Glasgow councillor: women haven’t got equality cos they’re not organised

[RunningWild12]

Mhairi Hunter is an SNP councillor in Glasgow. She supports self Id and is Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign manager. She has claimed on Twitter that the problems women face is not due to out biology but to the fact we’re not organised. I suspect this reflects the thinking (using that verb very loosely) in the Scot govt. It’s our own fault we face discrimination, violence etc cos we’re not organised. Although as they seem unable to define what a woman is, I don’t know how they know women aren’t organised...

[Mayomaynot]

Oh dear, Mhairi really doesn't get it, does she? Women are not oppressed because there's something wrong with our biology, we are oppressed because men want to exploit us as a class (and use our biology for their own sexual pleasure and baby/heir making).

[Thelnebriati]

Its just another version of 'not trying hard enough to keep up'.

[VickyEadieofThigh]

She's pretending that women are the physical equals of men today. I shit you not.

[ScrimshawTheSecond]

I'm not especially pro- or anti- independence, but I think anyone would agree that there are some excellent SNP MPs. As well as some embarrassing ones. It would be a touch simplistic to dismiss them all as stupid.

[Lordfrontpaw]

If she thinks women are as physically strong as women I challenge her to an arm wrestle with my 15 year old male. He is solid - all muscle. I was sporty at that age but there’s no way I could have beaten him even at my strongest. It’s basic biology isn’t it?

[Lordfrontpaw]

Plus I can honestly say that I have never had a physical altercation with anyone. I would guess that boys are more likely to get into fights? I wouldn’t really know what to do in a street fight (and I took large for a number of years ‘you stand there and our your hands up - now go as if you are going to punch me on the nose - when I say go!’)

[MaybeDoctor]

Her tweet is appalling. But there is a tiny grain of truth in it.
Somewhere between the Second Wave of feminism and today, women didn't see the next threat coming. I grew up in the 90s and thought that the battles were won - how little I knew!

[Binterested]

It’s about staving off threats though isn’t it. We can’t be forging ahead with gaining political power because we are still fighting off threats from men. Threats to take our spaces. Threats to take our bodily autonomy again. Threats of physical violence encouraged by porn.

[CharlieParley]

Babdoc

Don't let your dislike for the SNP mislead you here. Like any other party the SNP has brilliant politicians, like Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine who have taken the lead on standing up for women's rights.

And the SNP has its share of bad politicians.

Self-id isn't a pure SNP policy. No, it has been adopted as a desirable legislative reform aim by all parties in the land bar the Communist Party (IIRC). The Conservatives started the ball rolling on GRA reform, ably supported by the Labour Party. The latter was responsible for bringing in the GRA in the first place.

If the SNP loses power in Scotland that doesn't win us the fight either - the Scottish Conservatives, the Greens, Libdems and Labour have all supported self-id. The Conservatives would be least likely to go ahead, but they are highly unlikely to win a majority. And in any coalition they could be expected to compromise on GRA reform in exchange for being in power. They've not got the best track record at standing up for women's rights.

[Socrates11]

Interesting observation CharleyParley that willful ignorance doesn't really address the propaganda aspect of what is repeatedly being churned out by Sturgeon's campaign manager. Absolute failure of feminist thought by the woman that's for sure.

I had no idea of this women's position in Scottish politics from her Twitter presence.

[Cwenthryth]

Somewhere between the Second Wave of feminism and today, women didn't see the next threat coming. I grew up in the 90s and thought that the battles were won - how little I knew!
I hear you - it was all Spice Girls and ladettes, which cultivated a lot of internal misogyny and ‘I’m-not-like-other-girls’-ism for me. I felt thoroughly duped and angry when the scales fell and I realised the real situation, and how much damage the whole choice-‘feminism’ thing does.

It seems like perhaps women such as Mhairi have never had that realisation, are still labouring under the illusion of Girl Power and if we just out-sexism the men, competing with them on their own terms, then some of us will will ‘win’. And it’s individual women’s faults if they can’t. They’re just not organised enough.

Patronising wankbadger.

[Lordfrontpaw]

I was a student in the 80s and thought the titanic was turning. Then I saw the spice girls and thought ‘oh oh - girls being sold feminisms lite’.

Then it seemed to get better (I worked in the City and saw more woman bosses, more women on the board etc - no Bunces back then) - then Maria at Hyde Park Corner woke me up.

[MaybeDoctor]

I was in my very early twenties when the Spice Girls hit the charts. I honestly thought that they were ironic/tongue in cheek and that no one would take the sprayed-on, ultra made-up, high-kicking ‘Girl Power’ message seriously.

