Women are being cast as intolerant bullies in this Starmer-drawn landscape of female-imposed weariness

[IwantToRetire]

Starmer (feels) weary of the incessant demands of feminist women that he commit to the annoying task of listening to them. He declared instead that “the people of the UK” are “exhausted” by the political battles over issues such as trans rights.

Keir (wants) to focus on “bringing people together rather than creating further division”. Who is Keir aiming to bring together? Women don’t want “bringing together” with men; that is rather the point and has been for more than a decade.

Sir Keir declared that he would “bring an end to those controversies [over trans rights] on day one.”

Is Keir assuming that all the women who have spent years campaigning, speaking, writing and lobbying in expectation that they would retain rights necessary for a safe and fair existence, simply forget what they were doing and wander off home in a daze?

It seems unlikely that immediately a woman from one of the large organisations advocating for women’s rights, like Sex Matters, said to another, “Come on Maya, you’ve had your fun, probably time to get a proper job now or sign on. People are fed up.”

Are we to assume the “vast majority” of these overly tired people are not women who want rights according to their sex? Women wanting single-sex prison accommodation, for example, are in Keir’s depiction of society, the unreasonable minority and it’s very tiring for the reasonable people to consider them. Although I imagine if you are the woman having to keep your eye on the male rapist in your cell, that could be a bit draining too.

Women are being cast as intolerant bullies in this Starmer-drawn landscape of female-imposed weariness. All the reasonable people want is peace. The “culture wars” have been long. Women have been putting culture guns to the tolerant people’s heads for too long and he will put an end to their irksome ways. The thing is, women are not a culture — the battle we fight is not for territory. Women are a sex, the female sex, and we fight for rights that we need when our bodies are the unfair focus of the opposite sex.

Moving ahead to day one of “The End of Pesky Women” I wonder what Keir imagines will happen. Perhaps at 4.30 pm exactly the miracle of women becoming silent women will occur; it seems a good time for women to wobble out of our various misguided, unreasonable groups, blinking in the sunlight, confused as to how we got it all so very wrong and made all the “other people” so exhausted. Perhaps there will be a party and women will clutch a plate of quiche and crisps, declaring to burn their rebellious t-shirts, ribbons, scarves and tea towels. Perhaps someone will be on the phone shouting over the music, “Scrap the ashtrays order, Kellie-Jay, it’s over love.”

https://thecritic.co.uk/culture-war-what-is-it-good-for/

(This is a much longer article raising many issues about Starmer’s Labour and women – I just pulled out the ones that struck home for me.)

I think it's confusing to think we share positions. We share a very superficial similarity which is exposed for the vast disagreement it is whenever the hard right gets power. (As in, eg, the religious right in the US.)

1. The right favours definite stereotypes based on biology. Very antifeminist.

2. The left (well, too much of it) favours definite stereotypes based on whatever is currently cool. Very antifeminist.

Feminists, of whatever political persuasion, favour women having enough power to have the right to live their own lives safely and satisfyingly. A concept so foreign to the other two, they can't even hear what the words mean.

What I'm trying to say is if the right ever did protect women's spaces properly, they'd probably wind up reinventing the seraglio or something. Somehow they'd make it the opposite of what we actually seek.

I think Jean has articulated the issue well there. Thanks Flo for posting this.

I think Jean has articulated the issue well there. Thanks Flo for posting this.

Agreed and I think it is important to know and support women who are prepared to do this.

Quite honestly I dont understand why women who are Labour Party supporters, or in terms of the GE aren't prepared to publicly say, yes I will be voting Labour but I wont Starmer and party to know that they are wrong about women's sex based rights.

So many are staying silent.

Some are speaking up https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5100000-labour-womens-declaration-response-to-2024-labour-party-manifesto

Thanks Helle, I think this bit is very pointed:
'If you’re not - it’s either fear (I don’t think it is) or you want to rub shoulders with power once they have it.'

Jean's been in several other pithy exchanges on Twix these last couple of weeks. I don't know who most of these women are but she's certainly ruffling some feathers.

I'm starting to think that the insidious creep of the American religious right is the biggest coming threat.

I think this is not relevant to the UK.

But what there is, is the Little Englander / British Bulldog charicatures which used to be comedic figures, but are now it would seem aspirational.

And it seems that many young people are attracted to this, and unfortunately has as an element women should get back to the kitchen. Family first etc..

