Adulting - #56 When Does Politics Become A Feminist Issue? with Bell RibeiroAddy

Episode Date: March 22, 2020

Hey podulters, I hope you’re all keeping well at this odd time. This episode was recorded on international women’s day at the with the wonderful and inspirational Bell Ribeiro-Addy. Bell is the Labour MP for Streatham and shadow immigration officer. I hope you enjoy, as always please do rate,review and subscribe! X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hi, poddlters. How are you? I hope you're well. This week's episode is very special as it was recorded on International Women's Day at the Boulevard Theatre in Soho. And my guest is Belle Ribero Addy, who is Shadow Immigration Officer and the new Labour MP for Streatham. The question is, when does politics become a feminist issue? And I absolutely love talking to Belle about this. I feel like it was so insightful and super interesting.

And we also had some fantastic questions from the audience who were there. So I really hope you enjoy it and as always please do rate review and subscribe bye how are you all doing you good thank you so much uh for coming to join us I am joined by the wonderful Val Ribeiro Addy. Can we please have a big round of applause for Belle? Hi, everybody. Hello.

So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about when does politics become a feminist issue, which is kind of a bit of a rhetorical question, because I think we all kind of know in this day and age that it's always a feminist issue. And I have the amazing Belle with me, but if you don't know who she is, I'm going to ask her to introduce herself and what she does. So I am the new Labour Member of Parliament for Streatham, just elected. Someone from Streatham, yeah!

Just elected in December. We were just talking about how that wasn't really that long ago. I'm also the Shadow Immigration Minister for the Labour Party. It's great. I get to represent the area where I was born and raised. For those of you that don't know, Streatham actually covers Brixton Hill, Tolles Hill, Ballam, and Clapham Common as well.

Amazing. So I guess International Women's Day is an interesting one. I feel like we've learned about it a lot more recently because there's a lot of like brands kind of co-opting it and turning it into something that it's not really about it's kind of about pushing women forward so that we have equal rights equal opportunities etc but what I wanted to ask you is feminism can be a bit of a conflicting term. Lots of people have different ideas about what it means to them. Do you have a way that you define feminism personally? Feminism for me is about equality, not equity.

And just to explain that, I feel like when we talk about these issues of diversity, a lot of the time we try to put it in the terms of equity so that people are exactly the same and they're given exactly the same things but that's just not the way the world works if we if we exist in a world where there's discrimination you need what is equality and equality is specifically giving people what they need to be the very best that they can be so you know for example if you are a woman and there are less women in a particular workplace, you may need to be pushed forward by having some sort of quota for a certain number of women. There's no equity in that, but there's definitely equality in it. And also, for me,

feminism is about every single woman all across the world. I feel like a lot of the time feminism is kind of, the idea of feminism is couched around white women specifically. But if we are going to tackle equality for women, we need to look at equality for women across the world, all colours. Yeah, totally. And I mean, it's incredible that you are a woman and a woman of colour who's a Labour MP, shadow immigration officer. Like that's a kind of a big role and a woman of colour who's a Labour MP, shadow immigration

officer, like that's a kind of a big role and a big position to be in. When did you first realise that you wanted to become someone who was kind of fighting on the front lines of politics? Well, it was probably not too long before I actually started to campaign to be the candidate for Labour. I worked for Diane Abbott MP, who's the Member of Parliament for Hackney, for a number of years. And obviously that's enough to put you off wanting to be a black woman in politics, full stop.

You know, I ran her office. I saw what she got. I tried to stop her getting a lot of the abuse or seeing a lot of the abuse that she did get. And I suppose I didn't realise how much until it got to a certain point that it personally affected me and I think that's what people need to think about particularly online platforms um when they're thinking about trolls and how they're putting their messages out there it's not just the woman that's being attacked that's affected it's other

people who who watch that who who read those horrible messages, which relate to themselves, that can be impacted by it as well. So, no, I didn't want to get into politics initially, but I did want to support a fantastic woman. I suppose that's another thing that feminism is about for me, lifting other women up. A lot of the time you have women in leadership positions who may not necessarily lift other women up. We've had two female prime ministers, as far as I'm concerned.

Neither of them have done that well for women, other than being there. Representation is not just about being a face. You've got to actually do something for the people that look like you or the people that you represent. So it's great to have more people of colour. It's great to have more disabled people. It's great to have more LGBT people. It's great to have more LGBT people, it's great to have more women but what are all of those individuals doing for those specific

communities to lift them up? Totally, so I guess what we're talking about there is more like intersectionality which is the kind of feminism that I subscribe to and I think we're always hoping that we're pushing forwards but to be a bit party political specific, how are you feeling about the fact that the Labour Party is probably going to get another white man to be in charge well firstly I'm hoping that doesn't happen because that's not a candidate I'm supporting um I'm actually supporting one of the female candidates Rebecca Long-Bailey um I think it's it's time we had a woman not just for having a woman's sake um because I think she would be a fantastic leader of our party. But I feel that it's the type of thing that happens often in politics when a party loses. So when you lose, you think, gosh,

why did the other side win? And you think you need to completely emulate the other side. And you think, gosh, what do we think people want? And, you know, the white man that everybody thinks is most likely to be elected leader of the Labour Party, there's nothing wrong with him. He's actually great. Me and him get on quite well. But it's just, if people want to vote for him, I want them to vote for him because they believe in what he believes, not because they think he's what a prime minister looks like. So coming on to voting, I guess I think I came to politics quite late. Well, I thought I did because I didn't realise how political everything is. Like every debate that you have at your dinner table about why you're having something for dinner

or about why your friend should go out with that boy or whatever it might be is in its own essence really political. And I think one massive part of feminism that I think a lot of young women today, we all see ourselves as feminists, but we might not see ourselves as that political. And I think trying to marry those two things together to encourage especially young women to vote and to get invested in politics.

