Reprinted today, Ella Whelan writes:
British politics got a bit more girly at the start of this
week, with the official launch of the Women’s Equality Party.
Garnering support
with the versatile hashtag #WE, the party was pleased with the 1,000 supporters
it gained during its first day.
‘If #WE’re honest, some of us are a little bit
teary’, said a post on Facebook.
For those not on social media, the Women’s
Equality Party is a non-partisan party that campaigns against inequality for women
‘at home, at work, in politics and in public life’.
The party is currently fundraising and boasts some tempting
offers in exchange for your cash – £250 will get you a copy of founding member
Sandi Toksvig’s book,Girls are Best, while £5,000 will get you dinner
with the author herself.
However, the party does not seem to recognise its own
contradictions.
Not only is there a mismatch between the party’s appeals to
radicalism and its knitting-circle vibe, cosy tweets and general air of
loveliness, but the party’s slogan, ‘Equality for women isn’t a women’s issue’,
also jars, given the party is being marketed solely at women.
On the surface, the Women’s Equality Party seems like
nothing more than a politically correct sorority, with matching #WE phone
stickers and smug grins.
However, there is something very sinister about
Toksvig’s project.
Appearing on The One Show earlier this year, the former News Quiz presenter stated, ‘We’re not going to
fight with each other. When you watch Prime Minister’s Questions, you’re sort
of embarrassed. PMQs couldn’t be more bad-tempered if it was called PMT. It
isn’t the way to get things done.’
If relating politics to periods wasn’t bad
enough, Toksvig seems hell-bent on making clear that women are somehow not up
to the cut and thrust of modern politics.
Both of its founding members, Toksvig and
journalist-cum-royal-enthusiast Catherine Mayer, realised they shared an
‘appetite for change’ when they shared a platform at the Southbank Centre’s
Women of the World Festival.
The driving force behind this party is a feeling
that politics is vulgar, but rather than do what people disgusted with politics
used to do and vote Lib Dem, the commentariat is now taking to creating its own
parties – just without the politics.
When an organisation says it is
non-partisan, what it really means is that it is non-committal.
As Toksvig said
when she unveiled the party’s new logo, ‘you can be Tory, you can be Labour –
let’s all work together instead of fighting each other’.
This is the pinnacle of middle-class feminism, a club for
women who want to jazz up their image with a little politics, darling.
The
party’s objectives state a desire for ‘women to enjoy the same rights and
opportunities as men’, but, as Joanna Williams has pointed out on spiked, women, on the whole,
already do.
What is the point in creating a sisterhood of victims?
The Women’s
Equality Party is yet another sign that contemporary feminists are
uncomfortable with the fact that women in the West are doing just fine,
choosing instead to imagine women as helpless creatures in need of empowerment.
This otherwise laughable organisation is a prime example of
the long-drawn depoliticisation of women in British politics.
The celebration
of Blair’s Babes, New Labour’s record-breaking number of female MPs after the
1997 election, spoke to a sense that female representation, in and of itself,
was positive and would attract more female voters.
During the recent General
Election campaign, Labour MP and Blair Babe Harriet Harman released a fleet of
Barbie buses to encourage women to vote.
At no point did these efforts try to
engage women about what they thought, instead they used pink-coloured ploys to
try to make politics look a bit more female-friendly.
What’s more, while mumsy middle-class feminists may seem
more agreeable than blue-haired campus radicals, they still attach themselves
to trendy feminist campaigns, like educating men who think tampons are icky,
banning adverts that tell us we shouldn’t have another tea cake and promoting a
Mary Whitehouse attitude to sex.
The hashtag used by the Women’s Equality Party
is misleading; #WE really means #US – that is, the the feminist commentariat,
which dictates what women should do and think.
It is time for women to take a stand and kill off feminism
as we know it.
It is the only thing truly holding women back in the West today,
reducing us to little more than our biology.
The ideas of individual autonomy
and free thinking have taken a beating recently, with the surge of patronising
identity politics that judges us all on appearance rather than substance.
But
enough is enough.
Women, if you truly value your brains over your bodies, you
should have nothing to do with this Twittersphere slumber party from hell.
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