Women died for my right to vote, but......

[Bellaisoneluckywoman]

.... who in God's name is a sane gender critical person supposed to vote for if they can't bring themselves to vote Tory?

Imagine said member of the electorate also cared a lot about the environment and loathed Brexit with every bone in her sane GC body. Who could she vote for? Asking for a friend....

@Veeta

I take the point that anti semitism is not the point of the thread, but the argument of ‘it doesn’t affect me so why should I care’ is part of the reason we’re in the mess we’re in over gender. I’m hoping that decent men (who have a lot less skin in the game on this issue and who could easily say that self id doesn’t affect them so why should they care) will still make a principled stand on this.

This.

[quote Gingercake2018]@budgesquare

I live in one of the poorest regions of Wales and therefore the UK, where Welsh is the first language for the majority of the population. So yes, realistically, I doubt very much if people choose which box to tick on the ballot paper based on the antisemitic in-house fighting within a political party.

This is your political key deciding factor and I totally understand and respect that, but it is not going to be the deciding factor for many other people.[/quote]
But the thing is, this is why so many well educated people are totally on board with giving away the rights of other women. The men don't give a shit because, frankly, their interest in women's issues ends with them thinking they are a decent chap as they would never rape a woman.
The affluent, well educated women who support this don't imagine themselves in a woman's prison, or refuge or hostel for the homeless, and they don't give a shit about the women, the sort of lower economic status women they have never and will never meet, who are.

But unlike you, I don't respect the people who are prepared to vote away the safety of others, the others that they never imagine being.

It's not about caring or not caring about antisemitism, it's about individual priorities over different political issues, and antisemitic in fighting is lower down on that list than sex based rights or local poverty or Brexit or holiday homes or NHS. These are the issues that I look at as a priority when voting, unfortunately even that short list puts me in political limbo.

@GingerCake2018 This is not 'political in-fighting'.

metro.co.uk/2021/05/16/convoy-drives-through-london-shouting-fk-the-jews-rape-their-daughters-14590888/

Have you really never heard the Pastor Niemoller poem?

I totally get that the priorities in people’s minds when they vote are deeply affected by individual circumstances. The gender issue is important enough to me to be a vote changer by itself, but there will be many people for whom it is peripheral even if they agree with me. I think the important thing is that the issue continues to get raised and discussed. This way, even people who won’t change their vote solely based on this issue may well raise it with candidates as one of many concerns.

@drivesacarnow

It is already hard enough choosing which political party to vote for without factoring in an issue..and in which I do not believe (religion in general not specifically Judaism)

It would never occur to me that I have to believe in someone's religion to object to discrimination and harassment against them, anymore than I would have to agree with someone's opinion to express their right express it.

The anti-semitism issue for me, like the gender issue, is one that shows the Labour party is no longer a party of social justice or equality. And I can't vote for that.

Thank you @drivesacarnow

I would never dream of voting for a party that was willing to stoke up and feed off hate and violence targeted at any minority group, whether related to ethnicity, disability, or anything else etc. regardless of my personal involvement in it.

Basically, I think our goal should be ensuring it can’t be seen as a fringe issue. This should hopefully lead to more candidates and parties engaging with it, and therefore to more choice at the ballot box

@BloodinGutters

Ok, I apologise I misread, I thought you said my posts said that.

No, not your posts, but others, as you can see.

I still don’t think a feminist board is the place to address upset over other groups issues. This is just about women’s issues. Half of the reason we are in this bloody mess is the continual centring of men’s voices in feminism. And the continual reinforcement of female socialisation that tells us to be kind and put everyone else first, to think about how fighting for our rights impacts other groups.

I am not doing that. I AM a woman, a mother, I have a daughter (as well as a son), and a mother of my own. I am not centering any men's voices.

I am trying to express that, as a Jewish woman, I feel absolutely and utterly betrayed by the people who are saying that NOW they couldn't vote for a party that has been so completely shit to women, but they were openly and unashamedly (in some cases) fine with voting for a party that did exactly the same thing to Jews.

