The (literal) end of the Women's Equality Party

[WomanDaresTo]

Proposing to close themselves: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/26/womens-equality-party-to-vote-on-closing

Shame it didn't work out - i was excited when they launched.

They 'identified as' progressive feminists for whom the ultimate aim was to eradicate women as a distinct category of human being and to de-prioritise the female persepctive in the service of an uber androgyny.

There is something incredibly 'Lib Dem Woman' about them.....detached from reality and with a purely intellectualised feeling/emotional nature. You can imagine Layla Moran as a member.

How wilfully naive of her.

The ratios on Twitter are very illuminating. And hilarious.

There are so many brilliant, funny, furious and despairing comments. The wonderful Sharron Davies nailed it I reckon:

"Just maybe if you’d stood up for women, girls, their rights & their safeguarding things might have been different".

https://x.com/WEP_UK/status/1850245789076881443

In the media, rightwing parties are getting far greater traction than progressive rivals. The Reform party, which won five seats, got more press and TV coverage in the last general election than the Lib Dems, who won 72 seats, a Loughborough University survey found. The Green party won four seats but barely registered.

Reform achieved an astonishing number of 2nd places. This gave them very few seats relative to their overall 14.3% share of the general vote (0.8% of seats). They achieved a greater share of the vote than the LibDems (12.2%) who had 11.1% of seats.

Reform came second place in 98 constituencies. In 89 of these cases, it was second to Labour. 60 of these were in the north of England and 13 were in Wales.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/2024-general-election-performance-of-reform-and-the-greens/

WEP wasn't distinctive nor progressive in the issues that matter to women. It's a bit late now to be grieving about nursery fees and the pay gap when you squandered resources on progressivism for the sake of it (as PPs outline). Toksvig:

“I would like this to generate a conversation nationwide about where are we with women’s equality,” she said. “Why are we still struggling to sort out affordable childcare? Why has the pay gap not been closed?”

God yes I came here to comment on this. They were totally ratioed. https://x.com/WEP_UK/status/1848396956990652472?t=Xyqg7HPQHifxZLn0GznxFg&s=19

It's very much the style of feminism that believes feminism should be about general equality to the point that actual women's rights become irrelevant or even 'privileged '.

I certainly won't be shedding any tears for the demise of the WEP they were a complete waste of space a total vanity project for the privileged Sandi Toksvig and her friends.

A hinderance to Women's Equality and women and their rights being taken seriously as a political aim, thanks awfully for that you utter numpties.

having slept on it, you know it wouldn't surprise me if they vote to carry on? Anyone left as a member is either not paying attention or is a full on Koolaid guzzler so may as well keep going?

The Guardian article reads like a WEP press release. No journalistic curiosity whatsoever. Just we are such a great party and have shifted opinion so much that the job is done so we can tootle off now.
The standard is what I have come to expect from the Graun.

They need the funds to carry it on though and judging by STs tweets a couple of years ago, donations were drying up

https://x.com/sanditoksvig/status/1597587282848272386

Oh dear, what a shame, anyway...

@Snowypeaks Yes please! I do get tired of people online banging on about 'leftists' and how left wing people all support this gender nonsense. Meanwhile I'm sitting here knowing damn well that isn't true. The Morning Star has done some brilliant articles over the years.

Hmm, have they really done those things they claim to have done?

That crappy WEP 'news' article is definitely under the Observer banner, sadly. You can see this if you click on it. The website URL however says 'Guardian', as the two papers share a website.

The Observer Women's Equality Party

Women’s Equality party founders urge members to call time after 10 years

Exclusive: WE to vote after leaders conclude model no longer works although its ‘mission is as urgent as ever’

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/26/womens-equality-party-to-vote-on-closing

Sad isn't it. I'm surprised no one has said something like "oh but they did that great thing"...

Shame to think lots of great (non sleb) women spent their time on wep, but it squandered it all by not being brave enough to say no to blokes

The Morning Star has done some brilliant articles over the years

Peace & Socialism ✌

I love that the Morning Star is the other name for Venus as it rises in the sky

There are left-wing feminists in POW. Those of us who prioritise women's sex-based rights above sectarian politics and doubt that the left will ever allow women's rights to take precedence.

