Andrew Marr, Lib Dem leader what is wrong with the phrase woman: adult human female

[FemaleAndLearning]

Sunday 19th Sept 925am.
He won't answer the question. Andrew Marr keeps pushing.

Thanks @jamie85
There was a segment on this on the AM show and Sir Lindsay Hoyle was mentioned. Do you have a share token for that Times article please?

Thanks for this great discussion. I've bought a copy of the Sunday Times today. DS1 who has just started AS Politics asked me why I'd bought that paper and that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch. I said because of its front page and that it is reporting on issues that other papers are ignoring.

Unfortunately, taking a ‘there are bigger issue’ tactic does mean that efforts to address the issues dealing with sexist discrimination affecting females are not adequately focused.

In fact, it is rather limited thinking to expect that once the legislation has been changed to reduce the protection of females, that it will be easy and quick to change back.

With the latest move for young males with political aspirations to take roles designed to influence policy for females it will be harder still. The fact that the roles have been set aside for females has been brushed aside. And this trend will continue if it is not pushed back. Either way, those males will progress into the political roles they aspire to move into. All the while, they will erode policies as they move up the political chain.

Yes, there are so many issues that need attention. But it is also rather misogynistic to believe that women cannot fight on many fronts. That women are not fighting on many front already.

So. No, thank you. You might be very happy to allow all these changes to be enacted now because there ‘are bigger issues’.

When exactly will it be time to deal with these rapidly growing issues? When will it be time for women to fight to uphold the rights they feel are important to them?

[quote Cam77]@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken
Everything is reverent to everyone. But I think the state of the economy, housing, jobs, and the NHS are more important to more women in the UK than what we call some random person who has a penis but claims to feel like a female.[/quote]
I'd be more inclined to agree with you if "what we call them" didn't also determine how every person is defined in law and policy when the matter of sex arises.
If you're going to keep what protections and equality for women we do have, on the basis of sex, feel free to call anyone what you like, idc.

'Boris Johnson has toxified the debate'?
What planet is Ed Davey on? This debate was toxified by all the shrieks of 'No debate!' and the hideous doxxing of anyone who dared to raise her (usually) head above the parapet.

I can't be the only one feeling politically homeless.

@Taswama

Thanks for this great discussion. I've bought a copy of the Sunday Times today. DS1 who has just started AS Politics asked me why I'd bought that paper and that it is owned by Rupert Murdoch. I said because of its front page and that it is reporting on issues that other papers are ignoring.

Why is a student studying politics only willing to read a newspaper with an editorial line he is sympathetic to?

Thats like saying I'm a doctor and only going to read about blood issues because cancer is irrelevant to my speciality and interest.

@Mummyoflittledragon if you’re talking about the Times article there’s a thread on this Sex and Gender section with a link and share.

The LDs: we want to encourage more women into politics to increase diversity.

Also the LDs: we don't want women who disagree with our views on women to join our party or to voice their political concerns in any way outside our party.

Remind me again how that increases political diversity and representation of opinion?

Its kind of relevant if you actively campaign for the former and make it one of the things you champion and focus on as making yourself different to other parties...

Ok going to head over there now. Thanks @Lessthanaballpark

Vote Davey, get Dave in your loo

One of the BBC twitter accounts isn't being shy about this:

twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1439512987220553730

It looks like some people in certain parts of the BBC are remembering that they are supposed to be operating to a charter.

I'm of the general view that if you think women's rights aren't that big a deal and it's more important to deal with other issues, you should probably fuck off and do something about the things you give a shit about and stop posting on a forum discussing women's rights, but I'm a bit of gobshite.

And can I add that seeing Marr hand Davey his arse was almost as satisfying as seeing Posie do it to Harrop.

I'd love to break this down with Ed:

A woman, in a forensic suite, having been raped. She has asked for a female examiner. Should her request be denied?

A group of teenage female swimmers in an open plan changing room, no cubicles, getting ready to train. Should a male adult be allowed to strip naked in front of them?

A Sikh woman, victim of domestic violence, seeking refuge. She not only needs a female-only space because she fears males at this point, she also needs it because she can only rejoin her culture without dishonour if the refuge is not a mixed-sex space. Should a male gain access despite her needs?

