Jess Philips on VAWG and single sex spaces.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/24/jess-phillips-lindsay-hoyle-jo-cox-murder-gaza-vote/

Interviewed in the Telegraph, including on VAWG, and trans issues. Archived in the usual places.

'Would she still like to be prime minister? “I’d still give it a crack, sure!” she says, firmly. “I used to want to be the home secretary. But I’ve learnt I don’t have that special skill of plotting, organising for your own progression that you need to get on. Women are less interested in that than men. My only ambition in politics is to halve the levels of violence experienced by women and girls in a decade. Despite two women dying every week there is still <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/X8IhI/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/09/jess-philips-womens-lives-risk-failure-reform-child-payouts/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">no strategy or target around femicide. We live in a patriarchy still. It is 2024 but all our institutions are based on a 1950s, or 1850s or even 1750s ideal that doesn’t work for women.”

Prior to becoming an MP she worked for Women’s Aid and ran rape crisis refuges. I believe her when she says it is her life’s purpose. Phillips is a rare bird in today’s politics – a confident, clever working-class woman.

So where is she on trans issues, how has her work on protecting women been affected by this debate? “The actual work hasn’t been affected at all. The political space has undoubtedly been affected, not all negatively.” Can she still speak about women? “Of course! I feel totally comfortable speaking out about women – sometimes when I talk about women that means different things. I am capable of holding two ideas in my head at once… I believe in single sex spaces for biological women, prisons, refuges etc. – 100 per cent. I’ve got the T-shirt on that. But also, if someone asks me to refer to them as a woman, I personally will do that. I’ll call you whatever you ask me to. <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/X8IhI/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/09/jess-phillips-no-trans-person-met-has-said-cant-say-woman/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">I am happy to refer to transwomen as women. But also the idea that I am meant to parrot ‘transwomen are women’ as a slogan is f-g meaningless.” Classic Phillips. Having her cake and eating it.

“When I worked in women’s refuges, we always asked questions on the referral forms about people’s sex at birth, whether people had transitioned, basically. The language we used would probably get you sent to the gallows now.” She smiles and goes into a long explanation about how “there are all sorts of reasons why women who are referred might not be allowed in a refuge, not just trans. For instance, if a woman had a 14-year-old son with her, she wouldn’t be allowed in the main women’s refuge centre, she would be cared for in dispersed houses within the community with supervision so she could stay with her son. Or women with child protection issues or those with substance abuse issues.

This is Parliament’s responsibility, it’s up to the legislature to make it clear. She stresses that it is disabled women, older women and those with complex needs who have “the hardest time accessing the right kind of safe spaces… We need to have women’s biological spaces, but also when I was on Birmingham City Council, I commissioned domestic refuges for LGBTQ+ folk, particularly men beaten up by their partners. It should not be beyond the wit of man to protect women’s biological sex spaces and provide different spaces for trans people.”'

If that's the case why has Jess not faced the attacks Rosie Duffield has and why has she not been 100% behind Rosie?

Jess has a specialist in domestic abuse and uses that to say how she is so pro-women.

It should have been her hill to die on if she was that concerned about protecting those vulnerable women and what the implications were of women being harassed and silenced.

It's not about her 'not being gender critical enough', it's about the tumbleweeds when other women were taking the heat and she was no where in sight and her repeated argument that she's got the interests of the most vulnerable women central in her mind.

Where was she when Rosie Duffield was being publicly demonised? Where was the organisation within the Labour Party to hold itself to account and support GC women within the party who were saying 'absoluetely correct' things?

This is a woman who has stated that she'd like to be PM but can't lead from the front on an issue she's supposedly most passionate about.

She's either keeping her head down to further her career or she's keeping it down and letting others take the flack instead because she's been not that arsed about it.

There's been so many women within labour or who support labour who were desperate for a sign of a prominent Labour figure who was really fighting from the inside and took them seriously.

To use a quote:
Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right

I think there's a sense that Jess Phillips took the easy route. And this had led to this sense of betrayal, because she effectively SHOULD be being held to the expectation of higher standards than other politicians because of this background.

The problem not the idea that she's not GC enough. It's about her invisibility when it's got tough for certain other women. She has better than most but she's still missing such vital crucial points because she's more concerned about appearing to be nice first and foremost.

I'll take what I can get, but this sense of her being a massive disappointment doesn't go away.

Nailed it, RedToothBrush
JP doesn't have to agree with Rosie Duffield (or Tonia Antonazzi) but she should have supported her right to speak out without being vilified. That's what being a feminist is.

