Pro-equality
It just always has to be misrepresented. From a Guardian piece on the sacking of Joanna Cherry:
Some SNP MPs described a “palpable sense of relief” within the Westminster group this week, along with a degree of frustration that action had not been taken sooner. As one MP said: “The party has a hard-won reputation for being socially liberal, pro-equality, and any perception that our politicians are not has a terrible effect on younger supporters in particular, and with that comes the fear that they will go to the Greens at the next election.”
So the implication is that Cherry, and the rest of us pesky feminists who don’t agree that men can become women, is socially conservative and anti-equality.
What a grotesque, destructive, loathsome thing to say. We are not anti-equality. Feminists who want to hang on to women’s rights are not anti-equality – women are half (or slightly over half) the world population and we’re pro-equality for them, so how can we be anti-equality? We think women should have equal rights along with men; how is that anti-equality? We also think trans people should have equal rights along with women and men, we just don’t think men who identify as women should take rights away from women.
In one way it’s reasonable of Sturgeon to demote Cherry, who has not been loyal and stuck to a party line. Cherry hasn’t had the whip removed. However it’s insane that this marginal issue should be so divisive in a party like the SNP. This “progressive” thing of theirs is very new. It used to be called the Tartan Tories, and Salmond, Sturgeon’s predecessor, was at pains to make it business friendly. Cherry was trying to move from being a Westminster MP, to being a Holyrood MSP, and this was blocked. She would have been far more of a danger to Sturgeon in Scotland than in London.
If they’re frightened of losing the Young, the Young are very bad at voting, and the turn out to Holyrood elections is poor anyway – 55%.at the last election. The Old Bags that they are alienating are more likely to turn up at the polling booth, and I would guess some have been stuffing envelopes for the last 30 years, when the SNP was still a bit of a joke. As for the Greens, losing their best man, Andy Wightman, and their hardline stance on the transgender thing is making them more like a party of cranks. I socially media know a few people who now won’t vote for them.
Meanwhile Cherry has now been appointed as Vice-Chair of the Westminster Human Rights Committee. The Chair is Harriet Harman, a left-wing feminist who was instrumental in the Equalities Act 2010 that the leadership of the SNP find objectionable. I thought this was top trolling from Westminster, along with the Revolting-Rees-Mogg, the worst of public schoolboy reactionaries, making a good and gracious speech about Cherry’s abilities, how they will be missed in her former position as a scrutiniser of legislation (her replacements are hacks) and how she had stood up for freedom of speech.
Sturgeon regards herself as putting the FM (First Minister) in FeMinism, so I hope that pisses her off somewhat. However she’s going to storm into Holyrood with an overwhelming majority in May, so no such luck.
FYI, women are now slightly less than half the world population. Sure, old women live longer. But population depletion at the other end, through abortion, infanticide, and neglect, is faster.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL.FE.ZS
Also, it’s totally crappy for Sturgeon not to send a message that it is totally wrong for MPs and other politicians to receive threats to their personal safety. Even if Cherry was in a different party she should do that.