Labour is betraying women

[IwantToRetire]

. . . If Starmer’s government has achieved so much depressing stuff in 71 days, roughly 4 per cent of the way into a possible 5-year term, what they might achieve by the end of it fills me with dread. I believe that Labour showed us, and in some instances told us, what they would do, or not do, to ensure the continued erosion of women’s rights, and they are doing exactly what they said. Why some feminist women, seemingly in a blind bond to Labour, didn’t believe them escapes me. It also infuriates me that they think Labour deserve a bit more rope to hang us with.

Some prominent left-wing women, before the election, pleaded with us to trust Labour and allow them space to make the right decisions. They suggested that it was wrong to focus on the single issue of gender ideology, because women would benefit in so many other ways under a Labour government.

I wonder, did they envisage this Labour government? The one maintaining unequal benefits, placing violent men amongst their female victims and keeping the blurred line between gender and sex embedded in law? I can understand if those women were now as dismayed as the rest of us at what they are seeing, but instead they appear to be spinning for Labour, suggesting the violent men aren’t really being released or excusing it by blaming the Tories. They suggest we should wait and see what happens, keep the faith, trust the process. After many years of being told that women are influencing Labour “behind the scenes” my faith in that has gone.

If you are a feminist woman openly critical of Labour you may now be accused of “right wing drift”. This is nonsense. Instead, should scrutiny not be focused on how far Labour have drifted from the left? This is where condemnation should be aimed. . . .

NB - these are only some paragraphs from the article - you can read the whole article here - https://thecritic.co.uk/labour-is-betraying-women/

I don't always see eye to eye with this writer on many things, but on this yes, I agree. Women here explained repeatedly, but were told they were all wrong. We're stuck with this bunch now for five years, and already things are worse for women than they were under a clapped out Tory govt. Which is saying one hell of a lot.

If the 25% council tax relief goes for single occupancy as threatened that is also going to directly hammer women and children. Many of those single occupiers will be single mothers.

I can't think why anyone would have voted for Labour and I can only think it's because I of protest votes against the Tories.

Both are two cheeks of the same arse.

Hopefully the mess Starmer is making will make people wake up and vote Reform or another Party that isn't Labour or Conservative as both have run the country into the ground.

De we really have to sound the same warning bells about Reform now? People didn't listen to us about Labour either.

Ithink this is an interesting point.

I don't know that I'd say people were crazy to vote Labour, the fact is none of the options seemed great, all choices were kind of a compromise for most voters, I imagine.

But if anyone looks back, there were women on her who pointed out again and again that the hopes some seemed to have for Labour that involved throwing money around were pie in the sky, and not a very good reason to tick that box. For some reason some seemed to be convinced that Labour would somehow fund all these programs and get public infrastructure back up to speed, all without substantially raising taxes or depressing productivity.

Well of course they couldn't do that, and I wouldn't blame them for that either. Some of the lack of funds is down to the previous government (some is even down to the last Labour government), but also a lot due to world circumstances, every western nation is in the same boat. COVID, and the kind of response the public seemed to demand fucked the economy everywhere.

But if anyone expected them to balance out their lack of sense on identity politics with increased public funding etc they were seriously deluded.

If you can't define what a woman is, that will feed into all of your policies.

Were any impact assessments done on female victims prior to the release of (it appears) predominantly male prisoners? How many women are affected by the winter fuel cuts? This article suggests none of that was even considered or was just glossed over.

Even things like the inheritance tax reforms, you'd have thought, should be looked at from a male/ female perspective. Women spend their lifetimes earning far less than men (in what should be called the sex pay gap) and there is a huge disparity in pensions. I'd have thought inheritance was one of the few ways some lucky women might be fortunate enough to come into some money. Women shoulder the vast majority of the care burden in this country and I certainly wouldn't begrudge a woman (or a man, it should be said!) who has - for example - sacrificed her career and time to care for elderly parents. She's likely to have saved the state considerable care costs too.

Not to mention the fact many of the careers Labour has promised to prop up with taxpayers' money are male-dominated ones. Get Britain building again? That'll be male-dominated construction companies, then. Get the train drivers and junior doctors back to work? I believe both of those are male-dominated professions too - in the case of the train drivers, very much so.

But if you don't know what a woman is, perhaps you don't notice this stuff.

There's been a real silence from those who merrily scolded us on these boards since the election. Says it all.

