Everyone pays lip service to diversity, and the idea of a female leader, but the position of women in the party continues to be that they can be deputies, lovely assistants to the main act. Labour brought in women’s shortlists, overnight upping female representation, but how that would happen now I don't know – as they have tied themselves in ever more ridiculous knots by being unable to define what a woman is in order to appeal to their activists. They are confused about who has a cervix and whether womanhood is biological or just a feeling in someone’s head. At this stage we can surely define "woman" fairly easily: someone who can never be actual leader of the Labour Party.
English journalist
The emails then came pouring in from people who wished they could say what I had said. I wished people would stop calling me brave. Columnists are meant to be made of titanium; I felt more like papier-mâché. But the orthodoxy which demands that Mary Beard must refer to an ancient statue with a little penis as "assigned male at birth" is powerful. The no-platforming of feminist warriors like Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel is abhorrent. I like freaks. I like fluidity. I just don’t like one set of rules being replaced by another. I was hurt that so many of my 'colleagues' denounced me, but I suppose everyone needs a hobby.
Most people want the tiny percentage of the population who are trans to have the best lives they can. Living your best life would be one free of male violence. It is not feminists who murder trans people, although this might be the impression you would be left with if you relied solely on Twitter for your information.
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Female oppression is innately connected to our ability to reproduce. Women have made progress by talking about biology, menstruation, childbirth and menopause. We won’t now have our bodies or voices written out of the script. The materiality of having a female body may mean rape or it may mean childbirth – but we still seek liberation from gender. In some transgender ideology, we are told the opposite: gender is material and therefore can be possessed by whoever claims it, and it is sex as a category that is a social construction. Thus, sex-based rights, protected in law, can be done away with.
I know from personal experience the consequences of being deemed transphobic by an invisible committee on social media. It has meant death and rape threats for me and my children, and police involvement. I also know that the most vicious stuff takes place online and not in real life. Still, I can’t stand by. As Roman Polanski was being rewarded for his latest film at the César awards, Todd was being silenced.
[On Russell Brand a year later] [T]he Jesus Clown is pilloried for being a dreadful influence on young people. If the youth don't vote, then policies that continue to punish them will be waved through by our decrepit politicians. Actually, the Jesus Clown is not what I call a young person, Lydon isn't, and I am certainly not, but the Clown has a reach, that's for sure. My 13-year-old adores him, and the part of me that is for ever 13 gets why. A lot of what he says is sub-Chomskyian woo, but these frustrations with existing political structures – they exist. Somehow it is always assumed that young people are naive idealists who, when they grow up and understand how things really work or don’t work at all, will buckle down and do the right thing. The right thing here means voting Labour.
Or take comfort from Gideon's [George Osborne] "We are all in this together"? The last election was the most regressive for women I can remember. Women appeared as trophy wives, or not at all. The consequences of that are that this government – this new way of doing politics – is hitting women and children the hardest. Women are suffering most from the cuts that men are making. Just look at the figures.
This makes me very angry indeed. Which I know may increase "visible signs of ageing", but it's way too late now. Feminism has been dumbed down into politeness and party-political promises for far too long.
Reasonably sitting around waiting for equality while empowering oneself with some silicone implants does not really seem to have worked wonders, does it ladeez? Postfeminism – as personified by the Sex and the City generation – basically confused sexual liberation with shopping: a mistaken strategy even within its own market-driven terms. So we live on a permanent diet of crumbs from the table. A woman over 50 gets to be on TV! Whoopdiwhoop! It's a victory, sure, but is that all there is? It's time to wake up and smell the skinny latte.
A woman is murdered in Bristol and the response is to tell women to stay at home?! For their own safety. Though no one thinks it's a woman doing the murdering. A curfew on men would be considered a monstrous idea, even though most women live with internalised curfews anyway.