WOMAN'S HOUR TODAY!

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Today's WH is as follows - Woman's Hour Election Debate. In a special extended 90 minute programme, Nuala McGovern hosts the Woman's Hour Election Debate. Senior women from the main political parties of Great Britain outline their priorities for women and answer your questions. Taking part are: Scottish National Party spokesperson for Consular Affairs and International Engagement Hannah Bardell; Reform UK candidate Maria Bowtell; Green Party spokesperson for Housing and Communities Ellie Chowns; Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Daisy Cooper; Conservative Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work Mims Davies; Labour Party Chair and Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities Anneliese Dodds, and Plaid Cymru’s Westminster Leader Liz Saville Roberts.

Questions via text 84844 or WhatsApp - 03700100444

I intend to send something like the following - Given that you are all designated senior women politicians, speaking as such on Woman's Hour, can we possibly decide an answer to the question - What is a woman?

Send in yours!

Apparently they've put up 122 candidates which is the most since 1987 (so Google tells me).

None in my area though, sadly.

I am voting SDP as well

No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex. As true today as it was 150 years ago.

Me too.

I know one of the candidates where I live, and I believe she is doing it because she wants to be famous. She had never struck me as politically-minded until she declared an interest in becoming an MP.

She's not a bad person in any other way, but she's poked fun at the where I live in the past.

I won't be voting for her.

OP and pps, I feel your pain - I'm in Belgium where even the main centre right party is TWAW. I'm not sure even the nationalists - our closet approximation to Reform - take a clear stand on biology. No point checking as they are unelectable (to me).

I ended up voting for the party to the left of our equivalent of Labour because they at least didn't have the rainbows in their brochures and had policies concerning labour rights and pensions rather than 'inclusion'.

It's the one good thing about FPTP that it allows for Monster Raving Loonie and similar satirical candidates to share the stage with the big parties at elections. Doesn't happen as much with a list system.

May you all find worthy ppl to vote for, protest or otherwise.

I'd vote Monster if one stood in my constituency. Unfortunately, there are only five candidates: Labour, Tory, Liberal, SNP and Reform. Shoot me now.

I'm 64. I've never missed voting in a General Election, but I don't know what to do with that lot. Have not been able to get any info which would make me comfortable with the Labour, Lib or SNP candidates, I can't vote Reform and if I voted Tory you'd be getting reports of a whirlwind over the local Garden of Remembrance as all my coalmining ancestors went birling.

Seriously considering writing "What is a woman?" on my paper.

I was making the point that govts can and do force women to have children and it's naive to think otherwise.

Abusive men are really skilled at pretending to be good until it's too hard for you to leave. Often, violence only starts when the woman is pregnant. The idea that women have "a high degree of control" over whether they choose an abusive man, or end up stuck with him, is naive to say the least.

A woman's ability to leave an abuser is largely dependent on the State enacting laws that permit divorce, allow the courts to grant non-molestation orders, and allow feminist charities to operate single-sex shelters. When children are involved, the woman relies on the courts, an organ of the State, to mandate child support from the father. Whether a woman intends to rely on the father of her children or not, when it goes tits-up for her the State ends up being involved.

The State isn't benign but neither are many men and at least we can sack our MPs at the ballot box.

Why is defining a woman so hard?

Has anyone defined what a man is yet?

Thanks for that@JanesLittleGirl . That might be what I write on my ballot paper.
My ward is a done deal anyway, so what the hell.

I have also been delighted to find the SDP are gender critical but left leaning on many issues. They are getting my vote too.

@Villagetoraiseachild , each vote counts. It's not a done deal until all the votes are in.

I’ll be voting Reform. More of a protest vote I suppose though I support their policies on immigration.

The Conservatives have been lazy, complacent and simply appalling on every count. Cameron and May and Johnson and Sunak, what a bunch of out of touch and lazy fools.

Labour (though I wish say they would renationalise water and energy) are unfortunately largely a chaotic playground bunch of gullibles (with slippery headteacher Starmer trying to hold it together) and I believe their outlook would give even more fuel to the whole of the drift to mad identity politics we have, plus I can’t forget Blair’s dodgy EU project and Iraq war.

The Labour Party - which was formed as the political wing of the trade Union movement - has had its day in the sun when it truly represented something. Now it represents nothing and no-one, so falls prey to any passing fad or influence, however irrational.

All the main political parties - Conservatives, Labour, SNP, Greens and LibDems - have been complicit in this whole drive towards divisive identity politics and endorsing Stonewall’s dodgy agenda.

@LandHo , Cameron and May and Johnson and Sunak, what a bunch of out of touch and lazy fools. is not true.

Theresa May was a hard-working and respected constituency MP.

Your list seems to exclude one former recent Prime Minister.

Probably blinked and missed her.

@VoteLabour Perhaps fool wasn’t quite the right word. As people said at the time she would have made a good deputy head of a school. However, it makes no difference to me if Theresa May was “hard working”. Hard working means nothing if it’s in the wrong direction or no direction. I thought she was lazy politically, limited intellectually, out of touch and wasted so many years, just like Cameron, endorsing the status quo.

No, Independent, but she does appear to be an evangelical Christian employed by a church. I wish we had an SDP candidate. There are several candidates for various left-wing parties who talk more about Gaza than anything else. The Green chap is being investigated because of tweets which someone has reported for antisemitism.

I believe that this is the epitomy of privilege when it comes to voting on this issue. I am GC and strongly disagree with Labour on this issue. I am also disabled by the abuse by men I suffered in childhood. I may survive a labour government, despite their misogynistic polices who will undeniably do damage. I don't believe I will survive another tory one who will continue their destruction of any support for the most vulnerable in society (mostly women).

As I've said in other posts; I'd rather be alive to fight against this ideology than dead due to all my support being cut off due to their attacks on the disabled. Reluctantly, I will be voting Labour but share the despair at their stance on this.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , if only it were that easy. She certainly left her mark.

@LandHo , we'll just have to agree to disagree about Mrs May.

I've been reading up about all the candidates where I am and only one will get my vote. The clue is in my username.

Vote for the best candidate for the constituency, or at least vote.

@VoteLabour ”we'll just have to agree to disagree”, well that’s a pleasant first for me on MN. Fair dos.

No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex. As true today as it was 150 years ago.

@LandHo , I like to think I'm a fair person.

I'm not going to discourage anyone from voting, even if I disagree with who they're going to vote for. Brexit happened because of the people who didn't vote.

I will either spoil or go SDP although I think they were pro Brexit which I cannot agree with. But at least they don’t think it is a great plan to put men in women’s prisons which the incumbent Labour man does.

If the conservatives get back in due to protest votes women's lives will get much worse. There will be no escape from abusive husbands and partners and the legal system and education will continue to deteriorate.