Women don’t feel safe with Starmer's Labour

[ChristinaXYZ]

Interesting article on Unherd

unherd.com/2021/05/women-dont-feel-safe-with-labour

"... violence against women is a major issue for many — if not all of us. All the more so after a recent succession of particularly vicious murders – Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in London, and Julia James in Kent to name the most high-profile ones. But it hardly featured in the election campaign. Rape convictions have fallen to a historic low, domestic violence is rife, sexual harassment is an everyday experience for girls and women and confidence in the criminal justice system has collapsed.

Leading figures in the party, however, seem more interested in ticking off fellow MPs and activists who “like” social media posts from feminist organisations than meeting any of the women’s groups expressing concern.

At the end of last week, the Labour MP and former frontbencher Khalid Mahmood homed in on identity politics as one of the causes of Labour’s poor showing, arguing that the party has been captured by “brigades of woke social media warriors”. But he’s a rare voice of sanity in a party that seems to have surrendered to a form of magical thinking."

@QuentinBunbury

I hear people make statements like the CP wants women to stay in their box, and I expect some might, but plenty of people here have shared stories of their MPs who were very concerned about women's rights, and there are a few prominent Conservative figures who have done a lot of work on behalf of women. I'm not sure how that translates to "the CP hates women." The Conservative party is not interested in breaking down the patriarchy. It actively pursues policies that maintain the patriarchy. The whole point of the patriarchy is that it is an insidious subconscious system that benefits men at the cost of women.

So for example the conservatives are constantly looking for ways to reward "family" for social care. Now we all know that "family" means women. Women who are already likely to have children and be working, and doing the majority of housework (statistics).

Clearly that disproportionately impacts women who have a "choice" to ignore societal pressure to look after family; take on more work at home and a consequent hit on their career and earning potential or give up work and be financially dependent on someone else and potentially disparaged for being "on benefits". None of those are good choices for women.

Whereas for the men? They can opt out of the whole thing because society/party policies support them being "the breadwinner". There is no downside of the new policies to them really, only an upside of not having to pay tax to cover social care.

Framing what the Conservatives do as "hating women" is the same way as feminists don't "hate men". Inaccurate and unhelpful. Their policies and approach do damage women as a class though, and so I won't vote for thwm

Agree with all that, yet the LP is trying to eliminate women as a class, which will make it impossible for us to exercise or demand any sex-based rights. That is worse.

It's one thing to try to fight a hierarchy as the disadvantaged class, as women are forced to do in a patriarchy. It's another thing entirely to have the dominant class (biological males, however they identify), demanding the right to define the disadvantaged class, and to be considered part of it at will - even to the point of reframing the disadvantaged class (biological females) as the oppressor of part of the dominant class (biological males who self-ID as women).

Imagine how the civil rights battle in America would have gone if, instead of simply trying to continue to treat black people as an underclass, white Americans had instead claimed to believe that they were black and that people who were actually born black were privileged over white people who identified as black.

@Flaxmeadow

I supported Labour all my life, that is until the Jay Report (Rotherham), and I know I'm not the only one around here, in the former Red Wall, who did this.

They called Anne Cryer a racist, forced Sarah Champion to resign, both strong northern women MPs, who tried to raise awareness of serious gang crime issues in the north.

The LP can now go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned.

I agree with this. I don't trust Labour to protect women and girls.

I can't find the original tweet but someone said this on twitter a while back and it's really stuck with me:
To suggest feminists who call out leftwing bullshit are therefore in support of rightwing bullshit is to vastly underestimate how much bullshit there is
Personally, I've had enough of Labour's bullshit and that's why I resigned my membership. That doesn't mean I'm suddenly a cheerleader for Tory bullshit. That's not the way it works.

I don't like the Labour Party. They don't represent the working class or even working people. Its all about Angela Raynor types. Or Islington Champagne socialists who are just as bad.

@NiceGerbil

'I think it actually helps if you take a longer view of political parties. And by longer, I mean, since they've been around.'

You really did.

You are doing quite a lot of interpreting there. It's helpful to read the conclusion of the post rather than just the first line.

But to repeat myself - it's clear looking at the history of political parties that they do not have this unchanging list of set beliefs that never change. They change and in some cases quite radically, free trade is a good example with the Conservatives, there was a time when they were deeply opposed to it, more recently in the late 20th century they supported it, now there seems to be some stepping away from being quite so attached to it.

The Labour Party, being younger, has had fewer of these kinds of developments, but nonetheless they have had some real changes in perspective over time.

For people who feel that they have been left behind, or the party isn't what it was, or they would never vote for some other particular party, it is worth remembering that this is not new. Parties change perspectives and over time it may be that they change in such a way that we may choose to vote differently, or alternately we might choose even to join another party or even a newly made party, and look to influence their policies in some direction that we think makes sense for them. There has never been some kind of guarantee that the LP would be the saviour of workers or the the Conservatives would want to give them a kick.

