Conservatives for Women

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Found this, earlier today — the Conservatives for Women website:

conservativesforwomen.org

Their proposals could have been written here on Mumsnet. I'm now, for the first time in my life, having to consider whether instead of just spoiling my ballot I'm going to have to vote Conservative to keep Labour and the Lib Dems out.

I find it hard to believe that Rayner, Nandy et al are supporting self ID because of some deep seated hatred for women.

Agreed, I very much doubt that is the reason. Whatever it is, unfortunately it does look like the likes of Rayner and Nandy represent the future of the party.

Labour women - and a lot of men, too - have fought hard and achieved nothing. The party won't even stick to the meagre compromise it pretended to offer in the last GE.

As a LP member (apart from a year when I flirted with the Greens) I'm at the "about to rip up my card again" phase.

I've NEVER voted Tory, but my Tory MP knows what a woman is. My Tory auntie is one of the most generous and charitable people I know, my friends WC Tory dad took in one of our school friends when his own dad threw him out.

As we've seen, there are selfish bastards, only looking out for themselves and their cronies, in all political parties - and there are decent people trying to make a difference.

Being a Tory is not being an evil selfish person - it's being someone whose view of what works best for society is very different to mine.

My views used to align with Labour - but their adoption of individualism, and forgetting of any class based analysis, is not the party I joined in the 70's.

Do I not vote? Or do I vote for a party who seems to be holding the line on self ID?

Thanks Wanderin Yeah I followed some of those speeches and I remember thinking there must have been some cross party discussions beforehand. I imagine that's easier to do in the HOL?

Austerity, cuts to benefits, housing crisis, all these are things that affect women negatively, and that will only get worse after Brexit and the economics crisis brought by the Covid 19 pandemic.

It's naive to focus on trans issues and think that women's rights start and end with Self-Id. What will their feminist supporters do afterwards? Turn their back to the poor because they have obtained what they wanted?

It's naive to focus on trans issues

I think you have it backwards. We are focusing on women and girls and the laws relevant to us.

I can't disagree with a word in @ConservativesForWomen statement on sex based rights. Not a single word.
As I keep saying , this issue is an open goal for any centre of left party, that they are ignoring it can only be purely mysoginistic, deep stupidity or terrible miscalculation of the electorate's views. No option is making any of them look good.

women's rights start and end with being able to define that a woman is an adult human female. Without that there are no women's rights, only 'peoples rights'. Given that self ID is not even law in the UK, we've had to fight tooth and nail to push back against the definition of women including men and the erroneous erasure of sex based rights and services.

How will we know austerity, poverty, caring etc affects women more when the definition of women includes men or data is gathered on the basis of gender rather than sex? or when we cant talk about things only affecting women because women also includes men

I wont vote conservative, never have and Im not blind to all the other things they've done which I loathe - like a lot of women, Im politically homeless

I think it's naive to think that Labour's stupidity would somehow be limited to women's rights. The apparent lack of critical thinking is a massive red flag.

As a lone parent I cannot vote Tory.
Universal credit, the rape clause on 3rd child benefits, decimated mental heath services, closure of sure start centres, the child benefit penalty for high earning lone parents tells me everything.

As a lone parent I still think it's safer to vote for Tory because things could and would be far worse for women and children under another government 🤷

Sorry Labour Party, I've voted for you all my life but, if you want my support again, you need to come up with something a bit more coherent than, ''How could you?' and 'How dare you?'

When Conservative MP’s speak up on women’s issues I notice that they receive a very different response from the rest of their party than the very brave Labour MP’s and councillors who speak up receive from the Labour Party. That is what is having a big impact on my thought processes about how I will vote.

It has even crossed my mind to join the Conservative party and be part of the solution there. The Labour Party have made it abundantly clear that those who believe in women’s rights, accurate data collection, biological realities and freedom of speech are not welcome. I ask myself why am I a member of a party which feels nothing but hostility for people like me? I’m constantly on the verge of leaving.

A pp mentioned pre Thatcherite Conservative values and they are pretty close to my own, family, community, stability including providing for those in society who are in need and having a safety net for everyone who falls on hard times.

I can’t fault what Conservatives For Women stand for or that they choose to be a single issue group. It is fundamental to everything else that we base our society on objective reality rather than the subjective feelings of individuals. Freedom of speech, belief and perception are also pretty fundamental.

I think you have it backwards. We are focusing on women and girls and the laws relevant to us.

If the only laws relevant to you regard self-id you are probably financially more comfortable than a sizable portion of women in this country. Which is good, but I cannot see how it improves collectively the lives of thousands of women who are forced to live on the edge of poverty by Governments who haven't helped them at all.

But I guess their laws to protect women only include the ones who are financially stable.

Challenger I'd be interested in your response to Kit19's point. How are you going to protect women when the word no longer exists in law and we only have people with certain anatomical features?

Oh fgs, it's not a single issue, gender ideology is already harming kids and vulnerable women.

