Conservative landslide - how are we feeling as feminists?

[Cwenthryth]

I feel very mixed this morning. So worried about what this means for public services, policing, NHS, social care, mental health services, housing, in-work poverty... all of which disproportionately affects women, either as those needing these services or picking up the pieces when dependents cannot access what they need. We now have an openly misogynist prime minister (we did before, but now he has a secure mandate), who won’t even acknowledge all of his children whilst slagging off single mothers, and has had the police called out due to neighbours fearing for the safety of his partner from what they could hear through the wall.

But there’s a tiny silver lining of it seeming that it seems very unlikely that self-ID would be brought in under this government, at least in the form the Lib Dems were touting for, so we are probably more secure on retaining sex-based rights than we would have been with any other result.

To be honest it’s not really much comfort to me right now.

Fucking devastated.

I’m currently an Undergrad, I love my area and my Uni, but I’m now looking for Post Grad study in Scotland. And Canada. Fuck this.

Mentioned on another thread...a new generation of Tory women have just been voted in to government, in considerable numbers. In working class areas. This is going to be interesting! Maybe a good thing?

Relieved

Posted on other thread;

I'm in a weird situation where I'm glad self id is not going to steal roller in. But devastated.

I will say however that Tory education policy has created the numerous loopholes to safeguarding in how random charities are now the 'experts' on child education and wheedling their way into schools.

Their insistence that subject leaders in primary become autonomous means that young teachers who aren't slt are making the choices over curriculum content to deliver pshe, and being trusted by heads to do so. This is Tory design.

Cwenthryth you summed up my feelings well. Corbyn, Momentum and LD views on women scared me but the lot that won depress me in so many ways.

There is still a need for a serious women's movement now and I have a tiny sliver of hope that maybe we will be able to meet with a little less fear

But more

Feeling hugely relieved.

Relieved that we will now have time to get Self ID permanently off the table. A hung parliament would have been a disaster for that.

I will be doing some serious digging on these new MPs.

They decentralised education so it's a freefor all. It's now affecting museums and other educational providers too.

Hope that self ID is off the table, but Tory austerity policies are awful for women so actually scared of what will happen in next 5 years.

I think tonight's vote has shown the dangers of listening to twitter and ignoring the vast majority of voters. Hopefully it shows politicians the naivety of trying to implement top down changes that only a minority of loud voices want.

I am pessimistic about Labour getting the message that treating women the way they have will lose votes, because there are so many other things they can blame.

Looking ahead, Labour needs to sort itself out and go back to being a party we can all get behind, so my eyes are going to be on that process.

Tory victory = bad overall for women, one silver lining is that an end to trans madness is more likely.

Relieved. If Boris sticks with his manifesto spending commitments this isn't an austerity government and I am hopeful for public services as well as self ID on the back burner. Disappointed with SNP gains up here but hopeful Indyref 2 with Saint Nicola pushing for self ID is off for now. The need to oppose self ID in Scotland persists

Depressed

Relieved but devastated about sums it up for me, too.

Hoping that Labour will get the message and try to edge a little closer to the centre - but am already seeing activists on twitter blaming the evil Blairites who brought them down from within/the MSM who smeared lovely Jeremy and didn't cover their 'perfect' manifesto. So not holding my breath there.

Extremely depressed at SNP results.

I feel relieved that the hard left have proven to be unpopular as I found their brand of politics very authoritarian and misogynistic but cloaked in rainbows and hearts. I’m interested in any new Tory MPs especially female ones and their views.

I am pessimistic about Labour getting the message that treating women the way they have will lose votes, because there are so many other things they can blame

True. Brexit, Corbyn, Anti-semitism.

As above, looking at the hopeful silver lining that is the influx of new female Tory MPs in WC areas.

Does anyone have a breakdown of the election split by sex rather than party?

I am pessimistic about Labour getting the message that treating women the way they have will lose votes, because there are so many other things they can blame

True. Brexit, Corbyn, Anti-semitism

Do you seriously think it was self id/gender critical which caused the Labour defeat? That is a tiny issue outside the MN bubble.

I did vote labour but am terribly glad they lost. I like my MP and held my nose and voted for her. (She won)
Need to now keep a keen eye on what everyone is up to..

Relieved but devastated sums it up completely.

Let's hope Boris remembers what he said just now about the quivering hands at the ballot box.

Good point NeurotrashWarrior
Though I think both parties are liable to fall under the spell of particular charities with little critical examination and give them too much support be it financial or public adulation and freedom to pursue their agenda. I'm thinking of the love affair every politician hoping for a few cheap woke points had with Kids Company. Who started that? I can't remember that far back, it's lost in the mists of time.

Feel the same as you OP. Having Boris as PM is pretty bleak for women in this country.

Agree with other posters that Labour might not "get it". Also agree there's a good chance Boris won't go for austerity.
Laura Kuenssberg mentioned Boris "doing the impossible" several times over: getting London to vote for a Tory mayor, getting Brexit voted for, etc. And now he's turned safe Labour seats into Tory seats. How safe they are depends on whether he keeps them, of course.
And his ego is so colossal, the temptation to be the Great Statesman on Brexit and the Saviour of the North might mean that he actually sticks to centrist One Nation policies.
TL;DR : his ego might save us

I am mildly hopeful that self ID will be well and truly kicked into the long grass and beyond. There has to be one silver lining?

Not RTFT yet but I'm gutted and also feel like this is the beginning of something. Or at least its hopefully the beginning of the end of aggressive brocialism. There's no doubt now that woke cults don't win votes.

But it will be a long, hard 5 years. Especially for women who are going to have to shoulder the burden.