Conservatives For Women launch today

[ConservativesForWomen]

“If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion...”
Abigail Adams 1744

Here at Conservative Womens Pledge we told you we intended to redouble our efforts to win back single sex spaces for women and girls; well here is what we are doing!

Until today there was not a single group in the Conservative Party who centred the rights of women, so we are proud to announce the launch of 'Conservatives For Women'.

We are a group of Conservative Party members who will campaign within the public sphere, and in the heart of Westminster, to raise awareness of issues which threaten the safety and dignity of women. We will defend science, reason, free speech and the need for open, tolerant debate that underpins our society.

Come and join us! You don't have to be a party member or even a voter, you just have to care about the rights of women and girls.
conservativesforwomen.org/join-us

Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/CforWomenUK

and Facebook: www.facebook.com/Conservatives-For-Women-104300591505734

We are working cross party with all the other political women's groups to inform and influence our peers and MPs.

Perking I thought that everything you said would be a bloody good reason for you to be in touch with this group.

I couldn't vote Tory but am willing to set aside party politics to have someone stand up for women's rights. Your first post says 'trans issues' - I don't have anything to say about those but I do want to be able to fight for the right for the rights of women and girls to be upheld. Currently all of them are under threat due to the aggressive and frighteningly successful lobbying of groups pushing women's rights out of existence, making them something else entirely. So I do find that one threat I cannot ignore.

Your links about UC also need to be heard and aired. The systematic dismantling of such support cannot continue unchallenged.

There will be many more such issues. Maybe being willing to discuss them with any and all political groups who are committed to listening to the voices of women regardless of political affiliation is what we need to do! Being staunchly Labour got me nowhere. Maybe being what the Americans call, and value, a swing voter, a loud one, one who will engage and demand to be heard, is the way to go these days.

I think I'll sign up just to agitate!

And in saying that I feel as though the last 40 years of my political life, all that marching, shouting, writing, working, has been utterly fucking useless!

@ConservativesForWomen I am a member of the party and also agree with your agenda. Will be following your twitter now.

Would love to get involved

I think it's a good idea to have groups within political parties centring women, so that they can lobby for women's rights (all rights, not just on one single-issue).

It's also annoying to have to do it, because actually women's rights should be part of the default, just as men's are, and not need a special subgroup to achieve it.

In the same way, it would be annoying to need a special subgroup within "Conservatives for Women" to lobby for the group to cover anything other than trans issues.

It's swimming against the tide from the offset.

There is a need for people within the Conservative party to support women's rights. But now I've spent a bit more time thinking about it and looked at the Twitter feed, I don't think this is the group to do these things. This is explicitly a trans-issue group; and using the generic phrase "women's rights" just allows them to slipstream behind more general women's rights (the same way TRAs slipstream behind general rights issues, harnessing people's urge to do the right thing without enquiring too closely).

I've slept on this and I'm now really very uncomfortable with this because of the anonymity of the founders and the data collection aspect. For all you know, it could have been me who set up that website and Twitter feed and be harvesting email addresses and Twitter handles and device identification, and none of you would be any the wiser.

It really doesn't help that the person setting it up has set out to deceive us twice in as many pages.

There was no need whatsoever for her sockpuppeting on the first page, and she has no other posts in the name "GingerJonesy" so the "excuse" was cobblers too. Why?

It's not a good start. I was cautious but interested to begin with, but now I'm digging out a longer barge pole.

It saddens me to say this, because I think there's a possibility such a group could be in good faith, and could potentially do good work. But at the moment I'm not seeing anything that differentiates this particular one from any other internet scam.

Just because something's an issue, doesn't mean any old anonymous internet website sticking that label on itself can have my money, data and voice as a supporter.

@ConservativesForWomen, can you show us where else you have marketed your group?

You've posted on MN to drive traffic to your website and Twitter feed.

Where else have you posted? (Or will post by the end of the week?)

There are no anonymity issues here, so this question should be straightforward for you to answer.

