Poverty - not seen another thread

[IcakethereforeIam]

www.theguardian.com/inequality/2022/apr/17/shock-absorbers-of-poverty-womens-lives-cut-short-by-their-unequal-position-in-society

Can women identify out of this? Hope the link works, warning Guardian.

It is absolutely true.
Women are increasingly disadvantaged in a right wing capitalist society.
It’s heartbreaking - disadvantaged women are completely invisible.
Feminism has been dealing with trans activism - I absolutely get this.
Many women involved in the feminist movement are advantaged.
We fail to see the misery of our disadvantaged sisters.

@LunaTheCat

It is absolutely true. Women are increasingly disadvantaged in a right wing capitalist society. It’s heartbreaking - disadvantaged women are completely invisible. Feminism has been dealing with trans activism - I absolutely get this. Many women involved in the feminist movement are advantaged. We fail to see the misery of our disadvantaged sisters.

And the gender identity ideology will not lift a finger for the poor women. Wonder if the Labour Party does? I hope so.

Thanks Icake. And it is interesting when you start looking at the sex vs gender disparities. Because it really is apparent which sex is suffering, yet those two groups mentioned prioritise gender over sex.

Nothing seems to change in a sustainable way.

I wasn't sure if this thread was best for here or feminism generally. It's noticeable that 'woman' is all over it, like the old days. All the unpaid and unappreciated labour that helps stop the wheels coming off the country. Even well off women are likely to have had their life blighted by being female. No-one would choose this.

This is heartbreaking

I am as GC as most (I wouldn't dare say as GC as any on this board) but this report very precisely puts into words why I will not ever vote tory just because they are not afraid to use a biological definition of the word woman.

Labour are the only alternative party at the moment and they are the only ones who will put money and policy efforts into balancing this up.

They may currently be on the grip of some ideologues who make them fearful of speaking the truth they all know, but to my mind the overall picture for women and children, and also the climate, is much much bleaker picture under any tory rule, bit especially this current one

Labour are the only alternative party at the moment and they are the only ones who will put money and policy efforts into balancing this up

What if labour simply use the ideology to mask the figures?
I've posted before on this but this is a similar idea.

So 20%of women in hull are poverty stricken and in dire straits.

Be open to inclusive wording and that can very easily change to 10%of people are poverty stricken etc.
So by using inclusive language you can halve the desperate poverty in any city and not actually spend any money.
Same with healthcare,
10% of women need treatment for cervical cancer in their lifetime.
Will become 5% of people require treatment for cervical cancer in lifetime.
Again halved the cervical cancer rates, no money involved and potentially less money given to it.

Any issue that is sex based can have this done, so it's not even women who will lose out, mens issues will suffer too.

Feminism has been dealing with trans activism - I absolutely get this.
Many women involved in the feminist movement are advantaged.
We fail to see the misery of our disadvantaged sisters

It's difficult to see how we can talk about sex-based systemic oppression if the material reality of our sex-based oppression is erased from policy and law. Both the Women's Budget Group and WEP have been groups that have shifted to talking about gender and erasing women as a sex class. Now they're wondering why disadvantage is falling on one sex? What did they think the cost of all their posturing about gender rather than sex would be? Who did they think would bear the brunt?

There is quite the syllogistic leap from "Many women" to "we fail". A fair number of feminists are disadvantaged. Caring responsibilities create poor, disadvantaged (predominantly female) adults who have a difficult and impoverished old age of their own to contemplate.

Some people might be surprised at how disadvantaged some of their own family members are or those friends with whom they're no longer in touch. Lots of families can seem to have a reasonable income but are in substantial debt through the profligacy/fecklessness of one member, the costs of someone's addiction, or what's known as the tax on people living with chronic illness (physical or mental).

I wrote "surprised," tbh, I think a lot of people don't want to see. Look at the number of threads from families who have no intention of sharing the care of older parents but emphatically want to benefit from the inheritance preserved by those parents being cared for at home and not in a residential facility.

Under labour the problems faced by women and girls will magically disappear as they will no longer be recorded. And once out of sight I would not be so confident they will be addressed.

Where have Labour been for the last decade? They either supported UC and austerity and DLA/PIP cuts, or they did not provide an effective opposition. They've been silent about the cost of childcare crisis, they were silent during the swingeing cuts to Carers Alowance, and the crisis of Covid deaths - 60% of people who died of Covid were disabled.

Labour have not been a viable alternative during a period of corruption and austerity. So what has changed and why should I trust them now? I'm not voting for wishful thinking and this is not the time for more 'after the revolution, sister'.

We are here because womens issues have been put to one side for so long we are at the end of the line.

Labour openly plan to subordinate females to males, remove all ability for females to identify themselves as a class and to organise as a class apart from the supervision of males, and to enforce the use of females as male resources.

So no, I don't think there's anything positively female friendly about all that, in fact I think they're misogynist to the point of utter bloody insanity. They won't help women, they don't even know what one bloody is unless they're looking for who to spit on.

Women are disadvantaged because of their sex and by society's gender expectations of them.