Is there anything like a takeaway that you feel kind of shines a bit more of a light on what party politics can really achieve? Because sometimes it feels really far away and we don't necessarily see how it impacts us which it does hugely no it can be very very far removed especially when there are less less less women involved but I would always argue that you have to get your foot in the door but once one person does and everybody else follows it starts to create a change and obviously the gains that we've made in terms of women's liberation are fantastic,

but there's still so much further to go. And what I would say to everybody is if we didn't have the women that we had involved in politics, involved in local parties, actually holding it up, we wouldn't have got to where we are now. And where we are is still not far enough. So actually falling back is definitely not the way forward.

So we have more women in Parliament than we've ever had before. And that's meant that even after, and again, it's disgraceful that it's only happening now, but we're finally going to have a domestic abuse bill. And obviously, it's not just going to be about domestic abuse against women, but we know that women are predominantly the people that suffer from domestic abuse but it's taken us to have a certain number of women in parliament to be able to push this to the forefront and even then when we get it we're going to have to argue for certain things in terms of resources but imagine if we didn't have women in parliament. It's so interesting to recognise that these issues you kind of you get taught when you're growing up that things aren't important if they're not if you don't have someone there to represent you as i say like a woman then there's no one kind of

pushing forward these women's issues which are universal they're not just kind of like one specific case but i find it very interesting because you talk a lot about racism and this is a massive thing that we don't see like from a point of privilege as a white woman there was loads of things that i didn't understand for years about systemic racism and how it impacts us and now that we do have voices like yours speaking in parliament it shines a light on these issues that impacts so so many people and a point that I thought you made that was so salient and like really easy to understand was in your maiden speech and you were talking about the way that if a young black man in your constituency was caught using drugs yeah and that's right and I

kind of would I'd love you to expand on, just as a really easy window and portal into this really huge inequality between the way that we treat people of different races, if you could talk on that. Well, specifically on that, you're quite right, the issue of drugs is one that is probably quite a good one to paint what this issue is like.

So we've got a prime minister at the moment who's admitted to taking cocaine. And actually the majority of people in the Tory leadership contest, except for the one black man, actually, strangely enough, all admitted to taking drugs at some point in time. But, you know, none of them, not a single one of them, has ever faced any issues for having taken drugs now what I was explaining if you were a young black man in in our in the area where we

live if you're caught with drugs you can face a bit you can face jail time quite literally and I'm sure you would have heard about the recent charter flight deportations that have been happening one of the individuals who was put on the flight as a criminal, a foreign national criminal, someone who had been here since he was, I think, five years old, he was caught with £30 worth of cocaine and was done with intent, with possession, with intent to supply, they said he was going to supply it. Now £30 worth of cocaine, I'm not sure how far he could have got with that. But he actually ended up getting a custodial sentence

of over 12 months. Obviously, he didn't serve it because he only had £30 worth of cocaine. But because of that, he was put on a list of individuals who were due to be removed out of the country just for that purpose. Now, the disparity between that is is an absolute disgrace I believe that we need to look at um drug reforms overall the war

on on drugs hasn't worked um but aside from that we need to look at sentencing you've got situations where if if you are black you're literally going to get a larger sentence um um for something that you know if your white counterpart did they'd probably get a slap on the wrist for. And it's just not acceptable, especially when it could lead to you being removed from the country and being torn away from everything you know and your family. So it's so amazing that you're speaking up on this and that you get to do it in places like watching you in that video

in Parliament talking about this is incredible because I think we all know, or hopefully lots of us understand these systemic injustices, but also there's a lot of stereotyping that happens where people start to believe that people of color have a tendency towards criminal behavior or whatever so without a voice like yours exposing how it's so corrupt the way we look at it it's really important but to be a woman in your position and to stand up and say the things you're saying takes a lot of bravery you've been doing this for 12 weeks how are you feeling like doing this like are you scared are you well I can't tell you how many times I've been told mostly online to go back

to where I came from which isn't very far from here it's Brixton Hill but I'm guessing the people that say that don't actually mean Brixton Hill and that's actually quite a horrible thing when you're uh you know know young black woman that lives in a country where people people say things like that you do question uh your identity uh you do question whether or not um you belong and to have that thrown in your face all of the time you start to think about it but this is this is very much my country i'm i'm british um i go anywhere i go to where my family are from which is ghana they treat me very much like i'm I'm British. I go anywhere. I go to where my family are from, which is Ghana. They treat me very much like I'm British. And, you know, this is who I am. But to be told that

because I'm black and because I may be proud of my heritage, I can't be British, it's a horrible thing to feel. And obviously then there are the issues of safety, as you talk about. I mean, before, when you're an MP, you would have thought it was quite, obviously my parents are really to feel and obviously then there that the issues of safety as you talk about I mean before when you're an MP you would have thought it was quite obviously my parents are really proud now they weren't so much before but you know it seems like a nice clean indoorsy type of job but now you experience lots of online abuse you know all of us are given panic buttons now. If you get death threats, you have to go through certain security measures. So it's actually kind of become unsafe. And you think about my colleague, Joe Cox, who was killed a couple of years ago.