Yep. Totally relate to this.

Sick to the teeth of being told that any dissatisfaction with either Labour or the Democrats wrt to issues relating to women’s rights should be ignored because the alternative is worse.

It’s lazy, and lets them get away with so much.

Gosh, Jean Hatchett writing about duplicity. And the effects of this on women.

You couldn't make this shit up.

Moira Deeming is in court trying to save her career and reputation as a direct result of Jean and her denouncements of a woman who went out and faced the mob to talk to other women about their children being indoctrinated by the cult. Which has been repeated, added to and blown up ever since.

The fucking cheek of it.

These are excellent points and I’m willing to bet that none of the Labour policies have been assessed for impacts on women and children.

I am so angry about how women are unfairly penalised for giving birth, breastfeeding and being - still - the primary caregivers in society.

But then, all institutions are profoundly anti-women including the judiciary. Notable when too many female friends and family have become impoverished by the current system once their husbands decided they ‘deserve’ to be happy (with someone else) after 25/30 years of marriage.

if anyone expected them to balance out their lack of sense on identity politics with increased public funding etc they were seriously deluded.

This really needs to be pointed out, frequently for the journalists sitting at the back.

There is still this lingering hope that just because a political party is barking when it comes to identity politics it doesn't mean they won't be absolutely wonderful in other areas and make it all worthwhile.

We see this at political party level, organisational and individual level. It has to be recognised that someone being compromised in this way on this one topic compromises them on all topics. You cannot engage rationally with someone who has declared their own reality.

Brilliant article by Jean Hatchet. I agree with every word of that.

Before the election, it seemed to me that the worst nightmare of some of these feminist Labour loyalists was not that the Tories would plunge us into a misogynistic dystopia, but that they would rescue us from it - reverse the effects of GII and bring sanity back. Because in the eyes of those Labour feminists, that really would be the worst thing - for the Tories to get credit for fixing this mess.

Anyone know if ANY females were released early from prison or does that just affect men?

Yes there were, but in terms of mainstream media wanting shock horror picks, ie idiot young women leering and jeering, women didn't do this.

I think the point made up thread about how (late in the day to some of us) some women from TUs and Labour got directly involved with the implications of the proposed changes to the GRA did come with a heavy add on message on how it was and had to be based in rock solid left position.

This has ended up with some of them performing contortions, and needless hostility to women who just responded to the threat to women's sex based rights as individual women.

And there is no doubt this Labour Party loyalty has effectively undermined the long term effectiveness of these groups from an initial straight forward woman centred approach.

They just cant help themselves ie not rocking the boat.

So although I have seen JK write other articles criticising the Labour Party, I wasn't too taken aback by this one.

But really appreciate her saying it, instead of the contortions of those trying to say Labour all the way (I think often just because they are not the Tories) irrespective of actual policies and actions.

So apart from what most of us expect, ie women's sex based rights falling off the Labour agenda, I dont think even the cycnics among us thought their first target would be pensioners, (fuel allowance, bus passes), violent men let out of prison early to make room for other violent men, and others.

But now the final confirmation that Labour thinks presentation takes precedent over substances, down to free glasses (you dont get those on benefit or pension) and up market clothing.

I thought the Tories were embarrassing, but you sort of expect them to behave like over priviledge idiots, but the current Labour Party is cringeworthingly awful.

Get the train drivers and junior doctors back to work? I believe both of those are male-dominated professions too - in the case of the train drivers, very much so

Medical school graduates are 60% female, and looking at the total number of doctors registered with a licence to practice, we are about at parity.

Just thought I’d point it out, as it took women a long time to get to this point.

I never expected much from Starmer. Really, I expected him to be the British Olaf Scholz, and anyone following Germany knows that the current Scholz administration makes Liz Truss look like some kind of political genius.

Generally I think there's a problem of a political class that can't govern. I'm not sure where that problem comes from, but you see it in multiple countries. And on the right as well as the left, though the right are less prone to try to shame you into tribal loyalty.

I'm in two minds about this as I often am about socfem commentary. On the one hand it's really useful to have criticism of Labour from within the tribe. It can't be written off as easily.

On the other hand, I disagree with the premise that the GII problem can only be solved from the left. I agree with PP that the Labour GC types would have hated it if Kemi had had another 12 months to sort things out. They preferred the mirage of Labour sorting things out. And many of the other great things Labour was going to do are also turning out to be a mirage.