Trouble is @PerkingFaintly, the party that you support has shown time and again that they do not give a shiny shit about protecting women’s sex based rights. So kindly stop trying to undermine the efforts of the OP and her group who do give a stuff.

I’m in OP, regardless of my political affiliation.

Perking is making valid points and asking sensible questions.

Perking is your issue that the group wants to focus on gender ideology and the impact it is having on women's rights? Or the fact that they're anonymous? Because you know those two things have to go hand in hand for lots of women because of the abuse they receive, right?

What party do I support, FortunesFavour?

You seem to have done that thing of "if you're not-A, you must be B".

Which is the sort of false dichotomy that has got us here in the first place: "If you don't fit in this box of XX labels, you must be XY."

(I'll answer the question for you: I don't support any party. I'm a floating voter.)

HecatesCatsInXmasHats, I am aware that women receive abuse, and that's why I am not asking the OP to reveal her name, or the names of other people involved with this group – which are things I'd normally do with any group.

In fact I've just done it with my local foodbank website to check they are who they say they are, before giving them money or driving other traffic to them.

So I'm asking for other information to find out more about this group without them revealing personal names.

But it seems you also object the the fact that this group is concerned with gender ideology and the impact it has on women's rights?

Sounds good to me, OP. Will take a look.

You're very welcome to run a group which focuses on gender ideology and the impact on women's rights, HecatesCatsInXmasHats. There's been lots of really excellent work on MN on this, and much of it (not all) has been admirable.

But you're not getting my data or money if I don't know a bit more about who you are and what you're going to do with it. Conservatives for Women would end up knowing my identity while I don't know theirs! The irony!

I'm also not going to lend my name, support or voice to any group whose primary purpose is to use it say things I disagree with, viz that gender ideology is my most important issue and I can't work on other issues until some indefinite future when trans issues are "solved". Including the classic which even made an appearance on this thread, though to be fair, not from the OP, that there's no point having an NHS unless we can have single-sex wards. (Existence of mixed sex wards over the last umpteen decades a bit of a mystery to that poster, then? I mean, I've campaigned against mixed wards, but if you want to say that therefore there has been no point having an NHS since 1948, I and many generations of my family will beg to differ.)

So no, I won't be lending anything to this group for the foreseeable future. I will be keeping an eye though, to see what emerges. There is a possibility it's in good faith, even if we don't agree on the position in our priorities list.

"Trouble is PerkingFaintly, the party that you support has shown time and again that they do not give a shiny shit about protecting women’s sex based rights. So kindly stop trying to undermine the efforts of the OP and her group who do give a stuff. "

And that is exactly why some of us are very uncomfortable with this new group and how it is pushing itself.

Every single one of the main political parties in this country has had problems with gender identity politics - and every one of them also has GI critics.

Claiming that the Conservatives are the only sensible party to support women's rights isn't just disingenuous, it's flat out lying. It's also denying the efforts of other brave women who have stood up to their own parties and are still standing up within them.

The Conservatives do need a group for Women's rights: Maria Millar, Penny Mordaunt, Crispin Blunt, Sue Pascoe etc have made that very clear.
I'll welcome such a group, but I see no need to switch to a new Conservative-defined group when there are others that have been fighting for Women's rights, particularly when this one claims an intention to work with the others.

Are there two concerns here?

One is whether you want to work with your political opponents to achieve a common goal. It's a personal choice - me I no longer have any qualms about it. In fact given the extent to which all the mainstream parties have been captured, I don't really see any alternative. Nor am I personally concerned that the main focus seems to be the intersection of trans rights and women's rights - it might well be the only issue we'd agree on.

Being cautious about who you give personal information to seems entirely sensible. I don't see though why following them on Twitter should present a greater security risk than following anyone else? If you sign up (which I haven't at this point) they ask for a name and email address - I use an anonymous email for loads of things, including Mumsnetting.

Can someone show us where they ask for more personal information and for money as I've looked through their website and I can't see that anywhere?

Spot on, Tanith.

The OP herself said that the Conservative Women's Organisation "do not agree with our definition of 'woman'."

So that's something right there that Conservatives for Women can be working on. Unless this is all for show to other parties, and CfW have no interest in changing their own party.

