Mumsnet Webchat about women/mums in politics with Stella Creasy and Caroline Nokes - 1st February

[Bosky]

Anyone got any questions for Stella and Caroline?

Go to:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_live_events/4468388-Webchat-about-women-mums-in-politics-with-Stella-Creasy-and-Caroline-Nokes-1st-February

Something I don't understand - The webchat was an important topic, so as feminists why wouldn't you forgoe the incessant and repetitive questions that you knew would lead nowhere, in favour of actually speaking about the topic at hand? What was the point?

Because you can't, as a legislator, come to talk, specifically, about WOMEN in politics, to women, when your policy and proposals are not actually about women specifically at all.

If MPs came on to discuss barriers to those with disabilities and policies they wanted to implement for disabled people, and when asked who they meant by 'disabled people' they replied "anyone who wants us to consider them disabled, whether they are disabled or not" then people would, quite rightly, say that your policies won't work if you're going to allow people who are not disabled to benefit from them too, because non-disabled people do not need this extra support,and if they take this extra support then this will just further disadvantage disabled people who will be left with only the dregs of the resources which were for them, while the able-bodied disproportionately further benefited from them.

It would be absolutely outrageous.

But because here it's just women being shafted, nobody is allowed to mention it.

Something I don't understand - The webchat was an important topic, so as feminists why wouldn't you forgoe the incessant and repetitive questions that you knew would lead nowhere, in favour of actually speaking about the topic at hand? What was the point?

I would say there are two points. The first, as a PP wisely pointed out, is that we are yelling "the house is on fire!" while Creasy et al are just focusing on moving the furniture around. You literally cannot talk about getting more women involved in politics when your definition of women includes men, and when a group of very misogynistic, aggressive and determined men are systematically attacking and undermining the idea of women as a distinct class of people.

The other is that Creasy and Nokes need to understand the strength of feeling on this. They are pretending that only a handful of women care about this issue. In fact, the feeling is both wide (ie lots of women are now concerned about this issue) and deep: the women I know - some of whom have never been politically engaged before - are absolutely fucking furious about it, more furious than they've ever been in their lives.

If we have managed to make Nokes and Creasy understand that this is an issue that might actually lose them votes (which is probably all they care about) they might, just might, finally start listening.

@CosmosLily

Simply from what I've seen here on Mumsnet in regard to conversations on these topics, both off and on the FWR board, conversations are "taken over" by the exact same topic time and time again and puts people who arent yet really involved in feminism off the whole thing. It just makes it look like there is only one topic and one topic only and that puts off people, like me, from getting involved. Which is a pity.

The conversation has already been shunted off onto its own board on the behest of those who don't want to discuss it. That's why there is a Feminism:Sex and Gender board and a Feminism:Chat board.

The thing is though that it is such a pressing issue that most women want to discuss it which is why the S&G board has become essentially the FWR board where all sorts of feminist issues are discussed and where most people post and the Chat board has become little used, mildly interesting board.

If you want to have a chat about feminist issues without having to discuss sex and gender, then the Feminism:Chat board is there specifically for your use.

Yet another - I'm not telling anyone how to "do feminism right" I'm simply giving my opinion and if you read my first post here I explicitly said that I didnt understand. Posters explained and now I do. I hope you dont do this to all new posters here, they'll never get into feminism at this rate.

Eresh Thanks, I'll look out for them 😊

We are over half the population. We usually do all the caring for the old and the young. We are the ones most likely to have been raped, abused, stalked, threatened.

And now, politicians want to expand what "woman" means so that males can identify into our group. But they don't want to own it. That's simply not good enough.

We are allowed to ask - in a chat about women and mums - what the terms and definitions are. We are allowed to ask for clarity.

Otherwise, what are we talking about?

A twinkly vanity project to get "mums" to go and vote? Or be kiiiiiiind and let those advocating that people "who do not yet (or perhaps ever) have a GRC" set policies and law that directly affect our lives, our girls' lives, and the lives of our elderly parents?

I find it a pity that a useful conversation couldn't be had because of the repetitive questions that MN themselves asked not to be asked over and over and that what could've been a constructive conversation was kind of overrun

There was never going to be a conversation though, Stella in particular was here to promote her this mum votes campaign. They were here to tell us what they thought were barriers, they weren't interested in what others thought were barriers. I raised a question about how the Labour Party ignores abuse aimed at women, that question was ignored. Other questions about misogynistic abuse were met with platitudes rather than meaningful action which would allow women to get involved in politics without fearing the inevitable abuse that would come along with it

@CosmosLily

Yet another - I'm not telling anyone how to "do feminism right" I'm simply giving my opinion and if you read my first post here I explicitly said that I didnt understand. Posters explained and now I do. I hope you dont do this to all new posters here, they'll never get into feminism at this rate.