And obviously, there's so many different issues around that, including, you know, mental health support for individuals and just the general rise in racism. But it's not necessarily that that safe representative job that it was before so like coming back to this question I guess of like when does politics become a feminist issue and I think the cusp of the the reason why I want to talk about this is we all have to really bandy together and look after each other because it's kind of like one idea of having one woman at the forefront kind of talking about it but we all I feel have to be more politically engaged more of the time I think like things happen with like Brexit or the election you might feel a big charge and it

can be really draining actually to try and stay actively involved but I feel like there's smaller ways that we can be allies and do small political actions that are like mini active like we're activating things in small ways um and I guess on a smaller scale so not from like obviously I'm not going to go stand in parliament anytime soon probably I don't think so but I thought so um I never thought I was going to either so um but I think I probably swear too much actually you're allowed to swear are we am I allowed to swear you're allowed to swear now yeah I mean no I mean I've been really well I remember I went into my office once and I was like okay I'm not going to swear. I lasted about 30 minutes. I was going to say oh yeah so as like a civilian what what are the kind of things that we as women

and men I'm glad to see there's some men in the room that's really it's really nice. We shouldn't pat you on the back so much actually it's just great that you're coming to talk about family so classic but what are little things that people can do in their day-to-day life that will help towards you feeling safer as that person that really is taking the brunt of that heat um and trying to be on those front lines do you know what i think has always been great um when i do see women being abused online is the way that other women do come out and get at them. It's like a little army. And I'm trying to remember what the...

There's this group of women in India, and it makes me think of them. They wear pink saris. They've got a specific name. I can't remember. But what they do is they literally go around and find men who abuse their wives and beat them. And they look so badass they've got

like they got like clubs they're pink saris and they're just like yeah so when all the women come at come at um you know all of these horrible sexist racist trolls online I always think that's fantastic so just encouraging a little bit of like beating this evening um nothing too wild but are you seeing i mean i think the difficulty in the time we're in now it's really polarized and i talk about this all the time you guys are probably really bored of me saying this if you listen to my podcast but we're in this weird climate of kind of woke culture cancel culture everyone feels like they know how to talk about things but on the other hand it's like really dystopian we were just

talking briefly backstage about the whole stormzy issue when he was someone said to him do, do you think Britain's racist? And he was like, yeah, 100%. And it all got flipped, turned upside down when actually Britain is 100% racist systemically, you know. And how do we combat this really weird time of what I'm trying to change to do now is I think I went like, tried to be super woke. And actually now I think the important thing is trying to engage with people who maybe are not there, don't think like me maybe vote differently for me do you feel like you've got a good means of engaging with people that do you think differently from you politically and you can bridge that gap or do you find that you find it really difficult to um I mean it is quite difficult for me because I'm literally sat opposite in a room most of the time from people

who don't don't vote like me at all and that's specifically part of the game um and it is it is hard to engage with people that especially when you know they know where I'm coming from I'm a Labour politician um I'm a woman I'm black um you can pretty much you know decide what it is that I think before you even hear me open my mouth so how do I get you to believe uh that what believe what I'm saying or even take it on board? But there seem to be very many issues that kind of get to people. And I think it's always trying to relate to people on a certain level. So I remember when the Windrush scandal came about, I think that's something that people could really relate to because they thought, gosh, these people have been here their whole lives and they've worked here and they've worked alongside

us. Why would you treat them like that? And when other issues in terms of what I do with immigration, family reunion, allowing people to reunite with their families when they've come, when they're an unaccompanied minor and they've travelled all of that way, just those basic kind of human things that everybody understands. Everybody understands family. Everybody understands home. So I think a lot of the time in terms of trying to engage with people who may not agree with you, just starting where you agree

before you get to where you disagree. Yeah, I think it's so powerful about talking human first. And that's actually something I want to talk about to take a slight change of tack but i went to talk last night with the women of the world organization i think that was called and the south bank center yeah were you there last night no no it wasn't amazing i cried uh and it was it was so powerful there was two women who were both from indigenous communities and they were talking about how climate change personally impacts them in their indigenous community and how um it was like it was just seeing the humanity in the things that we do rather than i think we talk about climate change a lot from a planetary point of

view and sometimes it's quite hard to get really engaged like what the oceans and the trees are doing because you don't really hang out with them too often but when there's like a woman sat there in front of you telling you that like for the for forever she was saying how her mum can predict the weather so they had like scientists around because they were looking at the soil or something and she said it was going to rain in two hours and they're like no it's definitely not and then in two hours it rained and they were all like oh and now apparently they go to her and ask her and try and check because these people have been tilling and working through the land forever and they know it so well and having these two women sit there and tell me how not tell me they weren't there was lots of other people there

I was just in the audience but you felt it I really did i honestly was like it was so emotional and and they were talking about how like palm oil kills like hundreds of indigenous women that are these women's sisters and her friends and it really that really changed something in my mind like it was it made this problem so human and then they spoke about mary robinson which i'm sure you will know to be more political with me but she was the first president of ireland i didn't even know that ireland had a female president so badass she's like 70 and she me, but she was the first president of Ireland. I didn't even know that Ireland had a female president. So badass. She's like 70 and she's amazing.

And she was saying, isn't it fascinating that when it comes to the coronavirus, we can take this immediate action of all these things we're going to do? Do you know what I read today, just for all the women? Apparently, I know there's lots of stuff going on out there about what the coronavirus... We're less likely to catch it. And if we do, we're less likely to be seriously affected by it. I actually think sometimes stuff like this happens and it's like the world being like, look what's going on.

Because apparently in China now, it's like the best that the pollution's ever been. And actually the world's like so much better because no one's doing anything, no one's flying. And like the productivity's really low. It's probably Mother Nature being like, come on everyone, chill out.

I'm going to give you a little virus. But no, I think this is really important because I think we all have the tendency especially online really worked up to the point where we see red the minute when someone kind of disagrees with us and I don't think it used to be like that I don't know if we used to feel so much um like angered about people voting differently to us I think it's because we didn't have so many mediums with which to disagree. Yeah, that's true. You can Instagram it, you can Facebook it, you can tweet it. What are the other ones? I don't even know.