It is not a 'distraction' and it's not about 'other groups'. Don't you get it? If people hadn't stayed so silent and not given a shit about what has been done to Jews over the past few years, they wouldn't be getting away with it with women's rights.

That is exactly what the Pastor Niemoller poem is about. That's just one reason why you don't turn away when some other minority is being shat all over. Because it WILL be you next.

I think it’s very very important to fight against that socialisation on a feminist board, to move away from the reinforcement of internalised misogyny that men have jumped on and used against us. You jumped on a thread about women’s lack of choice of candidates and made it all about your upset about a different groups issue.

See above.

This has sod all to do with 'be kind' or 'female socialisation'. This is to do with turning a blind eye to hatred, prejudice, demonisation and lies when it's targeted at someone who isn't you, then being surprised when next time, it is.

@BudgeSquare

Being a woman or a mother has nothing to do with not reinforcing female sex role stereotype socialisation. Women reinforce this plenty.

The thread is about who women can vote for on this issue, about women being politically homeless because of parties stances on women only issues.

You jumped on and expressed upset at women not reacting this way to another groups issues. That manipulative. Matters not a fuck what connection you have to that issue, or that you are a woman. It’s not an issue that’s for feminism to address. I could equally have came on and guilted everyone for not spoiling ballots in outrage over the Tories making the uk the first ever country to violate the convention on the rights of people with disabilities. I could have said how upset I was that so many are willing to ignore the deaths of so many disabled people, that stopping cuts to my daughters services didn’t matter enough for you to stand up and do something.

But the feminist board isn’t the place for that. And this thread isn’t about voter issues that aren’t directly and exclusively related to issues that impact women because of our biological sex and because of how men prey on us because of it.

Please let women have a thread just about that issue, instead of expressing outrage about any other issue to guilt women.

There’s tones of areas of the board that you can start threads to discuss how you feel these issues intersect, to express your feelings on that. A feminist board is supposed to exclusively be about feminist issues. It’s the one and only tiny corner we get just for just feminist issues.

It's true that many people did not feel that the question of what the LP thought on Jewish issues was highly comparable to this issue.

I wouldn't say that's because they don't care about Antisemitism, so much as they didn't see it as being the same kind of problem. Which is a valid POV.

@BloodinGutters

I have to go to work now so I cannot respond in detail to your post but I fundamentally disagree with much of it.

Did you see the link I posted? Do you really think that calls to Fk the Jews, rape their daughters have nothing to do with women's issues? This went past my house and my children's school.

metro.co.uk/2021/05/16/convoy-drives-through-london-shouting-fk-the-jews-rape-their-daughters-14590888/

And yes OF COURSE I wouldn't as a woman and a mother vote for a party that doesn't care about people with disabilities. Because decent women and decent humans stand up for everyone, not just themselves.

I won't stand shoulder to shoulder with women who explicitly tell me they don't care if I, my mother, my daughter and our families are threatened with rape and violence because of our race. Because they don't stand shoulder to shoulder with me.

Oh and i meant to add that both Muslim & Jewish women are disproportionately affected by the trans activism issues. Many Muslim women cannot go to "women's" spaces if there are men there. They cannot access health care if they can't ask for a female practitioner. None of this is happening in isolation

[quote BudgeSquare]@BloodinGutters

I have to go to work now so I cannot respond in detail to your post but I fundamentally disagree with much of it.

Did you see the link I posted? Do you really think that calls to Fk the Jews, rape their daughters have nothing to do with women's issues? This went past my house and my children's school.

metro.co.uk/2021/05/16/convoy-drives-through-london-shouting-fk-the-jews-rape-their-daughters-14590888/

And yes OF COURSE I wouldn't as a woman and a mother vote for a party that doesn't care about people with disabilities. Because decent women and decent humans stand up for everyone, not just themselves.

I won't stand shoulder to shoulder with women who explicitly tell me they don't care if I, my mother, my daughter and our families are threatened with rape and violence because of our race. Because they don't stand shoulder to shoulder with me.[/quote]
You are still missing the point. This is the board for issues that impact women just because of our sex.