Women need a party that will reduce the disadvantages associated with pregnancy, childbirth, care of newborns, menopause and period Ill health.

They also need a party that will reduce the expectation that women are the default carers of children and older people.

Currently we have several parties that can't define a woman and think it's more important not to offend male feelings.

Or we have a party that knows what a woman is but doesn't think they are worth bothering about.

We are truly fucked.

Maybe Keir can be told this in no uncertain terms. Women are not so hard to identify when it comes down to systemic societal discrimination and oppression. LOOK AT IT, FFS!

@Artichokeleaves

Labour openly plan to subordinate females to males, remove all ability for females to identify themselves as a class and to organise as a class apart from the supervision of males, and to enforce the use of females as male resources.

So no, I don't think there's anything positively female friendly about all that, in fact I think they're misogynist to the point of utter bloody insanity. They won't help women, they don't even know what one bloody is unless they're looking for who to spit on.

I'm afraid this seems to be true.

I'm in Scotland; Labour are a very different beast here. Practically extinct outwith Glasgow anyway - but I note several Labour MPs were the ones arguing for women's rights in the Scottish parliament. Special mention to Johann Lamont. But several of these estimable women retired, I'm not even sure where we are now.

Our Labour candidates for local elections don't even seem to be bothering with hustings or responding to questions in the local papers - I really am perplexed as to why they stand candidates if they've no expectation of winning or inclination to even argue their case.

Anyway, it leaves us in many places in Scotland a stark choice between SNP and Tory. SNP like showboating 'progressive' policies like the baby box and free prescriptions, but the crumbling transport/roads/health/education services are starting to be very visible. Tories in Scotland are largely more trad rural/farmer types and very resistant to change.

What do you call it when there are no political representatives of your position? What do you do? Homeless, yes. But we have to build an alternative, I suppose.

Female poverty is ultimately based on the combination of sex and gender roles and sexism. The gender identity ideology tries to erase sex and also our ability to address sexism and it argues that gender roles are a good thing or at least doesn't care about them.

Women fall into poverty partly because of their role in reproduction (which is biological) and what that does for their 'employability' (my word?).

Employers don't want workers who might suddenly want maternity leave because replacements must then be hired and trained, and employers are less likely to promote and train young women because the latter are more likely to leave than young men for biological reasons.

This is made worse when the social division of labour is added in which it is still expected that women do most or all of child care and the care of elderly or ill family members.

That makes it even less likely that women are seen as good promotion candidates as the employers fear that they will be taking time off more for the sake of their children or others in the family.

And women who drop out of labour force for these reasons lose out on some pension benefits and also gain less experience in the labour market so that if they return to work later their earnings will be permanently lowered from the path they would have taken otherwise.

Sex differences (innate or learned or a combination) and gender roles (in some combination) are also why we tend to find women-dominated occupations pay less, and because they are low-paying occupations filled with many women, their lower pay translates into lower average female earnings overall.

Sexist (and sexist-cum-racist or sexist-cum-ageist etc.) assumptions in general and sexist gate-keeping in many male-dominated occupations (where women are kept out of better-paying jobs they could actually do quite well) make all this worse. Etc.

Discussing any of this requires that we define 'women' as 'people of the female sex', though some transgender women might also be hit by the same discrimination at work if others assume they are biologically female.

The gender identity ideology cannot express any of this with any clarity and could only address some of it as lots of separate and unrelated incidents. And it has nothing, really, to say about the religious and cultural discrimination which many girls face and which leaves them less education and less able to work at all.

I'm almost sorry for starting this thread because it's so fucking depressing. It'd be hard enough to begin to address these issues without gender ideology muddying the water. Most oppressed, most disadvantaged, most discriminated against - who exactly? Sometimes it's seen, sometimes it's normalised and not even noticed, just women trying to live their lives, raise their children, survive. Everyone, even those failing, truly stunning, truly brave.

Sorry, I've turned a bit purple.

Sometimes it's seen, sometimes it's normalised and not even noticed, just women trying to live their lives, raise their children, survive.

Poverty is plausibly the greatest determinant of health and the number of years of the lifespan spent in good health.

A simple political demand that I will always align with and campaign for, is that any data used to discuss and inform policies should always be broken down by sex. Always. Let's forget about political parties, and let's get that simple demand out. Campaign to make it law. It should be. Because it is the only way the Equality Act can be enforced. It shouldn't just be things like salaries which are scrutinised (the so-called "gender" pay-gap), but every single metric of deprivation or well-being.

When I read that "1 in 10 parents is expected to rely on food banks next month", I know the unwritten truth: the vast majority of these (often lone) parents are mothers. But newspapers and the like should be compelled to report that fact explicitly, not leave it to the imagination of the reader.

any data used to discuss and inform policies should always be broken down by sex.

It's rarely honoured but many medical journals have signed up to breaking information down by sex and gender as appropriate.

Heidari S, Babor T, De Castro P, Tort S, Curno M. Sex and Gender Equity in Research: rationale for the SAGER guidelines and recommended use. Research Integrity and Peer Review. 2016;1:2.

researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41073-016-0007-6