tom p wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 12:23 pm
bagpuss wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 11:08 am
El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:38 am
What you say is true, but it's also a source of shame for Labour that it's never elected a woman as leader. Gesture politics does still make a difference. It provides confidence in what Labour says it wants to do.
And also, hello, but who the f.ck says that electing a woman as leader would be gesture politics? It could just be electing the best person for the job*.
[/rant]
*Yeah, I know, like
that's likely in British politics
You're right - it should be; I was talking about the tory talking point of 'we've had 2 female leaders - we're the party that actually care about women' -
that's gesture politics in my view.
Fair enough and on re-reading I see that's clear.
tom p wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 12:23 pm
Spiking that gun by having a female leader for the sake of it would also be gesture politics. Especially as in Labour's case it was only against Starmer that there were any decent female candidates since 1994 (Cooper, who stood against Corbyn, would have been a very good leader; but her pitch was basically a continuation of Osborne's economic viciousness& so she deserved to lose that election)
Yes, I totally agree that having a female leader for the sake of it is a sh.t idea. It's pretty dismal there are a number of excellent women Labour MPs some of whom I'm sure would make great party leaders. Why they don't rise to the top is probably a very complicated mix of all sorts of reasons, but it would be great if the Labour party had a hard look at themselves and figured out and addressed at least some of the reasons. Then in a fairly short space of time the question of gesture politics would no longer arise as there'd be a decent leader who just happened to be female. In the meantime, however, I'd much prefer a party that had never had an elected female leader but had a track record of doing stuff towards equality, versus one that had had more than one female leader but had less good of a record and also still harboured a bunch of utter dicks for whom misogyny, sexual harassment and appalling behaviour towards women appear to be the norm.
tom p wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 8:45 am
Millennie Al wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 3:16 am
tom p wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:20 am
Actually doing something about sexism in the workplace & society is better than having a figurehead.
You're prioritising gesture politics over actual implementation of useful policies.
If you think Margaret Thatcher (or, indeed, Theresa May) was a mere figurehead, you don't know much about British politics. You may not like her policies, but the policies were clearly her own choice.
I didn't mean a figurehead who didn't have her own policies; but I used a suboptimal word - they are, in reality, more figleaf than figurehead.
Your argument, which is nothing but the fatuous tory one (quelle surprise) is that labour aren't the party who help women 'cos they have never had a female leader. That argument was dead in the water by the mid-80s, once Thatcher's policies were clear to all & was then reinforced with may as PM.
It is an entirely vacuous argument, as befits your general MO.
Let's remember, too, that Thatcher not only did nothing to help other women succeed but was very outspoken in her attitude that women should receive no such help and should rise to the top through their own merit - never seeming to care that in most areas of life this meant that women had to be not just better than but
far far better than the men they were up against.
Anyway, this is rather derailing the thread that's supposed to be about racism not other -isms, but I wanted to acknowledge tom p's reply to me and then couldn't leave without flinging in my twopennorth on Maggie T as well.