Urgent - Ministerial Maternity Bill this Thursday 11/02

[ConservativesForWomen]

#SixWords
For the word ‘person’ substitute ‘woman’

It is beyond belief that it has taken governments 103 years to notice women in government may have babies. We are very pleased to see long overdue recognition of this fact.

But it is unacceptable that this bill talks about ‘pregnant people’ and makes no mention of women at all. This is not a situation that will ever apply to a male minister, so why the obfuscation of language?

The Equality Act 2010 is very clear; it talks about pregnancy and maternity using ordinary language. Women. She. Her.

We are encouraging everyone to contact their MP as a matter of urgency; there is less than 48 hours before this bill is presented. See our example letter here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1B24BPG-OL9-3I3vvm_mfR6UnVjVAkVXj6KI2gHG_dUY/edit?usp=sharing

Amend it as you see fit, even telephone your MP if you are able to. Language matters. Sex matters. Women must not be erased. Please email or call your MP TODAY. Share this post across your networks; it affects all women and all political parties.

This excellent article by @MForstater gives more detail. (Thank you Maya).

mforstater.medium.com/pregnant-people-in-parliament-62adaa521c2d

“Giving birth is not like chairing a meeting. It cannot be done by a person of either sex.”

Less than 48 hours to go. #SixWords (with respect to @JohannLamont) and with thanks to @StoatlyL for initiating this and providing the draft email text.

twitter.com/CforWomenUK/status/1359109798944534537?s=20

www.facebook.com/Conservatives-For-Women-104300591505734

But I'm sure such cases are vanishingly rare.

Drafting issue might have been that it was originally going to cover maternity, paternity & adoption leave- but that would have needed more time & detail so they stripped it down.
But nice to see several MPs going out of their way to point out how bonkers it is to use 'person' instead of woman.

Well, we are bloodied but unbowed. Some great speeches, as noted by previous posters. We now go to the Lords who are well aware of what is going on and some will mount a robust defence.

I live tweeted it for 5 hours and I am now head down in a bucket of wine (when Stella Creasy stood up for the eleventeenth time I did briefly lose the will to live.....)

Mordant has tied herself up in linguistic and legal knots here.

Wonder if she was (deliberately?) confusing the guidance on gender-neutral legislation - which is about not stereotyping roles/jobs but which explicitly states that it doesn't apply to sex-specific issues like maternity - or whether she was (deliberately?) given the wrong advice.

Either way we really should be able to rely on ministers and their advisers to know what the law and protocol actually say.
Here's clarification from the always brilliant Maya F:
twitter.com/MForstater/status/1359910008197152775

Thanks ConservativesforWomen. You did a sterling job. Have an extra bucket on us, and some pork scratchings.

Well done ConservativesforWomen I will read your twitter thread in retrospect. Sorry I didn't read it in real time - there was a lot going on today in the world of women fighting back!

Drafting issue haha. A Penny Mordaunt issue, more like.

Thank you for posting the list of MPs here. Not all of us have twitter.

Great job by the MPs as well. Thank you to them.

I would like to point out that at the time the gender-neutral drafting policy was adopted, there was a fervent belief that this would solve a lot of issues with women being discriminated against by texts typically using terms directly referring to males. What research has shown since then is that this doesn't work, because even gender-neutral policy making disadvantages women. Because the default remains male.

Drafting should explicitly include both sexes (Or refer to the sex of the group if only one sex is affected by a piece of legislation).

This is the thinking that led to gender-neutral policies being adopted in the Nordic countries around 15 years ago. The negative impacts on women were predictable and are now being felt. How long it will take to undo the damage is anyone's guess, but if Denmark is a guide it's decades.

(The abolished separate provisions for female prisoners in 2005. Predicted harms to female prisoners happened immediately. It took ten years to collect enough evidence to convince politicians their decision was wrong. And another five to change the policy. They opened their new women's prison last year. The damages done to female prisoners in those 15 years may take lifetimes to heal.)

They abolished separate provisions etc

I wish I was shocked CharleyParley but it's no longer shocking to be reminded of how little women matter.

It's possible that Stella creasy kept taking so much to deliberately make it run out of time for voting on the person/woman amendment so she didn't have to vote on it.

@CharlieParley

I would like to point out that at the time the gender-neutral drafting policy was adopted, there was a fervent belief that this would solve a lot of issues with women being discriminated against by texts typically using terms directly referring to males. What research has shown since then is that this doesn't work, because even gender-neutral policy making disadvantages women. Because the default remains male.

Drafting should explicitly include both sexes (Or refer to the sex of the group if only one sex is affected by a piece of legislation).

This is the thinking that led to gender-neutral policies being adopted in the Nordic countries around 15 years ago. The negative impacts on women were predictable and are now being felt. How long it will take to undo the damage is anyone's guess, but if Denmark is a guide it's decades.

(The abolished separate provisions for female prisoners in 2005. Predicted harms to female prisoners happened immediately. It took ten years to collect enough evidence to convince politicians their decision was wrong. And another five to change the policy. They opened their new women's prison last year. The damages done to female prisoners in those 15 years may take lifetimes to heal.)

Just so awful.

Finland did similarly awful stuff. They were The only country I know off who had an actual law about providing refuges to women and children who had been subjected to domestic violence. With provisions right in the law about mandatory funding etc.

