Wednesday 21 October 2020

Is the SNP Good for Women?

 Calton was prompted to write this post after seeing that one hopeful SNP candidate was not approved by the party because of her views on transgender issues and another was asked who would look after her children if she was elected. Both were women. Now, one would think that, with a female leader who claims to be a feminist, the SNP would be a positive environment for women, supportive of their rights and encouraging of their aims. Not so. In her race to be seen as the most woke leader in the western world, Nicola Sturgeon has abandoned her sex. Let's have a look at the evidence.

She claims that her plans to make it easy for men to self-identify as women do not clash with her feminism, however many feminists would disagree. They think, and Calton agrees, that the radical trans ideaology which Sturgeon is pursuing not only threatens women's safe spaces but threatens the very definition of a woman and all the hard-won rights which go with it. The Scottish Government's Gender Reform Act (GRA) may be on the back burner for now but, make no mistake, it will be back with a vengeance if the SNP get a majority in Holyrood next year. The fact that the First Minister has twice invited best friend and minister responsible for the GRA Shirley-Anne Somerville onto her daily briefing in the last fortnight confirms this. It also demonstrates that if you support the GRA, you get the support of the leader of the SNP in your battle to be reselected. If you don't support the GRA, forget it. (Somerville is being targeted by the #dontvotewoke campaign as she tries to hang on to Dunfermline and West Fife.)

Joanna Cherry is another woman who has questioned the party's policy on transgender issues. She wanted to stand for Edinburgh Central next year but the SNP NEC changed the rules, effectively preventing her from doing so. Much has been made of the Salmond/Sturgeon divisions within the SNP but the real faultline is the woke/non-woke one, which has spawned the #dontvotewoke hashtag on twitter, referring to the current selection contests for SNP candidates. It is well known that Stuart Campbell is no fan of Nicola's however his comments on the candidate selection process are still worth reading. Further evidence that the SNP leader is not good for women is the emergence of the SNP Women's Pledge, which would not be needed if Sturgeon truly supported women. They are supporting non-woke candidates.

Calton could say more on issues such as the child-care question posed to a female candidate, how Alex Salmond's sleazy, but not illegal, behaviour was overlooked by senior women in the SNP in order not to damage the cause of independence and how the SNP have shown a complete lack of trust in women's ability to bring up their own children without government intervention (the named persons and smacking legislation) but this post is already long enough. Perhaps another day ...


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