The left hijacked feminism for its own ends and IMHO it is beyond time to take it back. Women should stop accepting that they have to take second place.

That means accepting a politically non-partisan approach. Anyone who prioritises socialism or any other political affiliation above that is, I agree, not going to be comfortable in POW.

Feminists need choices, too!
I would be hoping for a party that was pro-women first and foremost. Not wanting to rise above sectarian politics/downgrading women's issues in favour of another goal is not the only possible reason that a feminist would not want to join PoW. For example, a leftie feminist might take more of an internationalist approach to fighting for women's rights? Or they might just not like KJK's style.

I was envisaging women like you forming a new party, funnily enough - Labour-supporting or left-leaning women who have an epiphany about Labour and the Lib Dems.

They closed themselves on day 1 - I was so excited when they launched and ready to pay my money to join but when I opened their constitution (or equivalent) I realised I couldn't support them (and that was before I was aware of what gender critical feminism was - I was just excited to have a party centring woman and so disappointed to discover it included men in its definition of women).

Well, if nothing else perhaps the death of the WEP illustrates that LibFem/Intersectionalism is actually tosh and of no use to anyone, and the only real feminism in 2024 is the one that recognises women as being adult human females?

I was envisaging women like you forming a new party, funnily enough - Labour-supporting or left-leaning women who have an epiphany about Labour and the Lib Dems.

Haven't we just watched that one crash and burn for the very reason that they had to embed values like "intersectionality" and identity politics from the outset to be acceptable to the Left?

One of the GC Labour Groups I belonged allowed WEP women to become members because it was considered that WEP was consistent with "Gender Critical Left" aims - despite WEP having TWAW in the small print.

I know I am repeating myself but this is a key point IMHO:

"The left hijacked feminism for its own ends and IMHO it is beyond time to take it back. Women should stop accepting that they have to take second place."

The Party you envisage would aim to attract women of the Left. That would inevitably include activists, who would be duty-bound by their allegiance to socialism to ensure that where there was a conflict of values that socialism took precedence over feminism.

If the constitution and membership did not permit this, would they stay?

If they left, how long could it remain the Party that you envisage?

If "politics is the art of the possible", is such a party possible?

Or just pie in the sky?

I like this discussion between Sheila Jeffreys and Linda Bellos about the options for left wing feminists. It is very pragmatic.

Sheila Jeffreys & Linda Bellos Discuss Feminism Left vs Right politics

Yes. The Socialist Worker has gone in the opposite direction tho, sadly.

Intersectionalism as originally analysed is not tosh. For example, it recognises thta being a woman and disabled means you are disadvantaged in two ways, and the way disability is experienced by women is different to how men experience it.
The mistake LibFems make is not to start with the woman part. Women with disability is the business of feminism, men with disability is not. Women as carers, whether of men or women or children with a disability is also the business of feminists. Disability in and of itself, no. It's the failure to centre women that leads them into ridiculousness.

The point is that the epiphany would be realising that other parties will never put women first, understanding the real meaning of intersectionality and rejecting identity politics. They wouldn't have to be "acceptable to the left" - the traditional Left doesn't own feminism and they would not be under the aegis of Labour or Lib Dems. They would be a pro-women party. I don't disagree that there would be lots of women who would try to scold or drag them (back) into Labour, but that is a problem they would have to tackle.

You are sounding a bit like Labour loyalists who tell us that if you are against the Tories, you only have one voting option!

They absolutely don't get it, do they? They've kvetched on about the lack of funding, missing the point entirely that women have put their hands in their pockets again and again and again for crowdfunders. Hundreds of thousands of pounds for causes we felt were worth fighting for. And yet WEP had its begging bowl out but didn't get anywhere.

We'd have funded you, WEP, if you'd actually stood for women. But no, you were too busy throwing us under the self-ID bus and sympathising with violent domestic abusers to look outside your arrogant, privileged bubbles and realise that you did not represent women, only your own "lefty luvvie" political views (and I say that as someone who's fairly lefty but has no time for this nonsense).

Shame on you all. There were so many of us who were supporters right at the start and were thrilled to see a women's political organisation. And you let us all down time and time again.

Good riddance to the lot of you. I just wish you understood why we feel like this.