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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Will this affect your vote?

249 replies

BovaryX · 11/11/2019 08:30

Several people have posted interesting threads about the response of political parties to questions about how/if they will safeguard sex segregated spaces. Some of the responses to that question explicitly demonstrate where politicians are aligned when it comes to protecting recalcitrant women against a concerted attempt to force ‘gender neutrality’ on the public. Some of those responses have been quite eye opening. My question is this. How influential will this be on your vote?

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zafferana · 11/11/2019 13:37

FWIW, @bellinisurge there isn't a party that represents what I want and believe in either, but I either find something/someone to vote for or against. This time, my greatest fear for this country is JC in No. 10 allied with the SNP, so I'm voting against that.

Campervan69 · 11/11/2019 13:38

I’m now in a quandary because, having spoken to my MP in person, I know that my MP understands the issues but is in a party that is enthusiastically cheerleading the self-ID reforms and TWAW, including on AWS. I don’t want my vote to be seen as agreement with the party’s policies, but we do have an excellent sitting constituency MP

Exactly my position. I'm thinking of voting Tory as a protest vote as they never get in where I live anyway. There's a first time for everything.

bellinisurge · 11/11/2019 13:41

My greatest fears are in no particular order fucking with GFA, enabling Brexit, giving comfort to a fucked up antisemite loving Labour Party, supporting my local Labour MPs wrongheaded decision on greenbelt sacrifice, attempts at enabling TWAW philosophy.
I'm loathe to vote for whatever "comedy candidate " there is locally because fuck knows what they are really like.

Dangerfloof · 11/11/2019 13:57

This problem has been taxing my brain too.
No party likes women. They all think twaw, fine but then I cant vote for them.
Spoil my ballot seems to be the only way for me.
This is the most important issue to me, if woman as a class cease to exist then the whole shebang doesn't matter to me. I have a daughter. I cant just let this slide for the sake of Brexit. Brexit will mean fuck all to her if she is a non man

BovaryX · 11/11/2019 13:59

there’s a first time for everything

Camper, I think what’s interesting about many of the responses to this thread is that lots of people have been alienated from their political ‘tribe’

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BovaryX · 11/11/2019 14:05

Reading many of these responses, it looks like many Labour and Lib Dem voters have been alienated because of TWAW policies. Some disgruntled Lib Dem voters are going to vote Conservative or spoil their ballot. I think these policies are being forced upon the public because many people are unaware that this is happening. Silence is acquiescence. When these policies are evident in every day life, people will wonder when and how it happened. By that point? It will be too late to get Alice out of the looking glass

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BouquetOfRoses · 11/11/2019 14:12

It's one of the issues I'm most concerned about. Initially I thought my main consideration would be Brexit, but it seems that women each month are listing more and more rights. It's so frustrating. Also a great post here pointed out the ongoing poverty affects women more comparatively and I can't believe I live in a western democratic "rich" country where reliance on foodbanks, homelessness and other indicators of poverty are so high.

However as of today I still don't know who to vote for balancing those issues

zafferana · 11/11/2019 14:13

They all think TWAW

Who the fuck actually thinks that TWAW apart from TW? It's more that no one (apart from Piers fucking Morgan) dares to speak the truth! Who on earth is going to stick their head above the parapet when what awaits them is death threats, rape threats, and bucket-loads of hatred and vitriol?

Bimbleberries · 11/11/2019 14:14

I think with the recent news that the Brexit party isn't standing in conservative seats, and Johnson saying that the transition won't be extended/he will be trying to get out of any customs rules imposed etc (aka as close to a hard Brexit no-deal as possible), there is absolutely no doubt at all that the parties themselves see this as purely a Brexit election, and I don't really trust that they have thought properly about their policies regarding women and transwomen, nor that they will be spending much time dealing with those areas - whoever gets elected. They all disregard women, and so I have to consider Brexit first, and hope that afterwards, particularly if there's a way for a referendum/revoke, then there really would be time for people to think about this properly. I don't see this election as being AS time critical for that as it is for Brexit.

BovaryX · 11/11/2019 14:18

Zafferana, I think this is a key issue and it is a social media phenomenon. It’s basically bullying, intimidation to silence any dissent. Language and its control is imperative. It is 1984 and the people promoting this agenda are profoundly totalitarian.

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ForeverFaff · 11/11/2019 14:23

@placemats blimey, can you name and shame? That sort of person has NO business representing anyone, or being anywhere near a position of power 😱

RoyalCorgi · 11/11/2019 14:29

It's all very very depressing. I'm a lifelong Labour voter and I will vote Labour this time, despite being unhappy with their position on reforming the GRA. We have a Tory MP, and in 2017, the Labour candidate was a few thousand votes behind - in the unlikely event of a swing to Labour this time, there would be a realistic chance of the Labour candidate taking the seat. The Lib Dems were a very long way behind indeed and don't stand a chance.

If it was a two-horse race between the Tory and the Lib Dems, I would find it very difficult indeed. I'd like to stop Brexit, but the Lib Dems' unyielding TWAW position, not to mention the abuse their LGBT Twitter account has doled out to gc women, makes them a hard party to support. Luckily, it's not a choice I have to make.

HandsOffMyRights · 11/11/2019 14:30

It won't impact my decision because actions speak louder than words from politicans desperate for votes.
Every single party has betrayed women.

TiredofthisBS · 11/11/2019 14:30

I'll be spoiling my vote. It is my democratic right to do so. I will not be swayed by people trying guilt trip me with 'you have to vote'. No I really don't. I'd rather have a spoiled ballot paper registered than seem apathetic by not going at all.

I would have voted labour but I left the party over their disgraceful attitudes towards women.