An elderly woman being fitted for a new bra in M&S. She expects a female bra fitter and would not otherwise be there. Should a male bra fitter be allowed in that changing room with her?

A computing club for girls at high school. Their teacher is determined to stop her female students being put off taking an interest in computer science by their male classmates denigrating them. Should male pupils be allowed in anyway?

There are many places and reasons where women and girls need to be away from men and boys. For privacy, dignity, safety. For consciousness raising, to be heard, to dare to speak, to learn, to fail and try again.

But the male leader of the LibDems doesn't want us to ever ever be allowed to have this. He feels no shame saying this. He feels righteous and entitled to proclaim what rights female people may be granted in his world.

For the sake of his fellow males.

If that's not a dictionary-worthy demonstration of male supremacy, I don't know what is.

@Hmmph

Ed Daley kept trying to say something about Boris Johnson stirring up division with regards to this.

Why? I may well have missed something- especially in these days of selective reporting- bu what has Boris Johnson said about Women spaces, Transwomen, adult human females etc?

Ed Daley tried to say the “adult human female” wasn’t the issue, but it is as far as I am concerned. Andrew Marr was good, as was the man on the Today program, but I wish interviewers would take it back to basics and ask the party leaders “what is a woman?”.

I wish that interviewers would ask “ what is a man?”

@CharlieParley

I'd love to break this down with Ed:

A woman, in a forensic suite, having been raped. She has asked for a female examiner. Should her request be denied?

A group of teenage female swimmers in an open plan changing room, no cubicles, getting ready to train. Should a male adult be allowed to strip naked in front of them?

A Sikh woman, victim of domestic violence, seeking refuge. She not only needs a female-only space because she fears males at this point, she also needs it because she can only rejoin her culture without dishonour if the refuge is not a mixed-sex space. Should a male gain access despite her needs?

An elderly woman being fitted for a new bra in M&S. She expects a female bra fitter and would not otherwise be there. Should a male bra fitter be allowed in that changing room with her?

A computing club for girls at high school. Their teacher is determined to stop her female students being put off taking an interest in computer science by their male classmates denigrating them. Should male pupils be allowed in anyway?

There are many places and reasons where women and girls need to be away from men and boys. For privacy, dignity, safety. For consciousness raising, to be heard, to dare to speak, to learn, to fail and try again.

But the male leader of the LibDems doesn't want us to ever ever be allowed to have this. He feels no shame saying this. He feels righteous and entitled to proclaim what rights female people may be granted in his world.

For the sake of his fellow males.

If that's not a dictionary-worthy demonstration of male supremacy, I don't know what is.

Brilliant post Charlie!

The huge structural inequalities and injustices in this country - and here I include those of wealth/class but also sex and geography - related to income, and healthcare, and life expectancy, etc. will never get addressed while we let - even encourage - our politicians and media to distract the electorate with things like ... the trans argument, a few boats of illegal immigrants arriving in Dover, a couple of statues getting vandalized, whether we are all “woke” enough on race etc Basically all the culture war nonsense.

Yes....and no.

The political impact of defining Woman as a mixed-sex state of mind goes far beyond the individual occasions that a woman-only group or space may now include a male person.

The real issue is that if there exist structural inequalities and injustice that come from sex (and clearly, there does), but you take Female-bodied out of the definition of Woman and don't at the same time create a new classification that includes all adult human females regardless of gender, which is what the Genderist movement demand and what statements like TWAW mean, you entirely take away the possibility of properly analysing, challenging and mitigating those sex-based inequalities and injustice.

We see it all the time - feminist voices that highight the link between a certain inequality or injustice suffered by women and being female get shouted down and accused of transphobia because "not all women are female" or "not all female people are women". A whole avenue of analysis, perhaps the most fundamental of human differences, is just ignored like a giant, self-inflected blind spot.

To be clear, I think many of the issues faced by non-gender-confirming males, whether they identify as woman are not, share the same roots as the sexism faced by females. If the genderist movement could only accept we are different, we would be such close allies.

But they need to understand that by saying TWAW, they are reducing the definition of Woman to something that can be achieved by either sex and that means taking most of the real reasons for women's oppression and putting them in a pile marked "irrelevant." But in doing that they make it impossible to ever really deal with structural inequalities and injustices that come from sex - they just get brushed under the carpet. There is no way that real feminism can accept that.

