The Upcoming Election

[TerfTalk]

I guess we will get the manifestos in a few days, which should be interesting...

All I remember from the previous elections was far too much: "I am in the X party. There are tons of people in the X party that are gender critical, but they can't say anything because of A, B, C."

Personally, I am spoiling my ballot unless any of the parties (other than UKIP) take a gender critical stance. I am in a Labour safe seat, so it won't make any difference to my area.

I hate, hate, hate Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. He has his own kind of special cardigan wearing old school misogyny. He is propped up by momentum who come across as anti democratic and nasty.

Boris Johnson will not support Women unless it is aligned with his own self serving strategy.

I don't think either men are fit for office or supporters of women.

Then there are the lib dems who seem to have forgotten to be liberal or democratic. It is led by a woman (good) who does not seem to understand the need for sex based protections (bad).

So who do I vote for? No idea, but I will probably avoid the self serving men.

Perhaps we could come up with a template to send to local candidates?

By all means spoil your vote. Write on it exactly why in a clear manner. All candidates read spoilt papers and so the message will be at least read.
However if you are in a very marginal seat just do some research into which parties do the most for women's rights in a broader sense because they are going to get fucked over if/when Brexit happens.

if you spoil your vote you might as well say im happy with the brexiteer tories screwing this country.
maybe thats what you want to say but if it isnt, please vote.

Please vote for candidates over parties. Contact all those standing and ask where they stand on women’s rights (the physical reality kind) and other pertinent issues to you. There are lots of great candidates who are GC in the main parties, who do a great effort for supporting the issue and who could be hugely influential in turning the tide if they got our votes.

No, Hypatia415. There are no more important issues than women's rights. I am sick of our concerns permanently being shoved down the queue - oh, this matters more, or that, or anything else that can be used to keep us in our place but will be able to be forgotten about 5 minutes later. Women matter, the rights and actual legal existence of 51% of the population matter, and, for once, we will take priority.

Once sex based rights are gone it is the poorest who will be affected the most.

A few examples off the top of my head:
Women in prison being forced to share with men.
Women won’t be able to access hostels or emergency accommodation.
Women will have to share hospital wards with men.
Women won’t be able to access subsidised swimming pools or gym/fitness classes.
Women won’t be able to use soup kitchen facilities because they get driven away for using the wrong words.
Women won’t access support for DA.
Women won’t be able to turn to their Union for support at work because they require a single sex bathroom.
Women will be forced to have males performing personal care roles- washing, dressing etc.

I know people say you shouldn’t vote on a single issue but this one issue could wipe out everything which women have worked so hard for so long for.

i cant believe people here want this elite group of v right-wing Etonian cons to continue fucking the country.

genuinely cant believe it.

you must know what giving a mandate to bj will do.

Of course women’s rights matter. But that includes poor women too and includes fighting austerity. Do you honestly think women are better off under the tories when the effects of what they have done so far are already starkly visible? None of the parties will be gender critical in the sense of repealing the GRA. Not now, not in the future. It was the tories who came up with self-ID and scrapping the EA exemptions to begin with. The amendments are now off the table for now.

Austerity and the economic effects of Brexit are the biggest issues affecting women as well as things like NHS and provisions for childcare and flexible working. The tories are pro-businesses rather than workers, pro-privatisation of NHS, pro-No deal Brexit and subsequent recession, and pro-austerity. If you are elderly, disabled, sick, mentally ill etc you don’t matter to them very much.

Anyone who genuinely thinks the tories are better for women (often on the basis of having a right-wing elderly MP who’s against ALL LGBT rights) is living in a middle-class bubble. I would bet you if you asked a struggling mum on universal credit whether she is affected more by welfare cuts or by the prospect of sharing a changing room with a male, it would be the former. Poor women will be fucked even more than they already are by a new Tory government.

I think women’s rights ARE the most important issue this election. But, especially when you consider the fact that Boris has not been able to pass his agenda through Parliament because lack of MPs on side, it important to realise you are voting for individual MPs here not parties. (Unless you vote SNP who always vote according to the party dictat)

I understand the pragmatism of voting against Brexit and austerity, really, I do. But I have to say, I too am not bowled over by the suggestion that once we deal with the current pressing matters, we can pull the focus back onto women's rights.
It's by no means a given that the current iteration of the Labour party has the ability or will to effectively overturn austerity and the fallout from it. So it may well not actually help end austerity to vote for a party that recently at conference booed a speaker for saying that women have the right to meet safely without harrassment.

I agree with all posts saying contact the candidates and vote for specific candidates rather than parties, but I also strenuously object to this idea that it's the best thing to put the possible end in austerity measures as always a higher priority that women's rights. And I'm not middle class, women's sex based rights are not a middle class issue, and I think it's symptomatic of how we have got where we are that anyone thinks once the great revolution happens, then we can think about defending women's rights. How many times do the powerful have to shunt you to the back of the queue before you realize it will not happen?