You can Snapchat it. There's just so many ways in which you can disagree with people these days. I think people feel the need to, well, people are interacting more in that way. Yeah, so I think maybe that's, maybe that is it. Yeah, tying into it. I also think it's maybe complicated a bit when it comes to how to vote, because I think, on the one hand, I think a lot of people who are younger, we all use social media and tend to be, well, in London especially, I know that a lot of my friends are very left-leaning, very liberal, but then maybe the slightly older generations to generalise, lean a bit more to the right

and maybe read more kind of right-wing newspaper rhetoric. But say we're not trying to tell anyone how to vote, how does someone get the power to really make the decision? Because sometimes I feel like we all really feel really passionate about something, but someone then might ask us why and we don't actually really know why, we just kind of have done it

because everyone else is doing it. See, I'm getting really worried about something but someone then might ask us why and we don't actually really know why we just kind of got done it because everyone else is doing it see i'm getting really worried about that because you know you were talking about oh you know you could read this particular paper because you lean this way and you can read this particular paper because you lean that way and i understand that different papers will have different takes on things but my worry is that um you know if you've got certain groups in control of the media they're controlling the truth they're controlling they control of the media they're controlling the truth they're controlling they're controlling the narrative they're controlling what everybody hears and so you're making decisions based on uh to quote fake news um and and not necessarily what

what is fact i feel like we're bombarded with a lot of things so sometimes when you hear people talk about one of these really emotive issues, you can literally hear people repeating daily mail headlines. And it's quite scary that it's been able to kind of get into people's heads like that. And, you know, there's a lot of evidence about, you know, the way in which people are using messaging and our data points on social media to control, you know, what it is that we see. And so the types of images and messages they want to get across. And that's really scary. So there's a lot more independent thought required than there would have been before, because before you were just working from what was fact. Yeah. And I think that is the issue. Like it's really, it's actually really hard to

escape all the noise of the media and the propaganda as you say and there's governing bodies that kind of use certain rhetoric and if you read it enough subliminally it does start to go in we've all felt that way like if you're a woman i'm sure at any given point in time you felt really shit about your body and the likelihood that you felt that is just because over time you've consumed so much information to tell you why your body is wrong that it becomes part of the tapestry of who you are and you just start to believe it and i think the same can be done with politics but i guess what i'm trying to ask is like how do we find the truth then like where where are these true stories and the facts because that's actually really hard to

find like we don't have hours all day to be getting this information and it can feel like how do we trust a politician and how do we know what to believe it's a lot to ask you I'm joking sorry don't trust all of them though no no some of them are definitely lying to you i'm not lying to you though no but seriously again it is it's genuinely about doing that investigate it can be very confusing even for someone who's sitting in the house of commons chamber you'll see someone on the labor side get up and say you've cut this and the toys will get up we put more money into it and you're like who exactly is telling the truth but all of this information is readily available it's just about you finding a source

that you do trust so once you do find a source you do trust do kind of hold on to them there are loads of different kind of fact checking type um you know groups that that might be able to help you with things like that and once you do you know grab onto one that you do trust i would say go with them keep checking on them though definitely but um it is it is completely difficult to drown out all the noise and yes everybody and i'll say this from our side as well we are we are there to put forward a particular message we're going to say what we have to say to get that message across. Although I would say that we're definitely

more truthful than the other side. I guess you have to say that. I believe you though. Thank you. So talking about like when politics is feminist and when it's fighting for us and what it's doing, I guess that what I've realised like when it comes to voting is that I am directly impacted by what happens in politics.

Maybe not economically. Like, I'm a white middle-class woman, fairly posh. Like, I don't really think economically, it doesn't really matter which way it goes, I probably will have a safety net around me. But when I vote, I vote for my gender, but beyond that, I do vote for intersectionality. So I'm actually kind of not voting for me.

I'm voting for the people who haven't been given the same privilege as me to kind of not to pay reparations but to try and like redistribute some of the systemic wealth that I've been given in terms of my but I would argue that you are voting for you because technically we all benefit from a world that is more that's equal and fair I mean I think um I get what you mean about it maybe not directly affecting you, but I think about where we live because we live in the same area. But just culturally and just everything in the area would be different if we didn't have the diversity that we have. Our experiences would be different. Our outlook on life would be different. We probably would be worse people. Yeah retract my statement she's completely right um

I do vote for me I guess what I meant more was um when I was being brought up it was more in like a conservative environment and I guess people vote there's a weird thing where you get taught to like kind of vote for hoarding and keeping these the same and I think when you vote conservatively it's like about god I don't want to lose what I've got and I think sometimes we can feel like if you're a privileged person that things might change so drastically that like you know someone's going to be better off than you but they're not the whole point is that you're fighting for things to be more equal for everyone and politics is feminist in that like I don't know about you but I absolutely hate seeing homeless people the whole time. And at the minute, I find it even more soul-destroying

because I never have cash. Does anyone ever have cash anymore? So I can never give them change. I actually went and got money out the other day. So I had to put on coins to give people. That is soul-destroying. And that's something you can vote to change. Like, politics is a lot more on your doorstep than it feels.

When we watch it on TV, I think it feels, you just feel like it's not for you. And I'm hoping that we start to realise that actually there's a really immediate and direct change when we vote. But apart from voting, how else can we directly have an implication or an impact on what's happening in politics?

Well, I would say at the moment, particularly where we've had an issue where, you know, we've had these 10 years of austerity, everybody will hear that word austerity again and again. And during that time, a lot of people have kind of stood up and filled in the gap. It's obviously a disgrace that we have food banks and that we keep having more and more food banks but I've realized that you know in in in that particular gap it's kind of made people more political um but not necessarily in the way that they're either marching or or you know standing to be a councillor doing something they're actually actively doing something in their community and they're taking on different ways to do that, even little things.

So we have a lot less mental health support in our communities, which we touched on before. And there's this amazing group in Streatham actually called Singing Mamas. And they're literally in that gap providing a space where mothers with postnatal depression come and they just sing. And I know that may sound a bit, kind of think of the word. I know what you mean, like a bit frivolous.