So apart from the fairy story of Brexit solving all our woes, even those who think the Tories have messed up, will still blame immigrants as being the cause of the problem rather than that the Government failed to put in place properly systems for applying to asylum etc..

Ditto housing. We have a shortage of housing because of the sale of council housing. Both Labour and Tory have failed to do something to replace lost social housing. But many in this country will blame the outsider, the foreigner.

I do think a lot of the now numberous right wing groups we now have in the UK are influenced by Trump style politics, and the political system here and the media haven't been able to respond sensibly to it. So we are all being dragged into a shock jock style of news etc..

The idea that religion has a political influence in the UK just doesn't seem to be happening.

Here's a Mole one, to keep chins up:

https://twitter.com/moleatthedoor/status/1787473866761154780/photo/1

🤣 should have put 'himmler'!

But do you want them in your changing room?

Starmer is driving me nuts

"Women don’t want “bringing together” with men; that is rather the point and has been for more than a decade"

As a politician and very possible soon responsible for governing Keir will need to balance the interests of differing groups.

In this case there are in the grand scheme of things very small numbers of transwomen the ( majority ? ) of whom prefer to think of themselves as women.

Some women and girls would be accepting it even supportive of this in some circumstances e.g at schools where young people usually know the person involved

Others are concerned because transwomen are men there is a chance that some men exploit trans "rights" and either think that no men can ever be trusted or all men shouted be treated as untrustworthy just in case.

Some people who think the era of women and children first is over / risk assessing is part of life ) don't live in fear etc.

He wants people to show empathy and understanding to other people's viewpoints and feelings but obviously it is a minefield.

A headline this morning

‘Not only does Starmer have a fundamental disregard for women's rights, he has an even more fundamental disregard for their opinions.’

Wonderful. Finally the blame on the man responsible not women

Where is that headline from?

Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail, but its a subscription only article.
I've just realised if you use a text reader extension, you can see the whole article.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13558487/SARAH-VINE-Not-does-Starmer-fundamental-disregard-womens-rights-fundamental-disregard-opinions-Thats-Ill-never-vote-him.html

I haven’t read it as I don’t subscribe but the headline stood out.

Loads of comments in agreement on those articles

Looking at other countries (and some of the relevant threads elsewhere on Mumsnet), once women's rights have been removed, there doesn't seem to be any will to get them back. So I'm not prepared to hold my nose and vote Labour and hope it will somehow all pan out. It won't, it will get bad fast.
Hoping that things getting back to normal is missing the point. What we think of as normal was only a few decades, and it took a century of solid campaigning by a small number of very determined women to get there.

From a purely political view I don't see why politicians continue to support this when they know it is a vote loser.

It's seen the end of two SNP leaders (and now the third wants to continue down the same path), Starmer is laughed at when talking about it, etc.

The pressure inside these parties by lobbying groups must be massive for them not to see the wider public opinion on it.

Yes lobbying from the minority is strong, particularly for Labour

Because it's not a big enough vote-loser? Labour are set to win the election comfortably, despite their unconvincing positions on gender and women's rights. Surely it's only a vote-changer for a small minority.

What a depressing attitude. 'Things have to be popular for me to support them' is populism.
Human rights and safeguarding are also for people you don't like, for people who aren't the majority, and for people who are not popular.

It's strange introducing policies that can't be discussed because they attract 'too much heat', and are not 'issues on the doorstep'.

Its admitting that they are unpopular policies that are devised with lobby groups.

Increasingly I'm thinking these issues are reflective of internal power struggles, and the supposed 'issue' is not really seen as a real thing of consequence. It's about pledging allegiance.

If someone is willing to mouth an absurdity, that means someone is exerting influence on them ...

Found an archived version of the article 👍

https://archive.is/TTjtv

I think there is more to it than lobby groups, I suspect that for some politicians, there is a reason for their stance - one that cannot be said out loud in order to, say, protect a child and if that is the case, then those politicians have a conflict of interest. If they do have such a conflict of interest, is there a duty for them to tell the public? If this is the reason for them promoting trans rights over the rights of 51% of the population, do we have a right to know even if in so doing, they "out" a child?

Edited to correct spelling

They can't all have a bloody "trans kid".

And the ones who do should be more concerned about the Cass report IMO.

The ones that have a trans kid I can forgive. We've all tried our best for our child only to realise later that maybe we made a mistake. The ones that did it for money, popularity and votes have fucked themselves for eternity as far as I'm concerned.