is our aim protecting our sex based rights or is the issue our political leanings?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I've been confused by the falling out on social media by some women against other women and have been following the discussions online.

I am not very well informed politically - I think my opinion is that the important thing is ensuring that sex remains a protected characteristic and that "woman" means adult human female and not gender so that our rights to safety, privacy and dignity are protected in law and safeguarding follows that.

However, I can understand that it is difficult for left wing women to collaborate with women who are right wing, or for working class women to link with middle class or upper class women, because their politics and priorities are varied.

I think it is a strength that there are different approaches and different women speaking up because we desperately need to raise awareness because the majority of women are unaware of the threat to our sex based rights. That means we need a variety of voices, and everyone, as far as I can see, wants the same thing - our sex based rights and protections for children.

Maybe I'm being simplistic to think that "play nicely" will prevail. I hope so, though, because what I am watching looks like a big waste of energy and goodness knows this stuff is exhausting enough.

What can an ordinary woman like me who doesn't have a youtube or a book or a column do to try and help move things along? I'm worried we will land up with a GC purity spiral and nothing good will come of it.

Did she say that Jess phillips was one of those who did not support her? I've had a google but not coming up with anything.

A short tweet from Baroness Nicholson.
Did I read somewhere she’d invited Sarah Ditum to tea or was that a dream? (I’ve got a viral infection (not COVID), have been a bit out of it with rigor/febrile dreams the last couple of days).

twitter.com/baroness_nichol/status/1573885116623069184?s=21&t=243Cr1n6Xb7GaqScnwE00g

In the sense that Conservative PM Theresa May announced it as policy.

In all the decades the Conservatives have been in power the only major changes to the 1967 Act were the reduction of the "on demand" time limit from 28 weeks to 24 weeks and permitting the permanent use of telemedicine consulting in the early weeks. Given the improved outcomes for premature babies 28 weeks became untenable.

It's scaremongering to claim abortion rights are at risk under a Tory government.

I'm confident that Jess has absolute understanding of male violence against women - she used to work to support vulnerable women. She's smart and, I think, trying to fence sit whilst pushing the point that female women die in droves, and other (unpunctuated) women do not.

It's not just the government who does nothing about these dead women. It's all political parties, the justice system, society, and me. We are used to it. Their deaths are not news.

You are right, their deaths are all gruesome, but I said very gruesome. Maybe particularly or newsorthy would have been a better. If it was so horrific that Netflix made a drama of it then we might know her name, but, for most of those women - we have no idea who they were or why they died or whether there was justice.

The point, I think, is that they died because of their sex. Therefore we need to define sex. Therefore I need someone with power or influence to say that we need to define sex because the protections that failed those women rest on sex.

And that's not what that left wing MP, Jess Philips, is doing. I respect Jess, honestly. But, she's not saying it. Her reading of the list of names is powerful, it is important, but her point is oblique and it is, as you point out, ineffective.

Next year she will have yet another long list to read, and I'm sure it is hard for her and that she needs to have a cry and a glass of wine after it, and that for the people who have lost those women it will be an important thing to have them named...but I'm SLSO sure they'd also like to hear about funding for refuges which are single sex, or Jane Monckton Smith is getting a heap of cash and a huge initiative, or that labour is holding the government to account for the failures that lead to these women's deaths.

So, again, I am grateful to any woman, regardless of her politics taking all the risk and saying publicly, usually at great personal cost - that sex matters because being female means being disproportionately likely to be killed by a violent male person.

If Jess Philips said that I'd go back to labour in a flash. If she stood up for Rosie Duffield, I'd have hope. As it is, despite my respect for her, despite my bleeding liberal heart, nope. Not a fucking chance.

And where are the legislative changes? And you can't surely deny there are plenty on the Conservative side now querying this policy - and perhaps more importantly not being stifled by their party from querying it.

Jess Philips seems to have splinters in her arse from all the fence-sitting.

This is why i regard her "dead women" list reading each year in the House of Commons as purely virtue-signalling performative stuff on her own behalf. She does fuck-all useful to defend living women and children.

I’m saving my sympathy for the families of the women & children who were murdered not Jess Philips, a politician who can’t even be bothered to who actually do something by speaking out about the rights of women, girls and children. She is a disgrace.

You are right @vivariumvivariumsvivaria, those women were murdered because of their sex. The Conservative government refused to make misogyny a Hate Crime. But they were fine with proposing Self ID.

Making misogyny a hate crime would do nothing at all to help women, since currently, rape and sexual assault are effectively decriminalised.

And they were fine with putting a minister in the Despatch Box to say TWAW and TMAM in response to commonsensical amendments to the Maternity Bill, Maternity Bill getting rid of gender woo.

Decriminalised under who @FlowersBloomInAutumn? The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years. The Conservatives have been in power for most of British democratic history.

Making misogyny a Hate Crime would increase the chance of conviction against misogynists. It would also increase the sentences given to men who abuse women. But the Tory party said "No".

The issue is that actual fascists were at the Standing for Women talk and none of the supporters seems to have an issue with that.

The “ actual fascists “ were the wee bawbags, Aunt Lydias & violent wee shits who shouted at a baby, threw smoke bombs, screamed at women & carried knives.

@Ohnohedident You :" bad lefty/middle class feminists are being mean to PP,we can't have that. CM you said alt right that means you are a lefty and mean to Posie. Posie is wonderful and makes great stickers.WPUK scowl at us and don't make good stickers because we vote Tory. Bad nasty lefty person slagging us off for being Tories and working with right wingers.

Something along those lines?

@antelopevalley absolutely the wee baw bag TRA baby shouters - annoying and destructive that they are, are a bunch of brainwashed, probably spoiled, misdirected students compared to the actual fucking fascists that were there!