Yeah, but for the women that go there, it is actually amazing. And after the terrorist attack that happened in Streatham, they actually got, they were one of the community groups that got people together and they organised everybody to sing along the street and it was amazing. They actually made us sound good, which was great. I never knew so many people in Streatham could sing. But no, and

whilst we were all doing it, I actually felt what they were doing. It was actually very, very therapeutic, even for the tone deaf, like myself, but it was very, very therapeutic and people are just doing little things like that to to fill to fill in the gap and they're not necessarily being political but in in in doing those things they're providing a service to the community but also calling out the fact that those things aren't being provided by the government. exclusively on FanDuel Casino where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. That's actually kind of brought up another really interesting thing which I wanted to ask you about which I guess we hear more about when it comes to climate change

which is kind of like the individual versus legislation. You can kind of be on one or both counts, kind of. So some people are like, oh, we can't use plastic bottles anymore. We have to all stop buying plastic bottles. And other people might say, well, it's top down. Like they have to stop selling plastic bottles. We can't take the onus. But I think sometimes we do use,

I talk about legislative change all the time and how important that is. But as Val points out, like it's not always going to happen immediately. And I do wonder, I've recently just read Poverty Safari by Darren McGarvey and it really kind of shook me. I don't know if you've read it, but it's amazing. Like I always think,

thought I was like really working, I was doing really well and I was on the right side of history. And actually that book kind of really kind of shook me to my core and maybe wake up a little bit and think maybe there's a lot more that I need to change my understanding.

And he really broke down that actually we do need to, if something's not happening from the top down, we still need to get up every morning and be like, maybe there is something a bit more I can do. And as you say, it doesn't have to be a massive thing, but looking into our communities and I guess seeing our own power. Sometimes you can relinquish your power and actually make yourself weaker if you don't think that your voice

or your actions make a change. Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. And I think over the years, it's almost been designed that way to make us think that, you know, whatever we do, whether we get up and vote, it's not going to make a difference. You hear people say, you know,

all of these politicians, they're all the same. Some of them are the same. Some of us are different. You'll hear stuff like that. And it's all kind of designed to make you disengage with democracy. And if you disengage with democracy, you have less of a say. And more people like you have less of a say. And so that maintains the status quo.

Yeah, I think it's so true. And it's interesting because I think we also just feel there is a bit of an idea that you either have to be like full activist, vegan, socialist, whatever, or you kind of keep your head down and you don't speak up. But I think there are really little small acts of kindness that you can do which are still like political in their own right, even if it's just speaking up against someone at work who makes a racist comment or whatever.

It's creating the power of community, which is what those singing mothers were doing. It's kind of like we're obviously stronger together, which is what the sisterhood of feminism is all about as well um but it's funny because I don't know if you feel this way as well but my feminism is now coming to I'm trying to include more men in it there was a time when I really was like it's all about women yes all men and I'm like actually maybe it isn't all the men you can come now the nice ones you come and join us and I think I think um you're all very nice yeah thank you uh and I think maybe it's really hard I find it I find it so hard for so long to not get really enraged when talking

about things to do with feminism because it's so personal yeah I mean there's nothing wrong with being angry yeah as long as the anger kind of turns into action and you're absolutely right about bringing other people along with you. I've been quite involved in the anti-racist movement. And do you know, a lot of my greatest allies have been white people in terms of fighting racism. So that doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean if you're not directly affected by it, you cannot be involved. I just think it's very, very important that those who are impacted lead the movement because they're the ones that understand what it is that they're facing. And they are also the ones that understand

what the best thing to do is to challenge it. But we do need all of our allies to do that. While we're talking about racism, it's a really white room. And often my audiences are very white because they think you kind of attract people that look like you and sound like you and have a similar life to you.

But when we talk about racism, I guess, some people may still not feel like they understand it that deeply. And I think what I've been trying to learn about more is like imperialism and colonialism and going farther farther back rather than just talking about kind of um outright racism which we kind of all know what that is and one of the things that you said in your maiden speech and if you guys haven't watched it I would recommend to watch but I kind of want you to re-talk about it because it really shook me um when you were talking about the history of our country and uh kind of what happened and I I'm please could you say again what you said in your maiden speech about the the payments that we're

making and I'm going to let you because I I because that was once something which I think sometimes you learn something like that about history and you go oh my god this is I need to remember to stay alert to this because we can forget when you have privilege to stay alert to things like this no I think I was talking specifically about the windrush generation all of the issues that they had faced um you know they'd come to this country after the second world war actually as british citizens their passports literally said british on it um and and i think that kind of throws me now when people talk about cultural identity in britain when really there was an empire and

the empire looked like looked like the whole diversity of the world and they were all meant to be British but after the second world war there was that there was an issue so people came over and they were working they're building our public services and um I think what I said is for their for their for their troubles um you know they were deported they were detained um you know, they were deported, they were detained, you know, they were denied their dignity. But not just that. I realised that when, after slavery was ended by, you know, an act of parliament, individuals that were slave owners, many of them who were MPs like me, they were actually given a payout. And in order to give them that payout, the government had to borrow money. And the government only finished paying back that loan in 2015, which means the descendants of slaves who were living here, working, paying their taxes, the descendants of people who were colonized, like myself, were literally paying back slave owners up until 2015 now I've started working when I was 16 um taxes are very very important obviously when I was 16 I didn't

think they were but just the thought of you know having to pay that that you were paying back slave owners and obviously those that were enslaved didn't get anything and they're still being treated in a disgraceful way today and i just i don't know i kind of wanted you to repeat that because i think we we don't learn and i wanted to talk about this so much more but our history is shit like in school you don't learn about like british history that we literally raped pillaged and stole from every single place in the world and and i think sometimes we have to go that far back I think we as white people have to do that work to understand why now when these little ripples of things that come up

which maybe people can't see the significance and the depth of the work like the weight that they carry like if you go back and do the work then it's it's a lot easier to understand why and and I agree that like fighting I think as white people we should be better allies because we do have the privilege and the place to talk about it so it's very heavy wasn't it sorry about that bit so I'm going to go on to a slightly lighter topic just before we all get a bit too um depressed about that but being a woman being in parliament and kind of being in politics what is your do you have any personal goals with what you're trying to achieve? Like if you could have one amazing thing to happen this year, like one change that you could implement, what would that be?