Eresh Thanks, I'll look out for them 😊

Oh I managed. I think many women managed. It's a case of opening your eyes to the reality rather than as pp says, being taken in by twinkly sparkly vanity projects, which in fact do women as a sex class a whole lot of harm.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

On Twitter it seems like Stella creasy is still smarting about the webchat

She's discussing it with Hadley Freeman and others. It's well worth a read and Stella isn't doing herself any favours.

Good to see Susanne Moore comment too, she's not accepting Stella's "I'm too busy for this, I'm a MUM you know" deflection.

Yes, Stella, mothers are busy, especially working mothers. Most women have experienced that. That's exactly tly our point. Do you know who doesn't experience that? Men.

They were here to tell us what they thought were barriers, they weren't interested in what others thought were barriers.

100%

Interesting @littlebrowndog that you say SC is still smarting on twitter. Why don't both these mp's (and others) come and have the conversation with us on MN instead of snarking about us on twitter ? They would certainly learn something.

Cosmos
"I hope you dont do this to all new posters here, they'll never get into feminism at this rate."

Do you think Feminism is some sort of knitting bee, that recruits members by being nice to them?

Those terrible women fighting for women's rights were terribly rude so I shan't support them fighting for women's rights.

Yeah and they should both review that webchat

There were some great questions like the huge increase in girls identifying out of their sex

Pronouns - Fair enough, but then why continue to post the same questions again and again if you know the conversation wont go anywhere? (General you, not specifically you). Just seems like the chance for it to be constructive wasnt given in the first place.

Milady - Not in the slightest, that was directed to a poster who searched my name, read my post on an entirely different thread, copied and pasted a part of my post, took it out of context and posted it here to call me out. Could've very easily resulted in posters who hadn't read my entire post and seen what I was actually saying trying to bully me off the page for "trying to tell people how to do feminism when you're not one". That type of crap has no place and isn't about "being kind", that's just quite literally being a bit of a dick.

@CosmosLily

Pronouns - Fair enough, but then why continue to post the same questions again and again if you know the conversation wont go anywhere? (General you, not specifically you). Just seems like the chance for it to be constructive wasnt given in the first place.

Because we can't discuss women if each side means something different. The discussion is useful without defining the terms.

We mean biological women. They mean anyone who wakes up and decides to be a woman, either because that's how they feel or because they're a violent male who spies an easy route in to women's spaces.

I'm not having a discussion about how to help those guys get into politics

Fair enough, but then why continue to post the same questions again and again if you know the conversation wont go anywhere

I don't want to answer for others because I didn't ask the question. But I suspect 2 reasons. The first, Stella and Caroline claimed to want to talk about barriers facing women in politics, so it was important to establish what they meant by women. Words and definitions are important. Secondly I suspect it was asked repeatedly because women are angry, and wanted to make it clear that this was a major stumbling block to discussing the issue. If only one person raised it it would be dismissed as a fringe issue that no one cares about, if a lot of people raise the same issue its harder to ignore

@Cosmoslily it's not a new thing and not just uppity mumsnetters, check out Paxman interviewing Michael Howard and asking the same question 12 times (it's on youtube). If politicians actually answered the actual questions posed to them then we wouldn't have to keep on asking !

IKeptyoulikeanoaf - Yes, I understand that. So were the repetitive questions designed to shut down/derail the conversation entirely then? This is a genuine question, as I don't understand why people would continue to post if they felt the conversation was going nowhere, can't be discussed as there's a disagreement on what a woman is, etc. Also not directed only to you.

People keep answering you, Cosmos - you are the one not listening.

How is asking politicians to adequately answer a question which is fundamental to the whole issue "derailing"?

Stella creasy on Twitter. Anyone who becomes a women. Just depressing

Why aren't you directing your ire at the slippery politicians? Do you think we shouldn't ask them questions? Does that extend to Boris Johnson?

I don't think people wanted to shut down or detail the conversation. I think posters were frustrated that such a fundamental aspect of what was being discussed was being handwaved away as not an issue - it smacks very much of Nicola Sturgeon's statement of 'not valid concerns'. I think posters very much wanted to have the conversation.

They don't become women, Stella. So tired of this charade. No one treats them like the treat women.

Cosmos
I can't be arsed looking to see the actual context of that quote, but it's perfectly reasonable to search a poster's history, in fact MN have provided a handy button to do it at a click. And if you hang about long enough, you will see the range of posters coming in to tell women off for not feministing correctly. Just like, in fact, you are doing.

This issue is at the core of women's rights. It cannot be dimissed because politicians don't want to answer it.