Miriam Cates under investigation

[Arealnumber]

Why has Miriam Cates suddenly gone under investigation? The comments in The Times are usually highly supportive of the MPs that speak out against Gender Ideology but they're properly railing against her. What has been her downfall?

That is such a poor take that surely you must be deliberately misinterpreting what she has said.

This is nothing like: "educate women less so they stay home and have babies". Nothing at all. If anything, it is saying exactly what we say here constantly, that women face a disproportionate impact on their careers when they have children. But fuck. That is some deep prejudice to interpret what she said in the way you have.

He did quite a good of reporting on the 'Let Women Speak' Liverpool event.

Random Twitter bloke cites Reddit.

I do think there can be a reluctance to accept that having children impacts more heavily on women than on men; or certainly to be accepting of it. Personally, think it is inevitable. After all it is women who carry the pregnancy, give birth, breastfeed and so on. Also, if a relationship breaks down it will be the woman left carrying the baby 9 times out of 10 ( and by choice in most instances too). I was a young single parent at 19 - not what I'd have anticipated or imagined when I was at college or setting up a women's group there.

These sorts of realities are what Mary Harrington has come increasingly to write about - now that she has children. Modern women have been brought up to see 'equality as sameness' as the end goal - and have always imagined that all childcare and domestic duties will be split 50/50 - but in many instances it does not work out like that, and I suspect many relationships end in break up or divorce because of such issues.

Even in Denmark - where affordable early years childcare is universal - there is a really high divorce rate, and it is mostly women that retain custody of the children.

He did. Even loathsome people aren't always wrong.

There seems to be a general trend of politicians who the civil servants don't like finding themselves under investigation.

You also find a different treatment of them by the press too.

I didn't know anything about him prior to encountering him at that event, and he seemed like a nice enough chap. Sort of jolly!

I'm not sure what "prejudice" you think I have but I've followed Cates for a while and find her alarming.
The planet is overpopulated. Women don't need to be having more babies unless they want them.

It's hardly a stretch to read/listen to someone talking about how women who graduate are less likely to have children, how education makes it hard to "find the right time" and that they think the low uk birth rate is the biggest crisis facing this country and conclude that person thinks that women should give up on education and have babies instead (and in fact be incentivised to do so).

She also thinks no fault divorce is a bad idea and divorce/single parent families cause a lot of social problems.

She's an ideal example of where religious, right wing conservatism overlaps with GC feminism. Just because she knows women don't have penises, that doesn't make her some kind of feminist icon.

Ah so you are a children are an environmental disaster and women shouldn’t have any left-wing ideologist.

Still, it would be better if you just said that you are all Malthusian in your politics and disagree with her rather than misrepresenting her argument - which you absolutely are doing.

Hardly. I have 3.
I think its incoherent to argue against immigration because "we are full" and then argue we need women to have more babies. Makes no sense at all, unless you think certain types of human are more desirable than others.

It has been suggested that she has been taking money from foreign Governments.
I don't know if that is true but she like many of the 2019 intake is terrible.

This is a lot more along the lines of what I thought it might be. The twitter comments are interesting too

You think…

Other positions and arguments are available.

It is lazy argumentation to claim that anyone arguing against immigration must be motivated by racism (which is what you’re implying). It’s not necessarily incoherent to not want immigration (for lots of fair reasons) but still to encourage citizens to have children when the aging population is a demographic problem.

my politics don’t align with the conservatives. But it isn’t helpful to just caricature arguments and villainise the people you disagree with.

“Many graduates are saddled with debt, and so are unable to afford to buy a house and start a family.“Spending so much time and money on education also makes it much more difficult, particularly for women, to decide when is a good time to pause and have children.”

I read that as an argument against the massive increase in higher education which means that a large proportion of the population (male and female) start their working life with huge debts. It's more difficult for women because they can't just put off having children until their 40s like men can (obviously some women have children in their 40s, but it's hardly ideal for most women to put off having children until then).

I just see three women standing outside Westminster Hall after defending our rights. Joanna Cherry, Rosie Duffield, and Miriam Cates. I am sure they could have found loads of things to disagree on, but were happy to work together, with mutual respect, on an issue they all considered important.

Now let’s see. Joanna and Rosie have had real and well documented problems within the SNP and Labour. The Tories have been a lot more supportive of Miriam. However ‘the system’ is now investigating her.

I don’t know. However I plan to hold back before I judge.

GB News mentioned at the end of their segment on the new schools guidance that Miriam Cates had been told by police she was being investigated for a potential hate crime for retweeting /liking a tweet by another mp regarding someone running as a candidate for Greens(?) Who identifies as female (?). I wonder if it is to do with that, or something different. I haven't seen it reported anywhere else, it was simply tagged on to the end of the discussion.

I should have thought there were two quite simple steps one could take if one does not believe that educating girls is wrong. Firstly not go to conferences where those views are expressed, and secondly if one must go to such a conference, not say things that could be interpreted as meaning girls should have less education.

I wonder why Cates thinks that women in the UK should have more children, but is opposed to migration.

Replacement Theory?

Interestingly, Denmark is now trying to make getting a divorce more difficult - due to tremendously high divorce rate there.

I do think many women do suffer from leaving having children until they can feel 'sorted' in their career and lifestyle etc. Women do have a biological clock, and the older you are the more difficult it can be to get pregnant; plus it never feels like 'the right time': the feeling that everything has to be 'sorted' first.

I appreciate some people do not want to have children; but most do, and increasingly women are not having the number of children they would have liked to, or even at all - and IVF and surrogacy rates are subsequently rising substantially

You cannot rely on the children of other societies and cultures to come and look after our elderly or pay for services here, when what most want to do is go home and retire in their own country. Society does need to replace itself. I do think there is a strong whiff of misanthropy in the suggestion that people shouldn't have children. That is literally one of the purposes of life on earth (in a sexed body).

Feminism need not just be about equal pay and on demand abortion; it can also be about respecting the differences between the sexes and affording women some dignity in those differences. There is nothing 'unfeminist' about deciding to stay home for a few years when children are small ( if you are fortunate enough to be able to). Lots of women are now having to go back to work after just. afew months , even if they'd prefer to stay with the child, because their lifesetyle now depends on two full time salaries.

Conservatism is not an inherently bad force; and in fact most societies around the world are pretty conservative - because when it comes down to it people value stability and a certain degree of predictability.

Because stable societies need to manage themselves to ensure that the central values of that society are not overly compromised.I don't think Cates is opposed to all migration at all; just to uncontrolled migration. Any society needs to be able to determine its own boundaries - because without boundaries and rules of engagement you have dysfunction.

'Openness' is a lovely sounding, though very fluffy, idea. Every healthy, functional organism requires boundaries in order to be able to differentiate between desirable and undesirable consequences, and between what it wants to admit, and what it does not. That is why we have doors on our homes, and why consent is considered an important device.

I am so tired of this disgusting government. The sooner they're gone, the better.

Presumably this is the sort of person Cates thinks parliament shouldn't be investigating?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/19/voters-in-wellingborough-trigger-byelection-after-suspension-of-peter-bone

Absolute openness for migration is not a popular concept worldwide.

I think the place with the closest to open migration is Svalbard - pretty much anyone can go to live there without a visa but they do need to be able to support themselves while they’re there. There is no welfare state and people need to work for a Norwegian employer to access health insurance and most if the housing. You don’t accrue any rights to Norwegian citizenship no matter how long you live on Svalbard either.

There are no countries that just open their borders and welcome everyone. Migration control is an extremely popular practice worldwide.

Most Labour voters are quite keen on migration controls too.