Another Hadley Freeman corker - a plea to labour not to just leave us with the right wingers

[SpringCalling]

Hadley summing it up again so well!

Awful rightwingers are the unlikely feminists

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f9eae71f-afa8-4091-b471-d84b22fec772?shareToken=0c4abd8ad4023ecf2ed5ec408d12d064

On this issue there are a lot of parallels between US and UK politics on the left and right, although more extreme in the US, of course.

Anyway I won't hear a word against HF - she's an absolute hero in my view. She's a brilliant writer who has put herself in the firing line (not to mention being forced out of her old job) and taken so much crap for her views on the gender debate and also antisemitism when she could have kept quiet and written exclusively about celebs and films.

Julie Bindel did a fantastic interview on GB News this morning. You know, GB News, the spiritual home of knuckle dragging, hard of thinking Brexiteers, that no-one with any morals or scruples would give a minute of their time? The news station the liberal left boycotted, did their best to get shut down, and forced advertisers and sponsors to pull out of, for fear or being blacklisted by their client base?

It's funny how the very people we are told by the so-called 'progressives' that we should hold in contempt and should not take seriously, turn out to be your only true friends. They are the only ones not too afraid to have the discussion. I've heard some of the most robust debates on all topics from all viewpoints on GB News.

HF is American, perhaps that's why her column was written from an American perspective. In this particular case, I don't see why it makes much difference. It's the same in the UK. You cannot count on the left or so called progressive people in politics to have women's backs on this, but you can count on the right. It's an irony not lost on many gender critical feminists, I imagine, who probably identify as far more left wing than right, and find themselves in the somewhat unusual position of having the 'wrong' sort of people on their side.

Try reading the full article.

Exactly - in fact it could have been written by someone who is say resident in one of the european capitals.

This is the issue.

And of course, the problem that so much of what is vaunted as "western democracy" isn't in fact democratic at all. We are only allowed the options to support one of the existing power groups.

And of course, in the US, UK and Europe the power groups are bastions of patriarchy.

But then as we know in real life, and as some posters on FWR also seem to think, women dont have enough status for the engrained sexist rulers of the patriarchal parites to have to worry their tone deaf, pig headed, ego centric, misogynistic brains about.

Whoever you vote for the patriarchy still wins.

I did thanks. That's why I had an opinion on it!

People of any political persuasion who have a "sex realist" position are politically homeless, in the UK anyway. Unless they want to vote reform but a lot of centre/Conservative voters won't consider that either. Its not a "left" thing.

The US are easier in some ways but harder in others. Trump is a raging misogynist. What sort of "sex realist" woman wants to vote for a man who pays for sex when his wife has just given birth and boasts about grabbing women by the pussy?

Maybe Hadley could have mentioned the trouble sex realists on the right also have?

Hadley's been a real asset at the Times. So many excellent journalists reporting on all aspects of this mess.

You're not left wing, you're a right wing, misogynist man, so shut up.

Just saw this article in the Telegraph.

Is it now too dangerous for women to vote Labour?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/26/is-it-now-too-dangerous-for-women-to-vote-for-labour/

Can also be read at https://archive.ph/focnA

This is a great, short piece which really resonated with me. I am offended and disgusted by the trans lobby's hold over Labour. For sure I am. I look at ERCC and the man in charge there, who likes to talk about rape victims' orgasms and thinks everyone who doesn't think like him should be fired. As I think: well that's the future, isn't it?

Offensive and disgusting.

Good article. I’m left wing. I want people with gender dysphoria to feel safe, but it cannot be at the expense of women. Why is the conversation never about men being more accepting and tolerant of gender diverse men in their spaces?

The safety, privacy and dignity of natal women must come first.

What specific trouble do UK women who are right leaning and also sex realists have? The article itself says “It is true most politicians on the right tend to understand the existence of biological sex”. Right leaning women can vote for the conservatives as normal.

I’m not discussing the US political scene here - as you pointed out yourself, the comparison of right-left split doesn’t translate to the UK these days.

The Conservatives have no policy on gender - or if they have we have not yet seen it. Their position is the same as Labour. They also initially proposes self ID and have been in charge for the whole time this crap has been going on. Showing very little interest- in fact even writing off womens concerns as "purported feminists".
If I was a single issue voter on this I wouldn't be voting conservative. God knows if it would be enough to persuade me to vote reform.

Here you go three
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/maria-miller-says-only-hostility-to-transgender-report-came-from-women-purporting-to-be-feminists-a6830406.html

Also it's clear Sunak won't be leader of the party after the GE - one of the favourites is Penny Mordaunt who is TWAW.

I really can't see why women would trust them on this. Given the parties general track record for lying about stuff to get what they want.

The conservative government went above and beyond to block the very damaging Scottish gender reform Bill @AdamRyan . Would Labour have done so? I don't think so sadly.

The claim that the Conservatives have done nothing on GI, and will do the same as Labour, gets less and less believable. Everyone can see it's not true.

I haven’t read it but if we to only have the centre left media and politics we’d be Canada by now

Yup. Also I'm pretty sure Mordaunt might lose her seat.

Well that nailed it

Always enjoy reading Hadley, and I would buy a lapel pin that stayed "2+2 ≠ unicorn".

Were in her constituency. I'd be voting anything but her.

As it is, it's either a spoilt ballot or a vote for the incumbent Tory, who at least knows that sex is real and has been onside on this issue for as long as I can remember.

I think it was the word 'please' that vexed me, which is irrational and only one word but then words are her job.

Maybe it's just me but we've got less than 6 weeks to go and I feel those of us who want a change of government, but also a government that won't screw us over and tell us it's for the greater good, need something a bit more than 'please' and well crafted jokes.

Two things really annoy me about Hadley Freeman's piece, suggesting she doesn't understand much about either side or party in the US.

Describing Ted Cruz and Republicans generally as "misogynistic" for opposing abortion is an idiotic calumny. Pro-lifers view abortion as the taking of human life, and many, including many women, consider it unconscionable in most circumstances. No-one wants abortion banned out of hatred of women. By calling sex-realists "misogynistic," Freeman debases the term (which is dumb when you are facing actually misogynistic "biology-denying, rapist-pandering cultists") and is being just as high-handedly dismissive of Republicans as she accuses "gender ideologues" of being toward "feminists."

Second, Freeman excuses those same cultists by suggesting they are accidentally stepping on rakes. From the nominee Sarah Netburn to Joe Biden, these people are true believers. Netburn did not make an error placing a rapist in with women due to a "shaky grasp on the facts." She defended herself doing so, and would do it again. The Democrats in power are not "accidentally" doing anything, it is what they believe. They are exactly as irrational as they appear.

And in fighting against the true believers, you will need all of the allies you can get.

I do enjoy the conviction some have that IF Labour had been in charge, they wouldn't have changed track the way the Tories eventually did in the face of grassroots campaigning and endless legal challenges.

If pigs could have actually flown I'd have my breakfast bacon winging straight onto my plate, but sadly I have to deal with what's actually happened in the real world over the past 14 years.

Que?

The Labour Women's Declaration have been campaigning within the party for at least 5 years. They have behaved impeccably - the very model of courtesy and reason and, the last time I checked, they had yet to be granted a meeting with Keir Starmer or a place at the official party conference.