They looked through their lens of gender-neutral policy making and interpreted the Istanbul Convention to mean that provisions made for victims of domestic violence had to be gender-neutral.

So they changed the law. By law, every refuge for battered women now has to take in men who claim to be victims.

What now happens when a woman has finally finally drawn on her last reserves and escaped her violent man and found shelter in a refuge, her man will now follow her, claim she abused him and they have to let him in.

Gender-neutral policymaking at its finest.

@CharlieParley

I would like to point out that at the time the gender-neutral drafting policy was adopted, there was a fervent belief that this would solve a lot of issues with women being discriminated against by texts typically using terms directly referring to males. What research has shown since then is that this doesn't work, because even gender-neutral policy making disadvantages women. Because the default remains male.

Drafting should explicitly include both sexes (Or refer to the sex of the group if only one sex is affected by a piece of legislation).

This is the thinking that led to gender-neutral policies being adopted in the Nordic countries around 15 years ago. The negative impacts on women were predictable and are now being felt. How long it will take to undo the damage is anyone's guess, but if Denmark is a guide it's decades.

(The abolished separate provisions for female prisoners in 2005. Predicted harms to female prisoners happened immediately. It took ten years to collect enough evidence to convince politicians their decision was wrong. And another five to change the policy. They opened their new women's prison last year. The damages done to female prisoners in those 15 years may take lifetimes to heal.)

Holy shit!

The Inspectors for the Istanbul Convention were utterly horrified and produced a progress report on Finland that basically (if you read between the lines) screams WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!

Oh my! I didn't know any of that about Finland and Denmark.

Jackie DP is retweeting Joanna Cherry. Good t see GC women supporting each other across the political spectrum. From tweets it looks like Creasy filibustered it so Labour didnt have to either make a decision or show their misogyny

Regarding Danish prisons, there's a bit of info in here, as part of an article about prison provision for women in Ireland.

womensspaceireland.ie/articles/all-it-takes-is-a-grc-how-a-man-can-be-sent-to-a-womens-prison-in-ireland/

One of those being held at the moment however is a man who despite being understood not to have had any surgery or be taking any hormone treatment “identifies as female” and "..was in possession of a gender recognition certificate by the time her case came before the court last July, and is now being accommodated with other female prisoners."
He was convicted of ten counts of sexual assault and one count of cruelty to a child. This was reported as being the first time a person registered as male on their birth certificate had been remanded to the Dóchas Centre Women's Prison. The sex offender was assigned protective status by the Irish Prison Service and accompanied by two prison officers at all times when visiting the yard and other common areas of the prison. The fear was that this prisoner would be victimised or attacked by women in the prison.
I repeat
The fear was that this prisoner would be victimised or attacked by women in the prison.
So not accompanied by prison guards at all time to protect the women from a sex offender then?!

@EyesOpening

I’ll listen to the coverage later but ”The transwoman lawyer is arguing that maternity leave in a specific case where both parents had transitioned should go to the transwoman as the 'mother'.” what?? Surely the person who gave birth needs more time due to what has happened to their body. If you adopt, do you get less leave than maternity?

I followed tweeting of the legal evidence given to parliament on gra reform this week. A barrister gave evidence that she advised this - that maternity leave entitlement would go with the trans woman. Other barristers giving evidence disagreed! Robin moira white, who was also in the legal team for the defence in Allison Bailey's hearing today.

It defeats the purpose of maternity leave for the one who gave birth to get paternity fortnight.

.

Stella Creasy? Presented without comment, except to note that at the end it quotes Penny Morduant saying that "the word 'women' will be used in all (its) documents going forward"

I'm not so glum at all about yesterday. This isn't a sprint. Penny Mordaunt did explain why she felt the amendments should be withdrawn and in some cases, we have to acknowledge that words wont change women's rights. I am very pro the word parent where ever it can be used and in some cases 'person' legally is better than woman and can ensure legal challenges don't occur. I would be a sad day if a maternity rights bill were overturned in a court.

I think the government was moving forward on neutral language and found that neutral language isn't what it claims to be and has seen how offensive some things can be. I think you will find that the word woman will be used where ever and whenever it can be.

I can't get in a froth about this because I saw some very good MP's stand up and ensure that the issues surrounding language and its impact on women were well and truly heard and what's more Penny Mordaunt was in total agreement. In it for the long haul

It defeats the purpose of maternity leave for the one who gave birth to get paternity fortnight.

Yep - Father (TM) back to work two weeks after the c-section and the mother (TW) left home breastfeeding (aka hormone induced white fluid) the baby - what could possibly go wrong?

No interest in the needs of the mother giving birth (legally agreed) or the baby. This is about removing rights/needs and unique abilities of female - irrespective of how they identify. No concern for TM by TW - barrister who suggest this is a TW.

The bill is going to the Lords on Monday 22nd Feb. Parliament is now in recess until then.

We know there are some sensible peers and I have no doubt they will have something to say about the language in this bill.

My appalling MP to whom I wrote yesterday, replied at 7.10am to note that he agreed with me, and suggested that the wording was a clumsy clerical error. I am pleasantly surprised. He notes that the wording will be corrected during the committee stage.