The Green party’s woman problem

At the Green party spring conference this weekend, a motion which sought to introduce a party policy on women’s sex-based rights was defeated. A whopping 289 delegates (out of 521) voted to not include biological females in the party’s list of oppressed groups.

All the motion aimed to do was simply add a paragraph to the Green party’s ‘Our Rights and Responsibilities Policy’. The motion reads:

‘This is to include the protected characteristic of sex as currently our Record of Policy statements supports the other eight characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, race, maternity, religion/belief, marriage/civil partnership) but not that of sex discrimination – aimed primarily at women…’

The motion was opposed because, in essence, it is considered ‘transphobic’ to recognise that women are targeted by male oppression precisely because of their female sex.