I read what she says and to me it reads like "Keir Starmer, but make it a woman". Biological women only for prisons and refuges. This sounds like "safe spaces" by another name, rather than single sex spaces/services.

Agree, @RedToothBrush has nailed it.

she equivocated and hemmed and hawed and made vague statements about how everyone could be accommodated and watched other women take the heat. This is the clearest she’s been. She’s a coward and has zero integrity.

My quarrel with Jess Philips isn't so much about what she's done or not done in the past. It's that even now, I still can't tell whether or not she's levelling with us.

I keep coming back to, 'sometimes when I talk about women that means different things'
Maybe she's talking here about her private conversations - which are none of my business - but she needs to be clear about that if she wants to convince someone like me.

If you choose to be fluid with words and their meanings then you have to accept that people will scrutinise every single thing you say.

I can't be arsed with Jess and hanging around willing her to "get it". She knows fine well the issues involves and plays to what ever audience is watching. Career politican first and foremost.

I agree entirely as I posted earlier.

She has no integrity as a politician. I like someone who dies on their sword not hides in the shadows and puts the knife in when the battle is already over.

The problem with MPs like Jess is that they are part MP, part media personality. Its difficult to know if having various definitions of woman is because of how she sees the law evolving, or because she may be on a panel show with jordan gray sometime.

And all of them appear scared of actually calling out Stonewall and the stranglehold they appear to have in so many areas. Obviously they are beyond public criticism.

I am disappointed in Jess too, she could have been a magnificant ally to left leaning GC women. She's passionate about women's welfare especially vulnerable women, forthright, down to earth, with a strong media profile. Instead, she has sat back and let Rosie Duffield take all the flack and abuse. If Jess had spoken out sooner and with clarity the narrative that GC women (and men) are all just right wing bigots would have been diminished.

She's a great pal of Jacob Rees Mogg isn't she? I wouldn't trust her further than I could throw her.

Political friendships are fascinating. Michelle Obama and George W Bush are very close friends.

Really? How disappointing. I believe Tony Benn and Enoch Powell were friends too.

I too find friendships across political divides fascinating, and also heartening and uplifting - a reminder that there's so much more to being human than how we vote.

Also Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.

guinnessguzzler · Yesterday 13:20

This sounds like quite a turnaround. Perhaps she has always thought this but I don't think she has ever said it out loud in this way, especially given she goes on to mention third spaces. I take it Labour have finally read the room.

I think they may well have done, having seen the negative comments online, BTL and realised the absolute mockery they're getting. It seems to be a tight statement from her, presumably approved, so that they can claim to support women and trans people, too.

It is terrible that she didn't have anything to say in support of Rosie Duffield, last year.

Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo were friends, weren't they? I'm going back a bit, obviously!

They were at school together.

I think you're being very unfair to her. What she's said is, in this febrile context, brave. And I agree with her. She's trying to strike a pragmatic and conciliatory tone, while saying she believes in single-sex spaces. And good for her.

Honestly, when public institutions are still following Stonewall Law we just can't be so stupid as to rage at someone for not being a complete terf firebrand. And nor can we claim the moral high ground if we're being nasty.

Sure in some circumstances. Like Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo, fine. But Bush and Powell are surely beyond the pale, and I'd side-eye anyone who was friends with them. There's healthy differences of opinion, then there's being responsible for the deaths of millions and stirring up racial hatred.

Being friends with Rees Mogg isn't open minded, just shows you've got no standards.

Shall we stick to the subject of the thread? It was shaping up to be quite interesting and informative

Yes, going back to the thread, I do think it's a good sign if an ambitious politician finally decides it's it's safe to stick their head over the parapet. So, if that's what Jess Philips is doing - because I'm still not entirely clear what she's saying here - I'm not going to knock it just because she's no Rosie Duffield.

Bizarre that being mates across the political divide is wrong with JRM, but being on the committee that pushed self-ID, and adding a male to the list of murdered women is OK.

JP is consistent on one thing: political opportunities that look like they might propel her career a bit further forward.

If Labour win then I absolutely do not want to be proved right on this. Because then it's truly game over for women and children.

Jess's whole persona, schtick whatever you want to call it is as a feminist firebrand though, someone who speaks truth to power and says it as it is. That's why it is disappointing she has kept her head down and went quiet on this issue.

It's so disappointing how harshly women in the public eye are judged on this board, if they aren't aligned to the "GC ultra" viewpoint.
Meanwhile the men get away with no comments, or are lauded if they say anything vaguely GC.

Why should JP have to vocally support Duffield for posters on here to support her? We aren't judging men against these standards, are we?

I'm judging Keir "99% of women don't have a penis" Starmer.