Besides, it's a matter of credibility and trust - I wouldn't vote for the Flat Earth Party, no matter how great their manifesto sounded.

@ChallengerDeep

I think you have it backwards. We are focusing on women and girls and the laws relevant to us.

If the only laws relevant to you regard self-id you are probably financially more comfortable than a sizable portion of women in this country. Which is good, but I cannot see how it improves collectively the lives of thousands of women who are forced to live on the edge of poverty by Governments who haven't helped them at all.

But I guess their laws to protect women only include the ones who are financially stable.

you may have missed some of the discussions on here but quite a few issues are coming out of the self-id problem. Rapists in women's prisons, sex pay gap, undermining of safeguarding of women and girls in schools etc. women of all ages losing the right to specify same sex hcp's in intimate situations like smear tests, care for older women and rape victims. The list of effects stemming from this one simple issue is rather long and rather fundamental. This isn't a 'luxury belief', this is women retaining our name for ourselves and ability to maintain and advocate for our legal protections.

In fact, it seems to be the women who live well-off privileged lives that are immune to the concerns of women not so well-off who will be the ones who have to use public toilets, council leisure centres, NHS hospitals etc. These privileged women dismiss the problems that they are unlikely to experience and have so little imagination and empathy for the rest of us, that they can't work out why we are worried.

Who will look out for the women imprisoned with rapists if we can't describe why some 'women' are a danger to the others?

When Conservative MP’s speak up on women’s issues I notice that they receive a very different response from the rest of their party than the very brave Labour MP’s and councillors who speak up receive from the Labour Party.

That is true, although there will be plenty of Cons who are secretly enjoying all this.
Dominic Raab's heart must be bursting seeing what has become of the GEO.

Whatever Raab privately believes at the very least I haven’t heard of him publicly denouncing Jackie Doyle Price, Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss, nor has he called for them to be disciplined or removed from ministerial posts. I am no fan of Dominic Raab but the behaviour of those in the Labour Party towards Rosie Duffield and others has been disturbing and eye opening. For me I think it is important to consider the culture in the party as a whole and the hostility, toxic levels of control and climate of fear in the Labour Party right now is a contrast with the apparent freedom of the other lot to speak up on “this important issue” as Kemi Badenoch put it.

The most vulnerable groups of women will be the most impacted and least able to speak ones.

So I'm afraid the 'this is the realm of privileged women with no grip on reality' bit isn't going to fly. You have to be pretty privileged to not realise or foresee how this is going to impact upon women and children, and render women bothering with a political interested in anything else whatsoever pretty much pointless. It would be rather like asking the Native American Nations in the 1860s to vote on what they think the tax benefits should be for the settlers who have confiscated their land and driven them into reservations.

'Feminists are obnoxious bigots'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3595776-Dominic-Raab-still-thinks-feminists-are-bigots

I also agree that the negative impact of the rollback of women’s rights and safeguarding standards will fall most heavily on the most vulnerable.

@Twobirdsinatree

Part of the reason why the right of the tory party wanted to leave the eu was because the eu prevented them from getting rid of statutory maternity pay and things like that... Yes you might feel that this party will prevent trans women from eing legally categorised as women but what on earth is the point of that if womens rights are stripped back as the price for it? They do not care about women they just want your vote and this is an easy way to get it.

The EU only mandates 14 weeks of maternity pay. UK law (some of it introduced by Conservative governments) is considerably more generous. If the Conservatives wanted to remove various employment protections, they'd have done so years ago, they didn't need to leave the EU to do so.

You’ll have no argument from me that Raab is a misogynist but he is one man (and not my MP so I won’t be voting for him anyway). It appears that the majority of the Labour Party shares his point of view, I am not convinced that this is the case in the Conservative Party.

@megletsecond

As a lone parent I cannot vote Tory. Universal credit, the rape clause on 3rd child benefits, decimated mental heath services, closure of sure start centres, the child benefit penalty for high earning lone parents tells me everything.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-bill-2020-factsheets/domestic-abuse-bill-2020-overarching-factsheet

No party is all bad....

[quote RozWatching]'Feminists are obnoxious bigots'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3595776-Dominic-Raab-still-thinks-feminists-are-bigots[/quote]
I can't be bothered to read it but how did he define 'feminist'. Perhaps he was referring to rabid 'man-hating' ones.
Funnily enough I used to call myself a 'feminine feminist' in the 1980s. I've never worn make up nor high heels though. I definitely don't hate men.
It is a worrying thing to say given that he ran for the leadership. Just googled. He has a wife and kids so I expect he knows what a woman is.

@DaisiesandButtercups

You’ll have no argument from me that Raab is a misogynist but he is one man (and not my MP so I won’t be voting for him anyway). It appears that the majority of the Labour Party shares his point of view, I am not convinced that this is the case in the Conservative Party.

Really? I doubt you could find a labour MP from 40 years ago who shares Raabs regressive views let alone the majority of labour, or for that matter any party, now. Well, maybe in the Brexit Party.