@Saltovinegar

I would like Ed Davey and Mishy to explain how a cervical smear is performed on a trans woman and a prostate examination on a trans man.......I suspect the answer would be silence.

In the brave new world surely we should all get both? After all you don't have to pick a lane and stay in it gender is, apparently, fluid.

@CharlieParley

I'd love to break this down with Ed:

A woman, in a forensic suite, having been raped. She has asked for a female examiner. Should her request be denied?

A group of teenage female swimmers in an open plan changing room, no cubicles, getting ready to train. Should a male adult be allowed to strip naked in front of them?

A Sikh woman, victim of domestic violence, seeking refuge. She not only needs a female-only space because she fears males at this point, she also needs it because she can only rejoin her culture without dishonour if the refuge is not a mixed-sex space. Should a male gain access despite her needs?

An elderly woman being fitted for a new bra in M&S. She expects a female bra fitter and would not otherwise be there. Should a male bra fitter be allowed in that changing room with her?

A computing club for girls at high school. Their teacher is determined to stop her female students being put off taking an interest in computer science by their male classmates denigrating them. Should male pupils be allowed in anyway?

There are many places and reasons where women and girls need to be away from men and boys. For privacy, dignity, safety. For consciousness raising, to be heard, to dare to speak, to learn, to fail and try again.

But the male leader of the LibDems doesn't want us to ever ever be allowed to have this. He feels no shame saying this. He feels righteous and entitled to proclaim what rights female people may be granted in his world.

For the sake of his fellow males.

If that's not a dictionary-worthy demonstration of male supremacy, I don't know what is.

On another level, imagine you are a constituent of a LD MP and have an issue like this.

Constituents are supposed to be helped by their MP whether or not they have a 'fringe issue'.

I guess the LDs decide that they can't help these people because they are bigotted and their safety and well being are incompatible with their views.

Now explain exactly why I should consider these type of issues merely irrelevant 'culture war' issues that 'aren't very important' and we should be more concerned about other 'more pressing' issues.

I wish that interviewers would ask “ what is a man?” Yes, that would be a great question!

Someone needs to ask Boris Johnson, before the next election, and he needs to be brave enough to answer the question. I would like to know what he, and as a result, the Conservatives believe instead of guessing.

Just had Layla Moran on LBC unable to define a woman - says she's not defined by her 'bits' but didn't expand any further - and making the incredible claim that other countries that have relaxed gender definition rules have had absolutely NO issues with it. So glib. How nice to be gaslit yet again.
Not a word about the pandemic of violence against women from their party this week.
Hope the LDs remain an absolute irrelevance.

I note that the BBC roundup of the headlines has missed off the Sunday Times. Later in the article, it mentions the Times' story on vaccinations but no accompanying picture.

[[BBC News - Newspaper headlines: Truss 'wades into row' and plea for calm over gas prices
www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-58612636]]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-58612636

Apologies- this link should work.

This article just came up on my twitter feed. I find it rather interesting in the context of this thread

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/19/baroness-hale-feminism-may-have-cost-supreme-court-president/?utm_content=telegraph&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1632053377
Baroness Hale: My feminism may have cost me Supreme Court president role

The former judge said her uncompromising stance on women's rights may have put her at a disadvantage during her first try for the position

@BlackForestCake

Davey has a cheek complaining about “toxification of the debate” when it’s his party that’s been at the forefront of toxifying it.

I wish we would expect politicians and journalists to focus on the economy, housing, decent jobs, the NHS, and the environment ... rather than these endless culture war issues.

There is a kernel of truth in this, in that the purpose of culture war ID politics is to deflect attention and energy away from jobs, healthcare, etc. and prevent class-based politics gaining traction. It does not mean that destroying womens' rights is trivial, any more than caring about racism is trivial.

I agree, however at present no one is trying to erase the concept of race in law, remove the ability of people disadvantaged by race to name themselves, group themselves or meet as a class without supervision from those outside the group, remove all their race protections and equality measures in law to benefit others outside their group, and calling it 'hate' and trying to shut them down or get them arrested when they try to argue against this.

As JKR memorably said: this isn't a drill.

This is probably the most serious threat to women in the UK in over a century.