I can not vote for any party that thinks so little of my sex.

HandsOffMyRights · 11/11/2019 14:35

It isn't a single issue, it's every single issue.

Michelle precisely.

HandsOffMyRights · 11/11/2019 14:44

Somebody mentioned The Suffragettes upthread.

There was a good post on politics and Suffrage here and this screenshot draws parallels with today (sadly)

mobile.twitter.com/LaraAdamsMille1/status/1192829676860903426

Will this affect your vote?
MoltenLasagne · 11/11/2019 14:46

Yes it's definitely changing my vote as a former Lib Dem voter. I live in a Labour stronghold so I have the option of voting Tory knowing they're unlikely to get in or supporting a local party that stands on a socialist platform. I think I'll take the latter as at least it doesn't give Boris better numbers.

LangCleg · 11/11/2019 14:56

It isn't a single issue, it's every single issue.

Exactly. It's completely and utterly foundational.

Skade · 11/11/2019 14:57

I left the Labour party two years ago because of the way they treat women. They have no power where I live anyway and would never get a candidate in. I have messaged the Lib Dem candidate to find out her views and she has assured me she'll read the link I sent her and get back to me, but to be honest having seen the thread on the Lib Dems I'm not sure I could vote for anyone in a party that wouldn't have me as a member. So I guess I'm politically homeless - I have absolutely no idea who to vote for.

WhereYouLeftIt · 11/11/2019 15:01

"Yes, I agree that those would be very long term and fundamental if they happened fully and continued to be accepted fully. But I don't think it's going to be as quick a change as that. Whereas Brexit is. I think the issue of women's rights is huge, but slower, and that there is still time to change things after a referendum/decision etc on Brexit. I do think that people will wake up; I think that the changes around the ideology of women can be reversed still or in the future, whereas I think Brexit can't." (my bolding)

One word - Canada.

A country previously thought of as sensible and boring. Now?

"The fact that powerful people and corporations are either being silenced or actively embracing ‘gender neutrality’ irrespective of its negative impact on women?" We can see this happening. Do you really think that ordinary people 'waking up' will effect change when those with the reins of power have already surrendered? I don't think so. Reversal will be nigh on impossible.

I'm going to repeat @SpartacusAutisticus 's post of Mon 11-Nov-19 11:06:16 because I think it is spot on.

This notion that women's sex-based rights are a 'single issue' is nonsensical.

Women's rights (and I include girls in this group, as women's rights are girls rights too, now or in the future) are fundamental to health, care, education and employment rights.

The well-being of women is utterly vital to everyone's future, for we bear and nurture the next generation.

It is women who care for the most vulnerable in society, whether we agree with this split by sex is irrelevant, the reality is that we do this, often unpaid or underpaid and almost always with little respect or recognition.

Recognising and ameliorating for our sex-based disadvantage is why we have our own protected characteristic in the Equality Act, because it is acknowledged that we face systemic discrimination and oppression.

Our rights as women and girls to actively participate in society remain obstructed and hindered by this systemic failure.

Women's health, our education and employment rights, our freedom to gather and speak, and to recognise ourselves as a discrete social group, are all under threat, so this is not a single issue at all.

For women and girls, this is all the issues.

Every single one of them relies on our ability to name ourselves as women.

If we can't do this we have nothing.

No rights.

I absolutely agree with this.

And as for Brexit - I think we're too late. We're fucked, no matter who gets in and what they do once elected. I am not willing for those hard-won women's rights to be fucked too.

BovaryX · 11/11/2019 15:05

Do you really think that ordinary people 'waking up' will effect change when those with the reins of power have already surrendered? I don't think so. Reversal will be nigh on impossible.

Absolutely. It’s the Brave New World. Unimaginable even a decade ago. Now its relentless onward march looks unstoppable.

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zafferana · 11/11/2019 15:08

Yes @BovaryX I agree with you. It is absolutely bullying and shutting down any whisper of dissent. I can't think of another single issue where free speech is completely steam-rollered in the way that being GC is. Why is this being allowed to happen? What is happening to free speech and debate in this country? How are we being held to ransom by this tiny, vocal and extremely aggressive minority? It's frightening. No dares to speak up - not our media, not our political representatives, not our academics - for fear of the backlash.

Pukeworthy · 11/11/2019 15:08

Very much so - lib dem, green and labour are out as a result. I feel tories are perhaps a better bet being more aligned to old school, obvious misogyny than this more insidious kind. I may get screwed financially but at least i have more of a chance of not being perved on or raped in toilets, prisons, womens shelters etc.

DodoPatrol · 11/11/2019 15:10

Who the fuck actually thinks that TWAW apart from TW?

Very naive young people do, having been taught it in schools and on the internet. DD immediately switches pronouns the very day that (yet another) of her classmates announces themselves to be trans, and castigates herself if she gets it wrong. So, nice friendly James is now Emily? OK, Emily it is.

And of course lovely Emily should be on the girls' team and using the girls' loos because Emily is unquestionably a girl... except that another of her friends has confided that she was raped and would very much prefer single-sex facilities (and their school's feminist meetings) without lovely Emily, really, but she knows she's awful for even thinking that.

I wish I was making any of this up (bar the name changes).

zafferana · 11/11/2019 15:14

God, that's so depressing @DodoPatrol. Young women are being taught once again to put up and shut up so men's feelings aren't hurt, sorry, not men, TRANSWOMEN.

Actually, I was having a debate about this with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago. She works in a very liberal college in a very American liberal city. I dared to voice a GC POV and she immediately leapt on it and said that it was 'a typical, toxic, cis-gendered viewpoint'. I'm not sure our friendship is going to survive. I've known her for 12 years and she's been a good friend Sad