Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 2.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

A low animal cunning 😉

I'd believe it about Truss but the PCP didn't vote for her, they wanted Sunak, it was the membership, all eleven of them (or something), who voted her in and that was just because she wasn't brown.

Thatcher was incredibly successful until she wasn't. I mean I despise everything she stood for but she was successful in what she did which was mostly screwing us over. May was very much a "she'll do, I suppose" while Johnson bribed his way into office.

I would never in a million years vote Tory but I am politically homeless even without the trans rights issue. I'm definitely spoiling my ballot and going "Woman: Adult. Human. Female." on the piece of paper I'm given. A pox on all their houses.

Why without the trans rights issue, Crows? What else so dispirits you about Labour (presumably?)?

There is no way Liz Triss was a conspiracy, she and the Tory party membership just really are that dumb.

I can't speak for Crows but Labour's chickenshit wiffly-waffly "make Brexit work" is also a problem for me. Because it's like asking me to vote for them to "make cold fusion happen" or "cancel gravity". I just can't support unreality-based faith positions. (You may see the parallels between the two issues...)

Spot on, kuc.

I also just think Starmer is a nasty bit of work. It may be a political calculation to purge labour of the left (which is shit in itself) but I believe he really enjoys it.

I know if you write on your ballot paper, it’s spoiled and doesn’t count, but if you added a post it saying you’re voting e.g. Labour through gritted teeth because you can’t bear another Tory government, but you wholly disagree with their official position on women’s SBRs, would it a. count as a valid vote and b. get read?

I can't see a thread about this story, Julie Bindel wrote about it a couple of days ago and has just tweeted that the BBC has picked up on it. Why males should not be in women's refuges.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-64603655

I'm quite glad I no longer have a vote here because I'd be in the same boat as Crows. My daughter is going to vote Labour because she thinks the most important thing is to get the Tories out. Her position onthe whole gender ideology thing would probably be regarded by activists as terfy in that she thinks male bodies shouldn't be in female sports or prisons and she recognises safety and privacy issues, but as a psychotherapist she also sees that there is genuine dysphoria and thinks we should be able to find a way of accommodating that.

Starmer, Reeves, et al, have deliberately destroyed the mass membership model grown under Corbyn instead of harnessing it, in favour of a narrow member base and corporate donations.

It's New Labour all over again.

I think it might, Squeaky. If the candidate can argue it counts as a clear intention to vote for them, they can cetainly count things that aren't a proper 'cross in the box' vote. Certainly there was a case of a drawing of a cock being counted as a vote because it neatly fitted within the row for 1 candidate.

(So if you do spoil the ballot, go big.)

There is a thread on that, BNBN - can't remember the title but I'll see if I can find it again.

A woman who was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male member of staff while at a women's refuge has received a payout from the home provider.

A male staff member in a woman's refuge?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4747681-payout-for-victim-sexually-assaulted-by-man-in-womens-refuge-bbc

Thanks Bint....

I followed the link to the BBC story about the brave woman who brought her abuser and the company that employed her to justice. While I was reading it another headline caught my eye about Kate Forde, 'the perils of mixing politics and faith'. It struck me it's a headline that could just as easily have been applied to Nicola Sturgeon, but I doubt any msm will draw the parallel though it seems obvious to me.

I also worry, because Kate Forde is against same sex marriage, the genderborg will glom onto that and make it all about them....again. Perhaps use it to try to regain some of the ground they've lost with the lovely Isla.

There was also an article, pretty horrific, about a woman whose father taught and abused boys at a Scottish boarding school. She seems to be another amazing person, my heart goes out to her. Her father seems to have died before facing justice. An, admittedly minor part, of the article was her describing how uncomfortable she was being alone with all these boys.

there was a case of a drawing of a cock being counted as a vote because it neatly fitted within the row for 1 candidate

blimey

here, the numbers 1 to however many are on the paper are all that count. Evidently they sometimes get people who have voted in the UK putting an X, and that counts as a spoiled ballot because of the inability to decide whether it represents a positive choice or a wish to erase.

Anything written on the paper spoils the vote.

Despite the headline, it's not at all a surprising discovery - just an often-overlooked bit of women's history. Bronze age life was hard, and women didn't just sit around doing a little light sewing (article contains a link to the original paper). www.upworthy.com/scientists-compared-the-bones-of-modern-and-ancient-women-and-made-a-surprising-discovery-rp

I read an article years ago, I've no chance of finding it again, that compared bone wear in ancient male and female skeletons. The women's bones showed evidence of tasks such as using grinding stones. The men showed wear consistent with sitting on their haunches all day.

Looks like Squaky's plan would count as a vote:

2.2 The (A)RO may only reject a ballot paper on the following grounds:
• it does not contain an official mark
• a vote for more than one candidate has been given
• it contains a mark or writing by which the voter can be identified

2.3 A ballot paper must not be rejected because the vote is:
• not marked in the proper place
• marked other than by a cross
• marked by more than one mark

if an intention to give a vote for not more than one candidate clearly appears on the ballot paper.

2.21 The key phrase in the Rules is: ‘A ballot paper […] shall not […] be deemed to be void if an intention that the vote shall be for one of the candidates clearly
appears’.

2.23 The key question an (A)RO should ask is whether the voter has, on the face of the paper, indicated a reasonably clear intention to vote for a candidate.

www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdf_file/UKPE-doubtfuls-booklet.pdf

Squeaky. Not Squaky.

That reminds me of a piece I read in, I think, the Guardian before they went mad. It was about the work that women do and there was a photo of a woman and her husband in Nigeria, where the man was a skinny little rabbit, but the woman was absolutely ripped. I've tried to find the page again, but haven't been able to track it down.

I very much agree with that, Kuc: they all voted Remain and thought Brexit was a bad idea in 2016, what makes it a good idea now? Likewise the pretty shoddy, by any standards, treatment of Corbyn. I mean, if he such a obvious terrible anti-semite (and he's been completely hung out to dry), how did Starmer agree to serve under him? But this issue here is the tipping point for me. Everything oozes insincerity and posturing. Remember that awful photo of KS and Rayner 'taking the knee' for BLM?

I think their "make Brexit work" is surely just pragmatism at this point that no-one is going to thank them for trying to rejoin the EU again soon, so they have got to just get on with it now.

It's just so symptomatic to me, Elsie. 'Believe what you say. and say what you believe' is what I want to see. And don't get. I want them to say, Brexit was a mistake, it was wrong. Because it patently was. And the first step towards progress is, let's tell the truth.