas approached all are cisgender and white, most are straight, their average age is 50, and eight studied or taught at Russell Group universities. It is debatable whether they represent the diversity of opinions and qualities to be found in Britain and Northern Ireland in the 21st century, and it is unclear why such a homogeneous group will be able to find a solution which will be supported by a majority of MPs and by the general public.

'To heal the wounds of this divided kingdom we need to foster alliances with those most like us, and reach out to those who differ from us. Caroline Lucas seems able to do the former but not the latter.'

Oh, the crime of being all cisgender - or in other words, a group of women consisting entirely of women rather than some of them being men.

How does someone this stupid become an academic? Let alone in women's history - where surely an understanding of the meaning of the word "woman" has to be a given?

“University of Northampton”
Snigger

eight studied or taught at Russell Group universities

Head thud.

Everything about that letter enrages me. Obviously the "cisgender" line is particularly fatuous, but the pomposity of lines like "to heal the wounds of this divided kingdom" and the virtue-signalling idiocy of complaining about MPs having attended Russell Group unis - as if getting a degree from a good university is now a bad thing - are surefire signs of someone who has little capacity for critical thinking.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2019/08/caroline-lucas-plan-stop-no-deal-brexit-great-greens-least

Johnson,who hasn’t the faintest clue how to sort out Brexit

I disagree.

Johnson and his funders know exactly what he's doing. It's just that most people don't believe they will do it.

It'll be funny to look back on this 10 days into crash out brexit, and wonder why more people didn't wake up to what was coming down the line, in the dog days of August.

I say funny....

Little Timmy doesn’t seem to want to put a profile picture on his Northampton profile. What’s the betting he’s a white male - and thus, by his own lights, duty bound to STFU and cede space in the national media to less dominant groups?

Or maybe he’s queer. Yeah, that’ll be it. The ticket for straight white men to continue telling women what to do and think without having to feel bad about it.

Well I agreed with the vast majority of what that professor wrote but people are slating him for the cis reference and discounting everything else.

He made a perfectly good point that a bunch of similarly educated white women who all have the same views can not be sanely portrayed as some kind of voice of unity for the people etc. I’m not sure if the mad Caroline even claimed that though as was honest enough about it being an anti brexit initiative. Otherwise Theresa May, Priti Patel, Leadsom etc should have been in the mix.

All this separate people’s assembly stuff is bollocks also as eveyrone wants to ensure this so called thing they want is made up of people who will come up with the answer they want.

The biggest people’s vote was the referendum itself which people are now wanting to ignore. It’s was and still is the largest political vote in the country of all time but some want to replace it with a 100 handpicked people.

I don’t think Caroline Lucas is racist at all btw but do find it amusing when someone try’s to play identify politics and then gets outflanked by a SJW.

It’s hilarious that she’s been forced to grovel to the left about not having a brown face (c. 6% of the population) in her dream team whilst her suggestion of a female only take over has been less controversial (excludinf c. 50%).

I agree caucho. I also laughed (a lot) when she identified Dawn Butler as an inspirational woman mp of colour. Dawn Butler! She really IS daft

Lucas didn't claim that women would provide a "voice of unity", though. Her argument was that "women have shown they can bring a different perspective to crises, are able to reach out to those they disagree with and cooperate to find solutions". Here's the piece she published in the Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/11/cabinet-women-no-deal-brexit-caroline-lucas

The problem with Tim Reinke-Williams is that he's not interested in considering the argument on its merits. His sole aim is to prove how woke he is by yammering on about how terrible it is to exclude black women, trans women, women who didn't attend a Russell Group university. (There aren't even any trans women in parliament, so how is that going to work?) Perhaps he imagines that he will score some SJW points with his argument. Instead, he just looks like yet another white man telling women how to do feminism.

Totally unrelated to the thread ( which I have been following with interest ) I just wanted to comment on a little bit of academic elitism and the sniggering at the mention of Northampton University.
The original Northampton university was the third to open in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge... Some historians think it might even pre-date Cambridge. During a rebellion against the crown, academics from both Oxford and Cambridge were forced to seek shelter and that was provided by Northampton University. The king was persuaded not to execute all the academics since they were the children of wealthy families and thus erode his support and likely foment rebellion. Instead, he took away the town's right to have a university and it was closed. If Northampton had turned away the academics from Oxford and Cambridge, Northampton would likely be the premiere university in the UK and maybe the world. This royal decree was only overturned in 2005... At great cost to the new university !
So maybe a little less sniggering and a little more knowledge about the UK's history ?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Northampton_(13th_century)

The wiki isn't totally accurate but gives the gist of the history... And apologies for any derailing.

RLD