Saturday 28 September 2019

Is there a role for women in politics after Brexit?


Bit of a tongue in cheek post this - but having watched parliamentary debates featuring Paula Sherriff, Jess Phillips and Jo Swinson this week I do start to wonder if there is a role for women in politics after Brexit. It's just becoming more and more apparent that women can't cut it in modern politics since they can't control their emotions over colourful metaphors and hurty words. If we have to stop everything every time they have emotional episodes then we can't get any grown up work done.

Right now we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis that was deemed so urgent that there was a legal campaign to recall parliament yet we ended up having a three day debate over the meaning of the words "surrender" and "humbug" because of an outcry from wobbly-lipped wimmin.

I don;t know what's happened in recent years  but I was brought up to respect women politicians, seeing their participation as entirely normal and nothing out of the ordinary. Our then PM, Margaret Thatcher, never once let her voice quiver with emotion to make a cheap point. Somewhere along the way, probably down to all women shortlists, we've ended up with manipulative fishwives who only seem interested in bins, babies and benefits. Deliberating over complex matters of statecraft are far beyond their minuscule abilities.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that female MPs are more vulnerable since they're easy targets for psychopaths but I'm pretty sure they are self-radicalising. If that's not the case and it's really everyday metaphors and the occasional hurty word that puts women at risk then we have a problem. We can only delete so many words from the English language and there's no way we can ban metaphors and analogies.

No doubt there are moves to open up a Ministry of Hurty Words but since words have different meanings in different contexts we are soon going to find that MPs can only conduct Commons business through the use of Semaphore flags and interpretive dance. The latter could prove problematic for less nimble types and some gestures could be viewed as microaggressions. Frankly I am shocked and appalled that Labour MPs are now regularly clapping in the house of commons when it is widely known that jazz hands are the accepted convention now. 

As it happens debates probably would be improved by way of using semaphore flags in that there are fewer opportunities to virtue signal and the slower nature of debates would significantly reduce the output of the Commons in terms of legislation but that then excludes the blind and partially sighted.

All of this is going to prove far too impractical. The obvious answer is that if women can't get a grip of their emotions (and there is scant evidence that they any longer can), then we are going to need some system of segregation where matters of secondary importance are given to women to sort out in a separate chamber. Until such a move is made I can't see myself voting for any female candidates.

All the blubbering and histrionics we have seen of late has chewed up far too much media and parliamentary time at a time when the stakes have never been higher. Hysterical women using emotional blackmail and temper tantrums just isn't productive. We can't have crucial debates over international trade if they're going to interrupt every five minutes to cry about something. 

Prior to Brexit when the important decisions were made in Brussels by faceless bureaucrats we could afford to have the odd token female to make parliament look inclusive but now we are repatriating important matters of state we can ill afford the time consuming distractions of wimmin's issues and make time for their melodramas. Is it time to simply admit that women can't cut it in politics anymore? They don't seem to be able to win seats without positive discrimination and without men making allowances for them. Is it time to put our foot down?

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