We thanks Paul for a link to this. It takes a Guardian headline writer living in an ideological bubble to believe no one hates the Women’s Equality party.
Gaby Hinsliff is a columnist with the paper, and a former political editor with the Observer. If you can wade through some of the predictably silly content in her piece, there are some insights into one of the reasons we welcome the advent of the Women’s Equality party, the potential fracturing of the ‘progressive’ female vote (and the ‘progressive’ male vote too, come to that). From Ms Hinsliff’s article:
I know two of the WEP’s three founders a bit and they’re smart people. And they’ve certainly spotted a juicy demographic there for the taking: broadly progressive female voters who don’t want to waste a vote other women died for [women? Even the Guardian admitted Emily Davison’s death wasn’t the result of a decision to risk her life, so which ‘women’ is Ms Hinsliff referring to?] but are profoundly depressed by what’s on offer…
There are still too few female MPs [for what, precisely?] and a million things to change. [a million?] But watching those three did not make me think that strong female candidates would be better off heroically losing their deposits for a new party than becoming MPs for old ones, and using that platform to shake things up. If anything, it was a reminder that being corralled into safe spaces, outside the rough and tumble of the mainstream where stuff actually gets decided, is dangerous for women; and that the progressive feminist vote probably doesn’t need to be split any more than it is.
Another reason we welcome the advent of the WEP is that it gives us an easy target to attack, given that they distil so many demonstrably absurd feminist narratives in one place – a supreme example being their policy document, launched earlier this week.
Over the weekend I’ll be publicly challenging Sophie Walker, the leader of the party, and I expect a week or two later to award her next month’s Lying Feminist of the Month award. Sandy Toksvig, the party’s spokeswoman from the outset, won two of the awards in the space of just three months – here and here.