(NB I hope CfW really are in good faith, and will do the above.)

Working with people who you may not agree with is the only way to actually get things done in politics. Stonewall knows this, that's why it's been so successful in recent years, under a Conservative government. The fact that the Conservatives are waking up is also because women who aren't Conservative have been highlighting the conflict of rights. The more women who agree that women's rights are at risk and who are prepared to fight for them the better.

I'm very happy to work with political opponents to achieve common goals, Floisme.

In fact it annoys me no end when people get into purity spirals and start cutting off other groups left right and centre. I'd be shocked and actually horrified if everyone I worked with had exactly the same views as me.

There are some lines I'm less keen to cross though: it would have to be a heck of a unifying issue to get me making common cause with (say) paedophiles.

So lack of transparency becomes a real problem.

If I don't know who you are, and what you'll be claiming I support, I could end up marching down my street with a lot of other very well-intentioned, very genuinely concerned people carrying a QAnon banner saying "Save Our Children". That's the internet for you.

So I'm a bit cautious about campaigns with no obvious real-world touchpoint and which aren't transparent. This is why I'm so annoyed at the OP having been deceitful with her first few posts. Where on earth was the gain in that?

I do see your point Perking but where are they asking for personal information (beyond a name and email which can be anonymised) and for money?

"Working with people who you may not agree with is the only way to actually get things done in politics."

Yes indeed - I agree.

But it shouldn't be necessary to join a group in order to work with them. I thought this new group was supposed to be working with other interested parties so, in theory, there should be no need.

Sorry, Floisme, not ignoring you but writing a long post!

No probs Perking and no rush. I'm interested in your point of view.

If we click on the Conservatives for Women Facebook page, it will become part of Facebook tracking of us – probably even if we don't have a Facebook account.

I can't remember the current state of play on this, but AFAIK Facebook creates "shadow identities" (what Line of Duty would call nominals) where it tracks people across the web via cookies on every site which has the Facebook link – so, most sites inc MN – even if Facebook doesn't know the person's actual name. Device Identification is also carried out by many websites: you'll often see it mentioned in the same warning as cookies. Can't remember details just now, but basically IIRC our actual smartphone or home router's short-lived link from the exchange is identified. (Don't shoot me if that bit's wrong, I'm tired and can't remember stuff today. I'm sure someone can do a better rundown of all aspects of tracking)

I've just looked, and the Conservatives for Women website states: "We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website" and does not appear to give any way to opt out of cookies as many other websites do. It would be better practice for them to allow us the choice to opt out.

Donations and sales of postcards are via PayPal. The site says that the service may collect data about the buyer. I don't know how much data this sort of vendor can get about PayPal buyers, although I think I get email addresses when I sell stuff and do money transfers.

Typically the value of this data comes from aggregating and cross-referencing data sets. So the same buyer of flowers also buys a Ravelry magazine, has used their email address to join a website about motor-racing and on the same device has watched a YouTube clip about chasing Donald Trump round his golf course with a tuba. This allows anyone doing marketing to have a fuller picture and thus isolate a target audience, which they can microtarget with a message not necessarily meant for general consumption.

Facebook sells marketers "universes" of accounts they've identified as likely to respond to the same sort of issues or style of marketing. So once we're in a universe from one site we've visited, we may be nudged towards another.

Eg one of the Leave campaigns harvested data from disengaged potential voters via a football prize competition. It then used this data to bombard people with specially tailored political ads. Vote Leave didn't need to know people's actual names, just how to reach them and what would press their buttons.
Vote Leave's targeted Brexit ads released by Facebook
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44966969

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_advertising

I only mention Vote Leave and Facebook because it's a well-studied example: anyone who wants to pay for it can do this and can use various platforms. During the run-up to the 2016 US election, I kept finding Breitbart cookies on my machine. I hadn't been on the Breitbart website and the most likely culprit was actually adverts or some other content on MN, although I had an ad blocker at the time.

So yes, it's excellent practice to use throwaway email addresses, but that's not enough to prevent us being tracked and fed tailored content.

