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.

Wow, Poota, those tweets. I thought the first one was really far out, but the second!

Excellent comment, Fallingirl. I noticed Owen Jones spieling about this on Facebook, doing his puddle deep analysis and deciding it was just all a brexit based misjudgment on Labour's part, with not even the slightest realization that asking why brexit might have happened in the first place.
Again, these people seem to think if you shout insults at people and they don't vote for you, it's because you weren't as consistent in your insults and you need to double down.

How involved does Cummings get outside of Brexit stuff? He is always on about listening to people outside of London and tuning in to what people actually think. He would see through the woke in a second. Or will he leave gov once he’s secured Brexit?

It seems like the reasons for Brexit have been overlooked everywhere to me. I'd have thought it would be the #1 thing remain politicians and parties would want to think about, so they could address those problems. Even if leaving was somehow avoided, if you don't change what led to the problem, it's just going to appear in some other guise, maybe a worse one.

You see the same issue in the US, people think if they can get rid of Trump, it will all go back to normal. The idea that he could be replaced by someone worse doesn't seem to cross their minds.

Labour was ejecting life long Labour voters from the party for lacking (in their eyes) ideological purity. They became an obnoxious, bullying clique and ignored and alienated working class communities. And are still doing it now. You cannot show contempt for people and expect them to vote for you.

As an aside, for those on Twitter please exercise extreme caution with trans activists on this, a few women (inc. GNC Centric) lost their accounts after engaging with this account - so if they pop up in your mentions be careful.

It seems like the reasons for Brexit have been overlooked everywhere to me. I'd have thought it would be the #1 thing remain politicians and parties would want to think about, so they could address those problems.
Over the last three years, Leave voters have been pilloried as elderly knuckle-dragging racists, regardless of age, party affiliation or their own race. There were calls to remove the vote from the elderly "because they'd be dead soon anyway".
The Commons was largely Remain. The news media was largely Remain. The judiciary is largely Remain. There was a very real belief that Brexit could be stopped, or that an extra referendum would provide a Remain result, whereas what is just as likely to have happened is a second referendum would have had a higher percentage for Leave than in 2016, as voters who were undecided and erred on the side of caution got fed up at the EU's intransigence and TPTB patronising them.

I know Leave voters who are influenced by Remain voters but I suspect many Remain voters don't know any Leave voters and don't interact much with them.
Leave was "old, white and uneducated" except the large Lexit contingent, the non-EU immigrant Brexit contingent, the young people who voted Leave, etc. There was a shock, and then TPTB agreed to go with the simplified explanation because it worried them less. So they never bothered addressing the issues.

The bullying Labour and LD cliques have a long way to go before the penny drops that THEY are a massive part of the problem.

As an aside DH just showed me a FB post from a friend which read words to the effect that they didn't think it was right to have a go at the way people voted if the party could tell the difference between male and female.

Bit of a shock that finally one of our friends has posted something to that effect but I think the message has cut through more than I expected and to a wider audience.

How can you say you stand for something important when you don't believe in the most fundamental facts in life?

Leave was "old, white and uneducated" except the large Lexit contingent, the non-EU immigrant Brexit contingent, the young people who voted Leave, etc. There was a shock, and then TPTB agreed to go with the simplified explanation because it worried them less. So they never bothered addressing the issues.

Yes. Plus Remain voters like me (actual socialists) who were Lexit in the heart but Remain in the head.

I share your surprise, RedToothBrush. I saw a similar post mocking Swinson and saying she should just self identify as the PM . I responded positively and have already had a few likes. It’s as if, now that labour and Lib Dems have lost, women are now finding the courage to speak out.

I remember my Dad saying he was voting leave because he was a Bennite Labour voter. That reason for Brexit seems to have been completely vanished from the conversation. It's all "Leave = ignorant Right wing bigotry"

Again, tribalism. No genuine understand among the neoliberals cosplaying socialism that being able to deal with the elite is hugely important, and no recognition that they are sitting with the elite entitlement attitudes that are precisely what Tony Benn eschewed.

