Welsh Govt to drop Senedd candidates gender quotas bill

[Draigosaurus]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjwddg6yn0no

Amazing! The attempt to have a 100% male Senedd has been stopped. Wonderful work by all the people who opposed this, and successfully scaring Welsh Labour into stopping.

The defeat in court would have been funny though, but there are better ways to spend money.

Plaid MS are not happy:

Sioned Williams

Gender equality is a clear and unequivocal expression of a fair, just, effective and legitimate democracy. A shameful decision by the first female first minister of Wales to bin this progressive bill, and in so doing, to block more women from having a voice in our Senedd.
https://x.com/Sioned_W/status/1835739889779737083

https://x.com/siangwenfelin/status/1835721033011089655

The thing is the entire reason the bill was stopped was because if the quotas were decided by sex not gender then it would mean a man in a dress would have to take a male place rather than pushing a woman out. Welsh Labour decided it was better there was no bill than accepting that apparently.

I fear Welsh Labour will attempt to do some other sexist nonsense instead.

By the looks of the x feed, the most numerous supporters of 'gender' equality are women (as in actual women, not menwomen). I know people don't have to put their real details and pictures on x, but if this is correct, is it because so many people still don't get the mangling abuse of language or because women are so highly trained to 'be kind'?

because women are so highly trained to 'be kind'?

#BeKind is a powerful imperative that is drilled into us socially.

There's also a strong desire to seem to be progressive along with a cognitive dissonance that this will never harm them, women like them, or anyone that they know.

Great article from Nation Cymru a site which pointed out how daft this was from the start:

https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-government-scraps-gender-balanced-senedd-bill/

Quotes from Women’s Rights Network in Wales who were vital in stopping the bill.

Cathy Larkman of the Women’s Rights Network in Wales said, “We welcome the scrapping of this critically flawed Bill. It was clear from the very outset that the setting of mandatory ‘gender quotas’ for electoral lists would run into serious trouble and we explained the obvious problems when we gave evidence at the Stage 1 Reform Committee consideration of the Bill earlier this year.

“Legislative competence was always going to be an unassailable hurdle and the Bill would have inevitably failed at the Supreme Court. We were not alone in pointing this fact out to them – the Llywydd did too, and the temporary Counsel General designate also made clear her views on this during the consultation.
“It is a great shame that the Welsh Government, under previous First Ministers Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething, did not listen to the warnings from ourselves at the Women’s Rights Network and other groups such as Merched Cymru. In addition, Jane Hutt, the Minister responsible for the Bill, would also not listen to any voices that weren’t uncritically supportive.
“We are glad that the new First Minister does at least appear to be listening now and we congratulate her on that. At least she has now saved the Welsh public any further unnecessary expenditure, and the focus can now turn to more meaningful and productive work that will actually help women take part in political life.
“This Bill, far from helping women, attempted to introduce self-identification into Wales. Any candidate could have announced they were a ‘woman’, without any challenge or repercussion for them whatsoever.

“An earlier version of the Bill, leaked by ourselves, laid bare this scandalous overreach. Men are not women and never will be women. It is an insult to women to pretend otherwise. Self-identification is not the law in the UK and would have negative consequences for the rights of women and girls.
“This has been a chapter in the history of the Welsh Government in which they have not covered themselves in glory. We hope it will not be repeated at any time”.

What happened to Jane Hutt? I remember her being a feminist in the old days, setting up a number of women-only projects because then she seemed to understand that women needed single-sex services. I remember someone I know training to be a plumber on a special women-only course and Jane Hutt visiting them while they were training and being very enthusiastic about it — talking about how much easier it is for women to learn when there aren't men around taking all the oxygen.

So who persuaded her that a man who put on lipstick could be a woman?

Possibly because they don’t realise that the Senedd gender quotas bill would have allowed political parties to include males in their list of “women” candidates?

Yes that's what I was getting at. The clever use of 'gender' to make people think it means 'sex'. (Except of course where it doesn't, because in MRA world, it not only is and isn't the same as 'sex', it actually trumps 'sex'?!)

It wouldn't surprise me if there is a child or vulnerable young person in her family who identifies as trans. Because these troubled and confused young people are under the same trans umbrella as older males who transition for completely different reasons, their well-meaning relatives start to express support for all 'trans' people, not realising (or not wanting to know) that middle-aged male transitioners have nothing in common with young trans-identified people.

On that subject, is anything more known about Drakeford's son? Last thing I'm aware of he'd been released from prison and had changed his name to something that could be either male or female.

Well, thank goodness for that, one less piece of genderist BS for us to fight, at least. What a waste of everyone's time.

It rather undermines the claim that they need more Senedd members to deal with all the Very Important Legislative Business when they throw so much resource and political capital at something both fundamentally wrong, and very obviously not within competence.

More over the top reactions from TAs to the gender quota bill being dropped

https://wenwales.org.uk/press-release-by-the-diverse-5050-campaign-dropping-of-gender-quotas-legislation-risks-backstep-on-womens-representation-warn-campaigners/

Yes the quota thing was about race in a sense. The bill was to ensue that white men in a dress could take Senedd places meant for women of any skin colour. It wasn't about women's empowerment at all.

It was so the Senedd could have as many men like Jamie Wallis as possible. White Tory/Labour men who wear suits and dresses when they feel like it. The ultimate victim demographic.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/30/tory-mp-jamie-wallis-trans-reveals-rape-ordeal

When they couldn't guarantee that would be allowed and it might be for those pesky actual women it was dropped.

Jonathan Drakeford, latterly Jay Humphries, was sentenced to more than 8 years for raping a vulnerable woman and a child sex offence (attempting to contact a person he thought was a 15 year old girl). Released on licence, broke terms of sex offender order, prosecuted, recalled to prison and not due to be released until May 2027.

No information that I can find on any specific identity.

“When they couldn't guarantee that would be allowed and it might be for those pesky actual women it was dropped.“

That’s an interesting take, fromorbit. I hadn’t thought of it like that.

Oh they realised it alright. TWAW is hard baked into their policies. Welsh Govt funded organisations have got a habit of agreeing entirely with Welsh Govt.