Hooray for Harriet!

What a week – not just for me (as I got married on Monday) but also for British feminism.

As I have been on honeymoon since Tuesday, I have had the luxury of wafting around reading the newspapers everyday.

And what I've read is a lot of comment about Harriet Harman, her so-called feminist agenda and what the Mail, the Spectator and the Telegraph have made of it.

In short, Harriet Harman was put in charge and took the opportunity of a smidgen of power to talk about women’s rights, inequality in the boardroom, the horrendous rape conviction rates and other items that our roundly ignored most of the time, by most of the people.

Aghast at this, Rod Liddle at the Spectator decided that the best basis on which to judge the elected deputy leader of the Labour party on whether he would want to have sex with them. I mean, this is meant to political comment!! Don't anybody dare tell me that misogyny in British politics is not mainstream after this!

The pillock from the mail went on about Harriet and her ‘controversial’ proposal to teach kids about healthy family relationships (given how many women are subject to domestic violence during their lifetime, it would seem that many of them might need it).

If I had the patience to wait for my 3g card to load up Lib Dem Blogs I may well have noticed the outrage of all our Lib Dem Bloggers and Rod Liddle’s out and out misogyny, with his little acolyte at the Mail worrying about the introduction of a ‘controversial’ feminist agenda. As it was, before I left the world of wireless broadband connection (aka our hotel at Loch Lomond) I only really saw Rob on a comfortable place, Peter Black and I think Caron calling him and the Mail out for unacceptable sexism.

I have myself been wittering on about a lot of these things, on my blog, for nearly three years now. I haven’t had many misogynists coming onto my site – mainly it’s been the defining silence of my fellow bloggers and only recently do I feel that I am not a (consistently) lone feminist Liberal Democrat Blogger. So, it’s very nice this week, to discover that in the Times, Guardian, Observer and the Indy at least there may not be approval for everything that Harriet Harman is saying but there’s is definitely approval that there should be a strong feminist voice in our country and that is good for all of us: men, women and children.

So I say, Hooray for Harriet, for winding up the misogynists and getting a bit of sensible comment about feminism and women’s equality going! And I say well done the Times, Guardian, Indy, Observer, Caron, Rob and Peter for saying that it's not good enough.

Finally, time has been called on the casual misogyny that so many employ when talking about her and other female politicians, including many, many Lib Dem bloggers – that label and oh so funny (not) play on her name of Har-person! Many have voiced disgust and irritation at it’s use and I’ve never felt that party politics excused misogyny but I leave the best deconstruction of it to, Anton Vowl, at The Enemies of Reason blog.

Anyone who says 'Harperson' should die. Look, it might have provoked a mediocre snicker the first time. Oh yes, Harperson, hoho. Not really that funny, but yes I see what you're saying. That sort of thing. But if you're still using 'Harperson' then you should just be killed. There's no use in trying to keep you alive, because there is no point, because your life means nothing. Now I'm no defender of the woman herself - God alone knows the awfulness that New Labour have brought upon this country, and she's one of the leading players - but calling someone 'Harperson' isn't funny, clever or even approaching amusing. It's just pointless, lazy, boring shite, and you need to die. There is nothing good about it. Even if you think you're using it in a way that says "Oh well if it annoys the lefties then it's worth doing" you should still be killed, because it doesn't; because it just makes you, and every argument you have, look stupid.

OK, maybe, I wouldn't go so far to suggest anyone should die, but apart from that, I feel the same way.

Nothing is off limits

MPs today have a free on whether to hold a Speakers Conference into whether MPs are a 'narrow, self serving elite'. A whole year to work that out! Surely not? Blimey I could give them something pretty substantial in just 24 hours and my daily fee is far less than a bunch of MPs!! Only just though ;-)

Seriously thought it is good to see that the Speakers Conference I first got wind of in July looks to be coming to something. So much talk on diversity and equalities in parliament (you know that bit with the power) is just hot air.

Of course Harriet Harman is thinking of gender, race, sexuality and disability imbalances but Michael White makes a very interesting comment about the white working class in his article on CiF. But I guess you have to prioritise and my guess is that there are more white working class men in parliament than say, ethnic minorities in total whether from the working or middle or elite and there are definitely more than ethnic minority women - of whom we have to our shame as a democracy only two (Dawn Butler and Diane Abbots) and they sit on the Labour benches. (there's also the thorny issue of whether you class is something branded on you by birth and something you can't change - which I don't agree with).

I do hope that MPs do the right thing today...there are still an awful lot of Tories who think that Parliament being male and white is nothing more than a coincidence (or perahps, just the way it should be).

My eyebrows were raised, however, by the idea that Patrick Wintour suggests that

"The conference could prompt legislation including a requirement for political parties to maintain all-women and all-black shortlists for parliamentary candidates".

I can't see MPs going for that en masse; but remember, our MPs voted for the legislation to allow all women or all ethnic minority shortlists to exist within the context of equal opportunities legislation, to be extended. The average Lib Dem activist may be outraged by them but not all of the parliamentary party is.

But I do thing that Harriet Harman is right when she says:

"It is not just about how can people think we are a fair, open and representative democracy if we just do not look like that, but also the fact that we cannot have sensible debates on policy. We cannot sensibly discuss the veil (in the Commons) when there is no Muslim woman MP; it was impossible to discuss domestic violence when there was 97% men in the Commons.

"So this is about changing the agenda for debate, as well as changing public perception of the Commons."

Certainly this is why I think that diversity is so important - it is not because of the way people look but for the different understanding and priorities that they place on things. It's not just about getting more women in but making sure that those women have between them a broad experience of life in the UK today.

She goes on to say:

"Nothing is off-limits. It is potentially a very radical, historic decision - it moves the issue right up the agenda, and puts something that used to be dismissed as political correctness right to the centre of the political agenda. If the Commons is not representative, it is nothing. This is about parliament saying 'we are not OK to go on as we are'."

Well, I'm not going to disagree with that..I just hope that MPs with their free vote don't disagree with her either and vote for the Speakers Conference. Fingers crossed, eh?