The National (Scotland): Does Nicola Sturgeon have a Plan B for resolving SNP gender row?

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.thenational.scot/news/18284688.nicola-sturgeon-plan-b-resolving-snp-gender-row/?ref=twtrec

In a video published last summer on joe.co.uk, a news and entertainment website aimed at young men, Black read out tweets by women concerned about proposals to allow changes of legal sex by a process of self-identification, then gave withering replies.

A message from a woman named Pam read: “I will never accept that I have to share intimate spaces with men, even if they are harmless. It violates my right to privacy as a woman. Why is that not an issue for you?”

Black replied: “Because, Pam, you don’t have the right to be in a room alone, wherever you go. That’s just not how the world works.”

Black ended the video by telling those posting these sorts of tweets: “Just don’t be a Jeremy Hunt.” The mockery and rhyming slang might have gone down well with the website’s target audience, but the insult was a lot less well received by the women who had been raising their concerns about the impact of the proposed legislation. These women include Joanna Cherry.

Black vs Cherry (below) is not just a personality clash but a battle of ideologies that has become extremely personal and potentially very damaging not just to the SNP but to Scottish politics are a whole. It’s become a cautionary tale showing what can happen when governing politicians dig in their heels, refuse to listen to anyone outside their bubbles, and badly underestimate the potential strength of public opposition to their plans.

It’s a “women’s issue”, after all, and those are niche issues, aren’t they? Never mind the fact that 51% of people in Scotland are female. Never mind that some of us Cassandras were spelling out the risks to women’s rights long before the men caught on that this stuff might actually matter

But there is a pronounced age divide between the two sides, with middle-aged women increasingly painted as pearl-clutching, out-of-touch conservatives despite the fact that opposition to self-ID is driven by left-wing feminists.

Meanwhile, a small but vocal group of young men in politics have seized the opportunity to coat their misogyny in a progressive veneer

Very good article.

Damn. I was hoping the SNP would persist with their destruction of women’s rights and make themselves unelectable for 51% of the population!
Mind you, Black and Sturgeon are stubborn types - they’re more likely to double down than admit they were wrong.

Great article.

Babdoc the problem with the SNP is they will pick up the votes of many independence supporters who otherwise detest them. I think if independence ever did go through they would be shocked by the fact that they would find they were quickly voted out.

Excellent article and interesting comments.

Another good article in the Herald by Catriona Stewart.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/18285837.feminists-predicted-womens-fight-define/

Damn. I was hoping the SNP would persist with their destruction of women’s rights and make themselves unelectable for 51% of the population!

Me too. I thoroughly enjoy anything which makes the SNP look (more) ridiculous.

they will pick up the votes of many independence supporters who otherwise detest them

Eh? Who are these people? There might be some Labour independence supporters but there can be very few Conservative or Lib Dem independence supporters.

My main reason for detesting the SNP is their support for independence. There are other subsidiary reasons but that is the important one.

Cherry is fundamentally no better than, and as equally deluded, as Black. Both are driven by petty , chip on shoulder nationalism.