Leave was "old, white and uneducated" except the large Lexit contingent, the non-EU immigrant Brexit contingent, the young people who voted Leave, etc. There was a shock, and then TPTB agreed to go with the simplified explanation because it worried them less. So they never bothered addressing the issues.

This is something that has frustrated me deeply for 3 years.

It's been part of the problem. There's a huge number of comments today about 'turkeys voting for Christmas'. Again. It's unhelpful.

How does it endeer yourself to those who disagree with you?

There is always a 'why?' in these things.

I can't quite believe I'm reading people who claim to be socialists on Twitter vindictively saying they are going to enjoy the working class suffering because so many of them voted Tory.

It's like they're all channelling the worst Victorian/Dickensian ideas of the 'deserving poor' and the working class don't qualify anymore if the voted Tory. Middle class people wishing ill on the working class because they have been disobedient. Incredible.

There were calls to remove the vote from the elderly "because they'd be dead soon anyway".

Similar posts are all over LOJ's timeline currently.

Poota and they don't see the irony in their position at all. Noticed it on here last night. People saying 'i voted Labour because I actually care about the vulnerable' immediately followed by 'those turkeys voting for Christmas can go fuck themselves'.

Paul Brand@paulbranditv
Hearing Dawn Butler throwing her hat in the ring for Labour leader...

Again, tribalism. No genuine understand among the neoliberals cosplaying socialism that being able to deal with the elite is hugely important, and no recognition that they are sitting with the elite entitlement attitudes that are precisely what Tony Benn eschewed.

This.

It's like they're all channelling the worst Victorian/Dickensian ideas of the 'deserving poor' and the working class don't qualify anymore if the voted Tory. Middle class people wishing ill on the working class because they have been disobedient. Incredible.

And this. Bourgeois liberals have never evolved from the Victorian notion of "improving the poor". They genuinely don't consider we plebs as actual citizens. I mean, Laurie Penny's tweets earlier. She might as well have typed, "Mummy! Daddy! The staff aren't doing what I tell them!"

I believe in liberal democracy and that to me means having the right to vote 'badly' or 'wrongly'.

Ultimately that means that whilst I have my own views understanding its not OK to shout and abuse people people for having different political views.

You have to know and take into account time, place and who you say things to and how you say them.

You don't persuade anyone to change their mind by being a dick to them. And you have to understand and accept you can change everyones mind. And that's actually a healthy thing when all is said and done.

We learn more from people who are different to us than just speaking to only people like us.

Hearing Dawn Butler throwing her hat in the ring for Labour leader...

Unashamedly placemarking

I'm trying to not feel anything, if I allow myself to feel I just worry too much. Besides, the election was completely predictable. My main worry for a few years has been Brexit. Brexit will not be good for me in particular as a single parent with insecure low-paid work and very few rights.

I really don't care about self-ID, it's so irrelevant to most women's lives right now, the whole debate just annoys me.

The Tories will be looking for a few ‘easy’ things to bring in that don’t cost the government much financially, to allow them to appear socially liberal and ‘kind’ on.

Can’t see them pressing on with self ID after the David TC Davies intervention.

Dimwit Dawn for Labour leader? Might as well be, tbh, how much worse can it get for them, really...

Dawn might just get i. Now, when The Labour Party are at least 5 years away from having any significance, is the most likely time the men will tolerate giving the leadership to a woman. It will not be a position wealding much power, and it will make them look less misogynist.
And Dawn is good puppet, doing as she’s told.

Well, they can take that five years and make it ten, I suppose.

Depressed. It hasn’t really sunk in. Briefly considered moving to Scotland. Then pulled myself together and rejoined the Labour Party earlier tonight, and decided to be more vocal/active about threat to women’s rights posed by various policies lab/lib. Has several enlightening chats with colleagues several of whom have been active in ways I hadn’t realised. Think this may/must energise me.

but I suspect many Remain voters don't know any Leave voters and don't interact much with them.
I'm a remainer who knows a number of leave voters. I think they're mistaken, and they think the same about me, but they are neither ignorant nor racist and I also know that some of them put a lot more thought and research into their vote than I did.
I think the attitude of some in the remain camp has been poisonous, and has helped cause the situation we're now in.