Thread by @WTFoucault

It was revelatory, while working at Mumsnet, to witness first hand, in parliament, the extent to which so many politicians wrap a mediocre intellect inside an absolute, bouncing, head-girl or boy self-confidence. You think you know this already - but you don't… [thread 🧵]

Or at least, not the full extent of it. You would be astonished at the paucity of ability, experience and insight in many of those who have a meaningful hand in making our laws, and at the casual, will-they-won’t-they process by which they may - or may not ! - engage with
2/-

critical evidence. Most of all, you would be *astounded* by the extent to which they are unaware of - or worse, aware but unphased by - the disjunct between their own abilities and the grave decisions with which they are charged. 3/-

Most of all, you would be floored by how little most women MPs, on both benches, understand ordinary women’s lives. 4/-

It’s baked in, I suppose - the women who can succeed in a world created by and for men do so precisely to the degree that they have not themselves been subject to the grinding limits and attacks of patriarchy. 5/-

I've worked briefly with or known personally three who now assert that trans women are women. All describe themselves as feminists; none have understood that their analyses are built primarily upon a generalisation of their own experience - a daily life ...6/-

which is exceptional almost beyond words; a million miles from the reality of girls in care, or just those in local authority schools, or in sports teams; a kazillion from that of women in prison, in refuges, in hospital, or in mental health settings. 7/-

Just as far, in a different way, from the reality of all the women for whom the local authority gym or pool offers a break from caring; who do PTA admin, but wouldn’t run for school governor; who turn up reliably for constituency campaigning and the tea-urn. 8/-

Left and Liberal women alike take a fundamentally conservative, 'common sense' view of the world, extrapolating from their own experience, mapping their own exceptional growings-up, exceptional educations …
9/-

...their whole ‘life of an exceptional woman’ onto those of the general population without pause or embarrassment. Even the most self-awaren imagine that a standard woman-life can be described as a percentage of their own. 10/-

This is not to say that they have been protected from sexism - they haven’t, of course not. All speak of egregious, outrageous instances. But these narratives are both familiar and not, because they exist within a framework that none of us can recognise. 11/-

It’s a Billy Bunter sexism, a Bullingdon or Boris sexism. It's dreadful, but it’s exceptional - pantomime-like, almost. It requires backbone - one might say balls - to stand up to it, and they all have it. They are Alpha women. They *do* have balls 12/-

or at least, a class confidence (or borrowed class confidence) which tells them to have a bloody go, stand up for your principles and just... power through. 'Nevertheless, she persisted.' 13/-

They might equally have been attracted to the fuck-you of being a senior banker or a corporate CEO. Their feminism is a liberal - in some cases, explicitly libertarian - feminism. A 'firsts' type feminism - first female MP under 30, and so on. 14/-

Breaking the barriers. Fighting for a world in which nothing can stop a determined, talented, hard-working young woman from reaching the very top, against the odds. 15/-

Even the female MP with the least privilege - the one I really did believe would acknowledge at least a conflict of rights -is exceptionalised by both her alpha drive and an adult life spent in a rarefied - Hogwarts-like, ironically - world. 16/-

Their kind of feminism knows - or perhaps, sees - so little of patriarchy-as-atmosphere: the molecular operation of power which seeps into every aspect of the public and private lives of ordinary girls and women. The air we all breathe, the air which chokes us. Theirs is a 17/-

feminism that seeks (achieves, woo! ) equality, and throws the word around like a trophy, without the intelligence (or at least humility) to understand that equality is not a hockey match won on a won on a groundsman-tended pitch, fair and square 18/-

but an exhausting, tedious, and in many cases impossible tunnelling-down, away from the sunshine and the cheers into the dirt of women's lived experience, mapping every path and passageway of their lives, digging in and out to clear every point ... 19/-

where the way becomes impassable, or cramped - or painful, frightening, dark.
20/-

(As an aside, this view of the nature or meaning of equality is shared by many women attracted to a certain kind of public life; one I knew very well insisted without irony that all transwomen were markedly more oppressed than she, .. 21/-

… blithely unaware that the same would be true of 99.95% of the population. Not unconnectedly, she takes a semi-gender critical position largely on the basis that she won't be told what to do, by TRAs or anyone else.) 22/-

So, where does this leave us? The women who can parry and feint their way to centre-stage in politics are, by definition not like other women - they experience the world through simplified cues, and a series of call-and-response analyses which they project onto our lives. 23/-

Of course, the problem is systemic. If our parliament were not such a pantomime, it would not attract these principal boys - women who, because they themselves can triumphantly best the Grand Vizier, cannot understand that their less privileged sisters fear the Dame. 24/-

I don’t know what’s to be done. I’m sure most of the women concerned will see this, one way or another, and I’d welcome a meaningful response. In the meantime … Behind You.

Here is a screenshot of the tweet that @lfeatherstone - the apogee of everything I describe here - has now blocked me from including. I urge you to examine her timeline discussion with @NimkoAli - it's remarkable.