Woc are doubly disadvantaged because of both their sex and their race. If they were here guilting women about prioritising feminist issues exclusively and expressing outrage about how women vote on this because that might support a party that enables racism they’d be out of line also.

You shouldn’t be jumping on a thread about women’s votes on self id and making it about any other issue.

Feminism is allowed to exclusively be about issues that impact us because directly because of our sex. Intersectional feminism is part of what got us in this bloody mess in the first place.

@BudgeSquare

Oh and i meant to add that both Muslim & Jewish women are disproportionately affected by the trans activism issues. Many Muslim women cannot go to "women's" spaces if there are men there. They cannot access health care if they can't ask for a female practitioner. None of this is happening in isolation

Yes but women are disproportionately effected by it just because of our sex.

The justification of why women get to care about trans issues are a huge problem. Women are allowed to care about the impact on us as women alone.

As someone who grew up being repeatedly raped it happened to me because of my sex. I don’t need to suggest there’s any other reason to have boundaries than the experience of being a woman.

If we rely on only the ‘right’ kind of women get to have boundaries, if we draw a line, then that line will forever be used against us by men and moved back until women who have special reasons to have the right to boundaries is 0.

@BudgeSquare

Oh and i meant to add that both Muslim & Jewish women are disproportionately affected by the trans activism issues. Many Muslim women cannot go to "women's" spaces if there are men there. They cannot access health care if they can't ask for a female practitioner. None of this is happening in isolation

I was assaulted, along with my female colleague, by a transwomen whilst at work. Neither of us are Muslims or Jews, that does not make the impact of the attack any less. We were attack because we are women and no other reason. This is not a religious issue. I have as much right to feel safe as any other women regardless of religion, please don't bring your religious beliefs into this, they do not make this issue any more or less important.

@Gingercake2018

I agree.

While it can be a relevant point to raise at work or schools about how the psed is being addressed and harming those pc of religious beliefs, along with other pcs, including sex, outside of that specific legal remit I think it can be really harmful to address it this way.

If we argue that religious women have specific reasons to require single sex exemptions yadda yadda, then quickly it becomes turned around so it’s religious women who have to move aside, or to learn to be tolerant. It gives an easy in to conflate trans issues with sexual route because we will be told that religious beliefs are no excuse for homophobia and that this is no different. Religious women will be told to move over and use the third option.

As a broad statement it is only harmful imho.

The line should be drawn at biological sex only. There are no women who are more or less deserving of single sex spaces, services and protections. We can not make it acceptable to draw a line about which type of women matter more in this, which women deserve these rights and which don’t, because it will swiftly be used against us, until the deserving types of women number 0.

And emotive plees about Jewish women or others facing threats of rape are manipulative. I can’t see threats to Jewish men of being raped in equal numbers. It’s the fact that they are women that means they are targeted. The same reason any woman is targeted. Not facing that material reality is harmful. It creates the illusion about how some women are ‘privileged’. And that’s already used against women all the time by gender ideology. That ‘cis’ women are so privileged and lucky we must move aside and give way to our oppressed trans ‘sisters’. It means it’s twisted so being a lesbian is a position of power and privilege and that having boundaries is being exclusionary.

Reminds me of Ed Kemper’s words on mindhunter (that are very closely if not exact replicated from the real Ed Kemper’s words). That women have a little hole between our legs and that we use this to control men by excluding them, by using that exclusion to have power over them. (Paraphrased but closely).

We need to step away from any argument that draws that line. ALL women are equally screwed if self id comes in, because we will never be able to measure, assess, discuss or address the issues that impact women exclusively because of our biological sex and because of our position as the second sex in the patriarchal higherarchy (why can I never spell that?). It puts us back pre suffragettes and keeps us all there. No exceptions, exclusively because of our sex.

*sexual orientation

Returning to the subject of the thread

If you can't respect my sex, you don't deserve my X , is what I use to spoil ballot papers.