Anti-austerity IS women’s rights though. Austerity hits women far worse than men. It’s not something that is separate from women’s rights. No party is going to have a policy to reduce current rights of trans people or to push for biological definitions of sex. The only party that would maybe do that would be a right wing party that would cut rights for anyone who is different and would be no good for women anyway. So that is basically pie in the sky.

But there is a chance with a GE to improve things for women and that starts with ending austerity policies.

I would bet you if you asked a struggling mum on universal credit whether she is affected more by welfare cuts or by the prospect of sharing a changing room with a male, it would be the former

If you asked a single mother suffering from domestic abuse whether is more affected by welfare cuts or by removal of safe refuges from domestic abuse, by being pushed down the housing priority queue by men, by being denied access to leisure venues because of lack of safety and privacy when she gets changed, by lack of political representation who could make things better for her as political posts/public boards/women’s post etc consist just of men, by feeling unable to go to hospital because the sexual assaults she has suffered means she needs a single sex ward and care givers, by being denied information about how to improve her health as it is not ‘inclusive’, by men all around her being allowed to treat her as a prop in their sexual fetish...

Anyone else think there are more pressing things to base votes on such as Brexit (whether you like it or not), the gender pay gap, progressive education policies, ending austerity, supporting single mothers and carers etc. etc.

Agreed. Women are absolutely fucked regardless if the tories get back in. Getting them out has to be the priority.

Austerity has hit women harder but the measures that are needed to be put in place to relieve that requires politicians to recognise this. How can they do so when you can no longer identify what a woman is?

Pota, you do as you feel you must, that's obviously fine. But I agree with ChattyLion (I think it was) that said there is no clear and obvious choice for women to vote for. If you want to go with Labour because you believe they will end austerity, well, you go ahead. I don't actually believe they have the competence in the top end, so I'm not convinced by that. So I'm going to be speaking to each candidate and asking some pointed questions and I will try and make a decision based on that.

She may not have to go into refuge or temporary accommodation if she wasn’t financially fucked. Women have it much better in societies with a strong social security system. There are of course cases but it’s totally wrong to suggest that all refugees are overrun with transwomen. They aren’t. I volunteer for one and have never come across it. Nor have I ever come across a male in a changing room or toilet. Of course it happens and it really shouldn’t but to suggest that it’s more pressing than the fact many women cannot buy food for their children due to Tory cuts misses the point by a hundred miles. How can women be better off under tories when so many of them are driven into poverty?

And also, transwomen would not get ahead on housing lists because it would be unlikely that they would be priority need, which is usually when there are dependent children.

Currently, there are children turning up at school not having had breakfast because their parents (often single mothers) can’t afford to feed them. People getting horrible sanctions for missing a benefits appointment due to illness. People freezing to death because they can’t afford to heat their homes. Old age poverty is much more likely to affect women than men. It’s horrendous and inhumane. The tories do not give a shit.

I live in an incredibly safe tory seat

The tactical voting thingy said vote labour but they dont stand a cat in hells chance

So i can vote for whomever i want in the full knowledge that they wont get in

Hold my nose and vote lib dem i suppose.....i dont see what other choice i have

Very loathe to vote labour but i will look at both their manifestos and have a good think...or toss a coin when i get there...or look for magpies or something

Despite being a former member of labour I can not and will not vote for them because of their awful treatment of women and the sneering condescending comments from MP's like Dawn Butler.

Exactly the same position. The sense of betrayal is acute. I won't be voting for them and I don't care what anyone else thinks about it. I'm not going to be scolded about it. I have no one to vote for. So I will spoil my ballot as a protest.

Politically homeless.

All parties prioritise men and, as pps have stated, this impacts on poor women the most.

Very safe Tory seat by me so I think I will lobby all candidates and spoil my paper.

I get all the arguments about "this is too important to abstain on one issue". I'm a former Labour member who has voted SNP last few elections.

However, I can not bring myself to vote for the odious Alyn Smith and can't see an alternative. We are currently a very marginal Conservative seat.

If I had read Ereskigal's post first, I'd have cut and pasted - my thoughts exactly.

Very safe Labour seat so I'll be spoiling my vote. Would probably have gritted my teeth and voted Labour if I was somewhere marginal but realistically I can't see another election changing much anyway, I think we'll end up with a slim Tory majority again with them all still arguing about bloody Brexit while half the country starves and the world burns. Finding it increasing difficult to muster up any enthusiasm for politics, the utter short sightedness, downright nastiness and sheer incompetency is mind-blowing.

Will the party leaders do a mumsnet Q&A?