But twenty odd years on I am sitting on a train opposite two young women who are wearing a not dissimilar look at 9am on a weekday, false lashes and everything. Their choice of course, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere...

I also recall that Posh Spice was one of the first mega high-profile women to become pregnant while single, albeit that she did marry David a few years later. Again, her choice and I know that not everyone wants to get married, but female choice to have babies outside marriage has become a brilliant get-out-clause for thousands of men...

[SirVixofVixHall]

This is also part of a wider swing to present women as entirely the same as men, rather than different but deserving of equality.
I have seen in different places, comments about the “outdated idea that women are smaller and weaker”.

[Goosefoot]

This is also part of a wider swing to present women as entirely the same as men, rather than different but deserving of equality.
I have seen in different places, comments about the “outdated idea that women are smaller and weaker”.

I watched a movie from 2000 with my son last week, called Girl Fight. It's mainly about boxing and not a bad little film, but the narrative about girl's abilities really struck me. The main charachter wants to box and faces some barriers, many of the coaches think girls aren't cut out for boxing, her dad wants her brother to box but not her. But she perseveres and does well. Toward the end she manages to give her dad a good thrashing (which seems possible as he's older and maybe out of shape,) but she also ends up fighting several boys in th ring as they an't find other girl boxers. One of them is her boyfriend who is looking to go pro, and she wins. There is a big speech about how this shows he respects her because he treats her like any other boxer.

What I really noticed was that now, at my age, this all seemed very implausible to me. I can suspend some disbelief, think well this was a very talented girl who was fighting against less talented opponents, except that's not how it was set up. Would even a talented female boxer be likely to win against a more experienced male being groomed to go professional?
But I remember seeing the film when it came out and it really didn't strike me the same way then. And I think it was actually a pretty common trope in those days, GI Jane was similar in some ways too and there were others.

[Floisme]

I grew up watching Emma Peel in The Avengers and was convinced I was as strong as the boys - which at age 8 was largely true. But I came out of puberty, looked around and thought, 'Oh'.
I really don't understand how any grown woman can think otherwise.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Going back to Mhairi's tweet:

Deep breath & a quick jump into the Great Trans Debate again. Hands up if you agree with this. Gender should be defined as "a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.”

No, gender is a social construct related to sex. Just like infancy is a social construct related to age. The biological age is real; infancy is the social role and expectations placed on human beings at that biological age. A biological adult could identify as an infant but it would be a lie. Just like someone who identifies as the gender associated with the other sex is telling a lie.

Just wanted to say that.

[Cwenthryth]

Argh I just had a look at Mhairi’s Twitter. Hint: don’t unless you want to have forehead injuries from hitting the desk.

She thinks “gender critical” feminists are claiming women are oppressed by biology, not because of it

She thinks stating women are smaller & (physically) weaker than men is ‘going back in time’ (she later seems to concede that it’s true, but claims it’s irrelevant anyway and nothing to do with why men have more power).

She repeatedly claims women are oppressed not due to biological differences but due to “economic and social factors, and access to power” but seems unable to explain either what these mysterious factors are or why & how they came about (hint: because of the biological differences between women and men! Hoodathunkit!)

She really does come across as someone very, very dim and hard of thinking but who identifies as intelligent. If she actually does have a brain, she seems wrapped up in type of ‘these other women are stupid, they just need to make better choices’ misogyny-masquerading-as-feminism that we were ingrained with in the 90s.

[RuffleCrow]

Do you know what, i think she may have a point!

We're not organised in the sense of having a set of demands in our own favour that we take into every public and private institution in the country and utilise to capture regulations so that our goals and aims then have to be enforced by everyone else.

There is one notable group which does operate like this, which I'm sure the councillor is very familiar with.

[FrogsFrogs]

The idea that physically women and men have no difference in size strength leads to 2 end points:

We are weaker/ not so good at sports etc because we are not so driven/ lazy ( this opinion has been expressed quite a few times)

There is no physical disadvantage when men attack us, so how come we don't fight them off? I've not seen this yet, but it follows if you believe that physically there are no differences. Feeds into a lot of rape myths eg the recent family court judge who said it wasn't rape as she didn't fight. This one is v dangerous. I'm not sure if the people touting the no difference thing around sport etc have thought it through? Maybe they have. Dunno.

[SirVixofVixHall]

Well they have, because it allows some adult sportspeople to insist that they are just like all the other women, because women aren’t smaller and weaker at all, what nonsense..some of them are massive, and rather differently shaped....

[FrogsFrogs]

They have in sport but the argument, if accepted, extends to some very worrying areas.

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

It wasn’t the Conservative government that started the ball rolling on GRA reform, it was the Women’s and Equalities Committee, which is cross-party and which was established following an all party report.