Oh, a change. No, no. In terms of a change, it would, in my current role as the shadow immigration minister, to find a way to do away with the hostile environment. I think in particular, I think you're talking about different generations, but even for older people, I just don't see how it works. We are an ageing population. We know we need better social care. Again, about the coronavirus, we're 43,000 nurses down, and that's just in England, not even across the entire UK. And the idea that we shouldn't bring people into

this country, you know, who want to live, who want to work here, just because they look a bit different is an absolute disgrace. And if we, under this new immigration system, bring people in, they can come, but no, you can't bring your family. I mean, who's going to want to come and do that? So just if we could find a way to just keep exposing that and just completely trash the disgraceful immigration bill, that's coming up.

If I could do that, that would be everything. That's an amazing goal. And I mean, I guess the other thing that I find so ironic is that the same people that don't want to fight against climate change also don't want immigration. And it's like you can't have one and the other. If you don't want as much, if you don't want mass immigration to happen years down the line,

then the first thing we could do is start fighting for climate change. And that's kind of that angle of looking at things is the same way of looking at feminism and politics. Like everything is so interlinked. Like the socio-political is so much more tightly knitted to the political that I think we sometimes register. But even thinking of climate change specifically, I mean, climate change is now,

you know, with everything that's happening in terms of this country, floods in the US and Australia in terms of fires, but climate change has been an issue for a number of years. It's just that it hasn't, there hasn't been as much awareness in the West, if you want to call it, whereas in the global South, you know, whether it's the hurricanes in the West, if you want to call it, whereas in the global South, you know, whether it's the hurricanes in the Caribbean, you know, drought in East Africa, these things happen again and again. And I have to call out different aid companies at the time. It's really, really great to give to charity. I just find it really disgraceful that how much some charities rake in and then what they actually end up doing with it.

Speaking specifically on the Caribbean and hurricanes, you know, those things happen, people's homes get destroyed. And then, you know, they collect a load of money. Most of it goes to pay certain people's wages. It's another story. But then they don't build resilience. They don't build things that will help those, you know, low-lying islands to defend against the hurricanes when they come next year and they are going to come every single year the droughts in east africa are going to come every single year and all of these things are just going to get worse until we tackle climate change but when money's not spent in the best place i think that's actually maybe another really difficult thing in this moment in time when it's quite duplicitous.

We have this with International Wednesday where loads of brands will try and like co-op the day to sell you a t-shirt or whatever and it'll be like female empowerment. And sometimes if we're not knowledgeable enough, which not everyone's expected to be knowledgeable enough, it's quite hard to like spend all your time reading into everything.

But there's loads of greenwashing that goes on. There's lots of companies that profit off of making us feel like we're doing a good thing when actually we're feeding into a system that's what like buying a fast fashion t-shirt like the chain of events has to happen to that and that could culminate in a woman's death in a country that we've never been to like that kind of thing and I think what gets really difficult is because we live in a capitalist society um in order to work out how to do the right thing it can actually you have to get through so much shit. So you might feel like,

oh my God, I've donated to this cause, as you say, which looks on the surface like it's doing something really, really good, but actually it's doing the complete antithesis. And I think we have to give ourselves a bit more credit and also maybe work a little bit harder. Going to that climate change talk last night did really make me think,

oh God, I really do need to kind of not let the cognitive dissonance be so strong. Because, and I think this happens with politics sometimes as well, but there's a really interesting, there was something on Twitter not that long ago, it's really interesting, it's like why people voted for Brexit and why they voted against it. And two people said the exact same reason for why they voted for or against it. Because of the way that the media kind of like,

sometimes we think we're doing the thing that we want to be doing, but we haven't really like, I'm really butchering what I'm trying to say do you know we we we think that we're doing what we want to do but we're doing what we've been told to do or we've been given information incorrectly yeah and and then we just apply it because we think that's that's right that's it that's terrible we need to stop that yeah and I think that um especially as women we need to trust our instinct trust our guts and feel like we do have the power to speak up and like find what's important to you if we all had like a few things that we were really going to try and fight for then if we all did that collectively then I think that would have a much greater impact I know sometimes we can get like eco anxiety or

like feminist anxiety that we're not big enough all of the time. But actually, I think it's about just trying to do the right thing sometimes. Yeah, I agree. It is definitely, just specifically in terms of climate change, there's a lot that needs to be done from the top down. But us being more conscious about our individual behaviours does make a difference because it also kind of tells the politicians that we vote for that we don't think it's right and we are actively doing things ourselves and we want them so you know in your individual local area you're trying to get your council to create more opportunities for you to recycle quite simply and you're arguing for more cycle lanes because you might want to stop driving and you're you're arguing for it to be safer just those little things that are kind of

changing changing changing your behaviors but also showing those at the top that they need to do what they need to do better in terms of changing things i think uh there's a lot that needs to be done on on that specifically when people write to you as an mp do you literally read everything you get like if it's like a request for a change or something someone better um no no the thing is a lot with a lot of these um who's ever put in something on change.org or yeah yeah so just me i'll obviously just read one of those not all of them um but yeah yeah I mean we'll see what they're saying relate it to labour policy and and then reply or if I have something specifically that so for example um I I have a flat um after what happened with Grenfell um you know a lot of