I also have a visceral reaction to the suggestion that being on the left is a token of being a morally better kind of person. I had that delusion knocked out of me long ago, and I find it hard to believe that anyone with experience of left activists can say that and mean it. YMMV I suppose.

I knew it would be bad,but I didn't imagine that it could be this bad. The cut in WFA will affect more women than men,as women tend to live longer,but no equality assessment or ANY assessment was considered worth carrying out.

I work with elderly people and it is all they can talk about,two in their eighties have been out gathering wood for their stove as they are worried about putting the heating on. Another,an 80 year old widow,is planning on living in one room over the winter,as she's frightened of not being able to pay her bills. If the single person council tax reduction goes,it'll send her into a tailspin of panic.

Some of my FB acquaintances,who were crowing about Labour being in power,have been noticeable by their absence recently. Radio silence from them.
I saw that Starmer got booed and verbally abused at Doncaster races recently,and another of their MPs got booed and asked to leave a pub. Good. They should own it.

I work with elderly people and it is all they can talk about,two in their eighties have been out gathering wood for their stove as they are worried about putting the heating on.

Oh my god. This is just awful.

Labour supporters are completely incapable of holding their party to account. It really doesn’t matter what they do the cult will always decree that the Tories were worse, the press is biased or if neither of those work, it’s the result of a mess left by the Tories.
The guardian (that well known right wing paper) had today revealed that Starmer had taken more gifts and freebies than any other party leader ever…… and the silence is deafening

It is pretty disengenous in all the circumstances.

The WFA cut, together with Starmer's enthusiasm for assisted suicide, starts to make it look as if they really dislike the elderly.

It's not just that I'm totally opposed to both policies. It's that I find it hard to believe there's nobody at the top of Labour who could tell Starmer how awful the optics are. Are they actually trying to reach Truss levels of unpopularity?

This name is a reflection of the time we were labelled Ultras, partly because we'd anticipated that none of the political parties was willing to listen to women and heed us.

Remember being told how little we understood, and that this was the time for (effectively) unwavering faith?

My only pleasant surprise so far is Streeting. Even then, I'm waiting for the shoe to drop and land more responsibility than ever on women who acts as carers to accept earlier and earlier discharges and to take on more complex care duties. with negligible sources of support, training, nor enhanced resources.

Saw a post on facebook from a councillor saying he had just had a surgery visit from a 91 year old woman who lives on her own, no family.

She like many others is just a few ££s over the cut off for pension credit.

She started to tell him about not knowing what to do with no fuel allowance, but she just broke down crying.

And Labour thinks telling women like this that dont worry in April you will get the benefit of the triple lock, when to put it harshly, many like her may well be dead.

I just cant comprehend how they thought this was acceptable.

So many people have suggested ways they could not have been so harsh if they really thought pensioners were their first target or done something that would have been a better message ie 1p on the richest tax payers.

What is going on in their heads?

I have thought for some time that a significant element of this idea that Labour is the only moral party (or the left., if you like) comes out of a very deeply imbibed narrative that the Conservatives explicitly stand for evil principles.

You see these claims pretty often from such people - that Tory policy is centered around taking away people's rights, hurting the poor in order to enrich the powerful, race essentialism, believing women shouldn't have the vote, etc. Every idea that we might think, gee that is evil, they believe is actually a principle of conservatives or the political right.

Which is to say, they don't know any of the real principles that lay behind conservative thinking.

They'll say things like, obviously Tories are bad for women, they believe we shouldn't have the vote and should be obliged to be at home in the kitchen.

I'm not sure where these ideas come from - the media?

Anyway, it's kind of like saying, the goal of Labour people is to sterilize children. As much as we might think that is what Labour is doing, I think we all know that is not something they actually are trying to accomplish as a goal.

What is going on in their heads?

Who knows. It feels so mad already and they've barely been in place five minutes. Processing migrants offshore is fine so long as it's Albania and not Rwanda. Rinsing donors is wrong when it's wallpaper but fine when it's Swift tickets or free specs n clothes. Installing chums is wrong when it's Tories who do it but fine when it's Labour.

They're not reversing the two child policy and now it's the winter fuel change. Soon, a major change in the law might come via a private member's bill on "assisted dying". And we already know how dangerous that is from Canada. But let's do it anyway.