Sorry, that was a long diversion on non-obvious data collection and uses.

It does not follow that WfC are going to use our data (mine too, because I clicked) like this! But like everyone else they could if they wanted to.

Like some others I came to this thread thinking it was the Baroness' group. It wasn't at all obvious.

I can't help wondering at the timing, as the OP must surely have known that was in the pipeline. I wonder how many would join both.

I think the Baroness' group will be cross-party and specifically for women's issues/rights. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I think I'll continue to wait for that.

The issue of data collection is just more prominent even than usual in my mind because of the ongoing shenanigans by the Trump campaign, which is very effective at milking contact data via websites and then using it for targeted marketing.

I was having a quick look for a ref to back that up, and fell across this Daily Fail article from 18 Nov. The Fail's not known for accuracy, but some people here like it so I've linked. I haven't corroborated this story, so take it with a pinch of salt. But a lot of it is feasible.

Trump's 2020 election campaign was powered by cellphone app that tracked location of his 2.8million supporters and could access their contacts
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8960385/Trumps-2020-reelection-campaign-powered-cellphone-app-collected-data-2-8million-fans.html

Sorry, that's a mega derail. But you asked about data.

Not RTFT since last posting on it but important to note that the Conservative women’s and the Labour women’s petitions are not mirror images of each other, having just checked back in on the Lab one.

I’m a lefty with nobody to vote for in good conscience and feel very let down by Labour as a voter (I wasn’t a member). I signed the Labour one though because it was about women’s political freedom and right to talk about sex-based issues and women had been expelled from the Labour Party over that. Still staggering to write that but that is exactly what happened. The Tory declaration here has broader and different aims. For example it includes:

Children should be able to access safe spaces and by removing single sex spaces and the ability to ask someone’s sex, that this reduces the ability to safeguard young people.

Absolutely agree. Also:

We believe that any individual should be able to dress and express themselves as they wish. However we believe that important distinctions must be made between women and girls, and those who 'identify' as such. If any person can legally be considered the opposite sex then our rights as women and girls can no longer be defended.

I agree with the position that I think they are setting out here... which would be that the current GRA is unworkable and should be reviewed with a view to scrapping it. Yes? is that what they’re not quite spelling out?

I’d absolutely agree that anyone can present as they wish or call themselves what they want with the protections of the Equality Act already in place for them and that’s all fine.

However Parliament put in GRA in a historical context of no same sex marriage and no equal pension age which amounted to discrimination. GRA was the workaround in that context. So I think Parliament should now have the opportunity to debate whether a change of legal sex for what are now purely validatory reasons via GRA, is the business of the state at all. In any case the current GRA must be reviewed because it’s impacting negatively on various groups in a way the lawmakers back then certainly did not intend.

Given that the Government position has been to avid adding in self ID to the GRA (rightly) but to leave the current GRA as it is (wrong) and effectively kick it into the long grass, that leaves detransitioned people with GRCs stuck in their legal sex paperwork which doesn’t match their birth sex, FOR LIFE.. because GRA takes no account of consent (red flag!) This affects Keira Bell among others.

Also the GRA takes no account of GRC holders having biological women’s issues to consider like pregnancy and birth (red flag again!- see Freddy McConnell’s case) AND GRA undermines trust in itself as a legal entity because it is not revocable even if GRC-holders behave outwith the requirements of the GRC. We should all have freedom not to follow sex stereotypes, but GRA is built on those.It’s also unreasonable for GRA to expect of anyone that they adhere for life to something as idiosyncratic to the individual as gender identity feelings.

The big legal changes of status in life like marriage or civil partnership, for example, have a built in reversal process. That is a basic requirement. GRA is just very poorly thought through. There was never an internal logic to it and it’s become anachronistic now we rightly have marriage and civil partnership for everyone including same sex couples.

Anyway so if Conservative women are going to object in principle to the GRA and call for it to be reviewed, then that’s great but this should be campaigned for front and centre- ideally as a joint campaign with other women’s groups.

Is that part of the campaigning plan? I’d support it.