people who have bought new homes have issues with cladding around their properties yeah yeah do you yeah yeah and and so where i can directly relate with somebody if you've written to me i would write back to you you know explaining what's happening and also say to you do you know what i sympathize because i also have this situation so and and even if i can't directly relate i will explain to you why it's important to me that it that that you know you you get what it is that you're asking for and I suppose the worst thing for me and particularly as a new MP and particularly because I was a policy advisor before for the Labour Party and we had this great manifesto is

is not being able to deliver on all of those things that we we we wanted to um so i suppose that that that's why we're trying to work more on on again engaging people getting people active empowering them to fill that gap until you know we can have a situation where we can deliver on those things because they are absolutely deliverable i think i think we've become quite reductionist in society that we've got this idea that, you know, if X is going to have Y, then A can't have B. So, you know, it's the idea, again, relating it back to immigration, people keep saying you've got to listen to people in immigration, you've got to listen to their concerns.

But if you listen to people's concerns about immigration, they always seem to be about resources. They always seem to be about, you know, jobs and housing and the NHS. And if those are people's real issues, then why don't we sort out jobs and housing and the NHS? And then maybe their problem wouldn't be people that look different. Yeah. Well, it's that kind of like punching up, punching down idea of, you know, we're taught kind of to blame, push the blame elsewhere and not really look to the issue.

As you say, if there was more space and there was more resources, then we would all be more harmonious. But we'd look to each other, which is an interesting idea. I want to open it up to the floor. So if anyone has any questions,

then you can put your hand up and someone will pop around with a microphone is that okay I can't see if the person with the microphone is there oh fab I saw your arm then is anyone has anyone got any questions don't be shy yeah over here amazing thank you hi hello hello um who is your in kind of this topic of international women's day your your absolute gal pal in in parliament so you're number one do you know it would have to be diane abbott i i i i worked for her for eight years i I think it was. I even managed to get myself an office, a couple of doors down so I can nick stuff. Although I actually probably shouldn't say that.

Can we? No, no. Fine, they were the only ones. I can borrow things like paper and stuff. No, but she is. I mean, if there's anybody to teach you how to do it, well, it's her. Obviously she put me off initially, but you know.

But yeah, no, no, she's been an absolute major support and obviously some of the other young women that have been elected alongside me as well it can be a really lonely place even if you've worked there for a long time and you know a lot of people so to have that kind of solidarity and to have that and actually just have the fact generally that there are more women around than there were before definitely makes it feel more comfortable. Oh, God, sorry. Just breaking it. Oh, I'm really blind, sorry.

Can't see what's going on. Hey. Hey. Hi. So, in terms of the new immigration policy, how do you think that affects

how many women come into the country as opposed to men? Well, I think that's a really good question because generally in terms of

migration, it's always women, it's always men who are more likely to be able to come in. Even if you're looking at people who are fleeing the country as refugees, it's always more men that come. And women are obviously, again, not even being stereotypical, but you're less likely to leave your families. And men are more likely to, I'm just going to go and leave everybody and start again so it is it is it is making a very big statement to say that you can't bring your family along with you is making a very big statement um to kind of dig to have wages at a certain level because you're not going to have lots and lots of women coming over. It's just going to be more difficult.

That's a very good question. Better than any of my questions. Has anyone else got any? Oh, yeah. Thank you. All right. You're getting your snaps in for the day, which is always good.

Can you maybe just pass it along? Thank you. it's always good do you want me to just pass it along thank you i got it um why do you think there has been a rise in violence against mps do you think it's because the kind of diversity like there's more women there's you know people of different ethnicity that are now in those positions of power. Do you think that's why there has been that rise in violence? I think it's more about a complete kind of narrative in society at the moment. I think it's become really dangerous how people playing out things online and people with mental health issues. Because to be quite frank, people that commit violent acts, whether it be terrorism, the individual that went after Joe Cox,

they had mental health issues. That doesn't excuse what they did at all. But they're being fed really, really horrible, toxic narratives. And it keeps playing over and over in their minds. And because it sells stories, because it creates something sensationalist, people keep allowing that to happen without thinking what the impact is on individuals

and then thinking about what the impact is on the individuals they're spouting hate at. That's a really good point. And also it's kind of in, he touched on it on the podcast, but those things with violence and it tends to be, like the more you understand it deeper,

but it'll be from like a deep root of place, probably something awful has happened. It's also cyclical and kind of like a really good way of not always, but of reducing crime and reducing things that happen is actually if we had less less poverty and better

quality yeah because yeah no I completely agree and then I know just little things like there was this is back when police actually had money but years ago there was a police force I think it was Cumbria I always get it wrong that they had a spike in crime and they thought to themselves what was what was the issue what was causing the spike in crime and they thought to themselves, what was the issue? What was causing the spike in crime? So they did some investigations into it and they found out that it was drug misuse. So they just put more money into drug rehabilitation

and crime went down. Oh, wow. Just that simple. Just that simple, yeah. Does anyone else have any more questions at the back? Hello. Hi. I was just wondering,

is there anything that you think that we can do to shine a light on people behind the successful person in a family that tends to normally be a male? And, you know, with the new immigration law, it means that the man will come across and he won't be able to bring his family because he's the moneymaker or whatever, a woman who doesn't make any wages.