Now - if people want to take the time to look carefully at the history of the CP and the LP, that too could be useful and they will find that historically they have commonalities that go some way to explaining why working class people might abandon the LP for the CP. Because both the LP and CP tended to oppose liberalism and the LP at one time, and the mainstream of both parties have now been colonised by liberals even while the party is no longer really a player. So it becomes a question of which are liberal in the ways you find least annoying or opposed to your interests, and for some, it's the liberalism of the CP.

But that is not what I was saying in my post - I was talking about feelings around loyalty.

I’m a life long Labour supporter and voter. Have up my membership last year over this issue. I know a LOT of women who did not vote for them in may elections due to their position on women and what that means and what rights and protections we have. I don’t think this can even be spoken about at the moment. Makes me sick to my stomach.

@QuentinBunbury

I hear people make statements like the CP wants women to stay in their box, and I expect some might, but plenty of people here have shared stories of their MPs who were very concerned about women's rights, and there are a few prominent Conservative figures who have done a lot of work on behalf of women. I'm not sure how that translates to "the CP hates women." The Conservative party is not interested in breaking down the patriarchy. It actively pursues policies that maintain the patriarchy. The whole point of the patriarchy is that it is an insidious subconscious system that benefits men at the cost of women.

So for example the conservatives are constantly looking for ways to reward "family" for social care. Now we all know that "family" means women. Women who are already likely to have children and be working, and doing the majority of housework (statistics).

Clearly that disproportionately impacts women who have a "choice" to ignore societal pressure to look after family; take on more work at home and a consequent hit on their career and earning potential or give up work and be financially dependent on someone else and potentially disparaged for being "on benefits". None of those are good choices for women.

Whereas for the men? They can opt out of the whole thing because society/party policies support them being "the breadwinner". There is no downside of the new policies to them really, only an upside of not having to pay tax to cover social care.

Framing what the Conservatives do as "hating women" is the same way as feminists don't "hate men". Inaccurate and unhelpful. Their policies and approach do damage women as a class though, and so I won't vote for thwm

I'm not really interested in insidious subconcious systems - I think they're a lot like gender ideology, actually, not evidence based, and prone to be a bogeyman for conspiracies.

I agree that there are real questions about things like eldercare and childcare, but I can't say that I think the LPs approach of monetisation of these things and state subsidies is very good either. We can see quite clearly through this pandemic that large systems are vulnerable, that in the end the teachers in school or care home workers are not going to risk everything to take care of other people's kids and elders, and the state can't make them. And there has been some disturbing revelation to many people about the quality of care in many of these places as well.

The assumption that all adults should be in paid work is where this goes wrong, I think, rather than women should be in paid work plus. It's an unsustainable system, and pushing women to emulate men's "privileged" position as people working for others who own the means of production doesn't get anyone anywhere - except the people who own the means of production, it's quite good for them.

At the moment, neither party offers anything deeply different, the mainstreams of both are owned by globalist capitalists and liberals. Both sides also have an element that is not so mainstream - the traditional left and traditional conservatives, both of which challenge that status quo, and both represent viewpoints with a fair bit in common which at the moment don't have lot of representation politically. However, the LP has theirs quite suppressed at the moment, whereas the CP is allowing their some light because, I suspect, they know it appeals to the Old Labour voters. In both cases I think the result is very much in the balance at this time, and probably is a worldwide question rather than just a UK one.

But more immediately, when you have actual Labour MPs who tell you to get out of the party they don't want your vote and seem to really believe crazy things like Nandy does, and actual Conservative MPs who understand the problem and are committed to fighting for women, it seems a bit odd to say the LP wants to smash the patriarchy and the CP wants to keep it. Which political figures do women who are looking for representation find they can approach and get sympathy?

one end of labour are as described “brigades of woke social media warriors”, and the other end are a bunch of misogynistic dinosaurs who want to drag us back into a Marxist hell.

Where the fuck are the sensible people?

The assumption that all adults should be in paid work is where this goes wrong, I think, rather than women should be in paid work plus. It's an unsustainable system, and pushing women to emulate men's "privileged" position as people working for others who own the means of production doesn't get anyone anywhere - except the people who own the means of production, it's quite good for them.
I agree. But the only way out of that is for men to step out of their position and take on care and they won't do it. Look at what's happened with shared parental leave. Men don't take it up.

@QuentinBunbury

The assumption that all adults should be in paid work is where this goes wrong, I think, rather than women should be in paid work plus. It's an unsustainable system, and pushing women to emulate men's "privileged" position as people working for others who own the means of production doesn't get anyone anywhere - except the people who own the means of production, it's quite good for them. I agree. But the only way out of that is for men to step out of their position and take on care and they won't do it. Look at what's happened with shared parental leave. Men don't take it up.

I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't think it matters whether or not more men or more women are in childcare/eldercare roles, what matters is that people are supported appropriately in the system whichever roles they are in. The idea that we need to push women into the workforce and men out, all for their own good, is kind the kind of thinking that takes us to crazy places.

That only works if care work is rewarded equally to paid work. Otherwise you just embed a mechanism for women to be financially dependent on men, which enables abuse and exploitation.

The status quo damages women.

Also, a society where women can be as equally free in their choices, and rewarded for it, as men is not a "crazy place".