Cheekymaw Actually stances like yours to antelopevalley about those poor "misdirected" left leaning souls, AKA narcissistic violent women hating men in masks. (with the odd virtue signaling adult baby shouter handmaiden type thrown in) are one of main the reasons I, as a real older working class woman dislike the now Labour party soo much. Also the vast majority of my working class friends, and quite a few of those are from so called minority backgrounds feel the exact same way.

While there are certainly Conservative MP's now that do women no favours, there are also plenty of now Labour MP's that do exactly the same and want a halo for it. Labour's Jess Philipps being a prime example. Reads out aloud in parliament the names of all those poor women who have been murdered recently in the UK, but actively supports Labours stance on removing the right of that same group being so seriously mistreated (WOMEN)to be named out loud for all to hear.

While there are certainly Conservative MP's now that do women no favours, there are also plenty of now Labour MP's that do exactly the same and want a halo for it. Labour's Jess Philipps being a prime example.

I think this is an unfair comment. Jess does a lot of good work for females as do others who may not be GC.

Just because you don't agree with them on one area does not negate the good that they do.

Quite.

Not sure I can comprehend that at all.

I don't even think it will help get the message across. For every extreme right woman you bring into the fold, you lose considerably more left / right wing women who abhor the extreme far right (as well as the extreme far left!)

People with a broad right wing / conservative agenda recognise a vote winning bandwagon when they see it. We are all intelligent enough to spot them. If the left keeps insisting on shutting out women's voices on this completely non- political issue, they are going to keep showing up and chancing their arm.
It's not our job to make them reasonable on other issues. It's not our job to shut up for fear that their bollocks gets heard when we speak.

This.

It's not for me to keep quiet so the Left don't look bad; it's for the Left to stop being fucking stupid.

Left wingers on here are showing their inability to get past party politics, as ever.

Thanks, ladies, this is one centrist voter becoming more and more scared by Labour and its supporters.

There was no way to identify or remove the 'fascists', PP doesn't vet attendees!However, in democracy, it would seem to be that people, all people, are allowed to come and watch an open air event, peacefully.

There is only one side trying to dictate who gets to speak AND to listen. Just like left wing dictatorships have done throughout the 20th century. Left wing has as much history of suppression and brutality as right wing. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot anyone?

Left wing politics are no more virtuous or compassionate than right wing, stop imagining you're the good side because you're on the left, your superiority complex is showing.

Left wing has as much history of suppression and brutality as right wing. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot anyone?

This bears repeating. Plenty don't know much history it seems.

The issue is that actual fascists were at the Standing for Women talk and none of the supporters seems to have an issue with that.

What as opposed to the aggressive, threatening, baby-screamers? What's the working definition of 'actual fascists' by the way? Just for my records.

I agree that word is about as devalued as transphobe now and that's saying something.

I'm not sure why we're holding people to account for others 'being there'? It was a public place, how were they supposed to stop them?

It matters to me that single mothers get sufficient benefits to keep children out of poverty.

I keep seeing this hopeful, faith-based idea that Labour would be kinder to the poorest people on social security benefits. Unfortunately, it's not true. Check Labour's official twitter account - not one word about the changes to universal credit but a couple of forelock-tugging god save the k- posts. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has spoken out several times on her intention to crack down on benefit claimants. Labour said nothing about legacy benefits claimants not getting the UC uplift and next to nothing about the UC uplift ending. Even in the 2019 manifesto under 'caring' Corbyn there was no extra funding or rises wharsoever for welfare. As someone on carer's allowance and UC, please spare me the comforting fairy tales you tell yourself to justify your political position.

Anyway, back to the thread. I really don't understand this gleeful self-flagellation over who Posie Parker may or may not have stood within 20 metres of a right winger while in a public place. The only verifiable link Hearts of Oak has is to an actual transactivist and we're just dancing to the TRA tune by forgetting their mob was full of racists, 3 of them got arrested, they assaulted several women and one of them had a bag of knives - he was on their side, let's not waste time debating if he just turned up, he joined them, imagine if it had been our side. They're laughing at us now. Even if the far right was there, it was just to make capital from their behaviour the way libs of tik tok (? Something like that) on twitter does.

For every extreme right woman you bring into the fold, you lose considerably more left / right wing women who abhor the extreme far right (as well as the extreme far left!)

Have we worked out yet just who are the extreme right women in the UK?

And as others have asked, have we worked out just where the line is for fascism here in the UK? And is it different to the rest of the world?

I have yet to see any convincing definition of this, yet I see so those words 'far right' and 'fascist' being thrown around with passion.

Some very good sense posts on this page.

There is a definite feel of people here explaining their concerns with a party - any party - with certain ideals, policies, attitudes - and being met with a response not engaging with 'these issues make a party unelectable to me' but just stuck on 'but no good person would ever vote Tory'.

Tribal politics have long since had their day, and getting stuck on mantras and high ideological beliefs about people and purity according to their voting instead of facts and reality and capacity to cope with civil disagreement and discussion to find shared points of view forward were what caused the current situation.

Women and homosexuals don't have the time right now to make sure the funding streams and voices that help are only coming from those passing the Right Sort of Person test, this is a serious crisis across politics with a massive impact and risk to the future of many other groups and for the way this country is governed in terms of political capture, politicised police, the belief in male sexual rights trumping other people's equality of consideration and care, the belief in punishing and silencing those with other faith based beliefs, a politics based in a quasi religious faith that sees facts and reality as 'hate' to be suppressed - anyone with a basic grip on history should be seeing the red flags in every direction at this point. It's an all party approach needed, and we can all sort out who's on whose christmas card list when we're on safer ground.