Somebody needs to be there to look after the children. Somebody needs to be there to look after the house. You know, that stuff doesn't happen by itself. Is there anything that we can... Clearly the country is unaware of this or not wanting to support the people in the shadows. Is there anything that we can do to sort of help bring this to light and show that this is actual work and give praise to the people behind all the people who are successful

well and less so and specifically in terms of people that are staying at home but one of the things that I've been trying to make a point of more recently is is in relation to this immigration but people keep talking about uh low skilled work and high skilled work. And I think that's really, really disgraceful because I absolutely believe that all work is skilled if it's done well, which is that some work is better paid than other work. I mean, I recently went, not that recently actually,

time has passed me by, on a march with McDonald's workers. And, you know, people, it's quite, people think, oh gosh, you work at McDonald's. But I think to myself, break it down. How many of us could stand on our feet for that many hours and be polite to people who are asking you really, really ridiculous questions,

some of them in the late middle of the night because they've come from a club and they're shouting because they want their cheeseburger club and they're shouting because they want their cheeseburger and where's the milkshake do you mean just just just some of those jobs that people don't think are very are worth anything standing up for those individuals standing up for those individuals in in social care and and as you point out rightly pointing out um the different roles that people play so that there are carers, carers who may be taking care of someone who's sick, who may be taking care of somebody who's young, who aren't given a lot of support.

And we've attempted to argue for better funding for individuals such as that. Again, shining a light on the fact that what they do is also important, but also trying to make the point that we can't, you know, we can't have a situation where an individual comes into the country and you're saying that they can't bring their family member because they don't earn enough money and the family member's not going to earn enough money because there are different roles which people play.

That's a really good question. And also, I guess that was one of the reasons that International Women's Day was kind of started. It was to recognise that the labour that women do, especially in the home and the caregiving, is, like, huge. I don't know if you guys have read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez about the gender data gap. One of the most amazing books I've ever read.

And she talks heavily about how we do women, on average, like 40 extra hours of work a week that's unpaid and unknown. So that's a really, really interesting point. And if you look into the history of International Women's Day, it's kind of like on one of the cusp of the arguments that they have. Actually, I find that an interesting fact, this international reason. I went back to my secondary school, actually. That was fun.

Didn't have to wear the uniform anymore, which is fantastic. 70% of the women, 70% of the farmers in the world are women. Wow. Yeah. Never knew that. Yeah. And you wouldn't necessarily, you know, you think of a farmer, you think of Farmer Giles with his flat cap and his little tractor.

But no, 70% of the women in the world, 70% of farmers in the world are women. That's really good, Fash. I love that. Does anyone have another question? And we do like like a couple more so right at the front here so this is a very broad question uh so I apologize but thinking about um feminism as you said right at the start as equality do you think we'll ever get there and can you kind of can you actually see it happening in sort of the next so many years we'll ever make any good moves towards actual equality i think we can definitely get there because i i am sure and i know it's something

that we may not know in history, there was a time when this wasn't an issue. There must have been a time when this was an issue. There was a time when racism was an issue because race isn't even a thing. Race doesn't actually biologically exist. It's just a completely social construct. And, you know, the same type of so-called gender norms that keep us in the inequality that we are also didn't exist. And if we can just get back to that place, which I believe we can do, you know, the world would be better for it. But in terms of how soon we can get there, it's just about a willingness of, you know, feminists and their allies to continue making that point and actually just those in power to accept it or either just get rid of those in power.

That's always good. Yeah, I think that'll work. I think we'll do one last one. Is everyone comfy? All okay? Good. Is anyone else? Is there a hand?

Over here. Thank you. This is a workout. That's good. to be making the men do the work we're all chilling thank you we talked

you talked about how our education is shit basically and I can speak to that as somebody who was brought up, educated in the 1970s. We learnt nothing but kings and queens of England and how great Victorian architects and engineers were. Nothing about why we have sugar, why we have cotton,

what the Industrial Revolution was built on. So I think in the same way as education teaches you that there have been no great women in art history, for instance, how do we decolonise education? Because it starts in school, doesn't it? I've been really impressed with the way that individual teachers have been trying to do it themselves obviously they've got to stick to a certain syllabus and certain rules but they've actually actively tried to to change certain things so you know during Women's History

Month during LGBT History Month and actually Black History Month you'll find individual teachers doing these things but again it's one of those one of the situations where you can do a certain amount from the bottom up we've got to change things from from from the top so we do have to change the curriculum and again try not to get stuck in these reductionist arguments where well actually if we learn about slavery and colonialism then we can't learn about this actually we spend a lot of time at school I don't know about you I spent a lot of time at school I'm sure that we could find time to learn about this. Actually, we spend a lot of time at school. I don't know about you. I spent a lot of time at school. I'm sure that we could find time

to learn about everything that we need to. And also, it's just so fucking important. It's like one of the most important things you can learn. So otherwise you have to do all this unlearning. Yeah, I think that's a really good question. It's something I think about a lot. I do actually just... Well, I mean, this kind of like the podcast

that all the things we didn't get taught in school. I'm like, why did no one teach me all of this stuff about like the interesting parts of sex rather than like how to put a condom on a banana which is like just not that interesting do you know what i mean like it's just none of the none of the interesting things anyway um i've literally loved talking to you thank you so much for really good thank you coming to hang out with me on your sunday night and on international women's day it's an absolute honor uh thank you guys so much for all being here i just want to also say that I was given these by Women for Women UK.

And if you want to, if you have a pen, just a little catch, you can basically write a message and it's to women in water-worn countries or in difficult scenarios. It basically gets translated and they get given it so they feel like they're not alone. So you can just write something and be like,

hi, I just wanted to let you know that, you know, I'm thinking of you and I live in the UK and this is my name or something about you. And if you want to do this and be like, hi, I just wanted to let you know that, you know, I'm thinking of you and I live in the UK and this is my name or something about you. And if you want to do this and you have a pen, then you can and then just leave it on the bar and I'll collect them all and give them back in. But it's just like a nice thing to do for women who perhaps don't have this amazing community

that we have. And it's, yeah, I'm really grateful that you all came out tonight. So thank you so much. I hope you had a nice time. Thank you. Thank you. Fanduel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, We'll be right back. on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly.