Happy International Women’s Day one and all – now let’s mobilise!

By Grace Fletcher-Hackwood

If you spend a lot of your time phone canvassing – and I spend so much of my time doing it that I now find it difficult to ask a question over the phone without using the phrase “on a scale of 0 to 5…” – you might have heard:

* a young person saying “…no, no I’m not going to vote. I’m really not interested.”

* an older woman saying “What is it, politics? I’ll get my husband.”

Or perhaps you’ve even heard, as I did for the first time recently:

* “No, I wouldn’t vote for a woman.”

The first two are so commonplace that sometimes we might not bother to challenge them. The latter left me so speechless I wasn’t able to! But today is both International Women’s Day and #mobmonday, and so if there was ever a day to challenge the assumption that politics isn’t for women, this is it.

I spent part of the weekend in Manchester Town Hall, taking part in a city-wide celebration of women with some of Manchester’s women Labour councillors and activists. On our Labour stall we were asking women to write down their top three priorities for the city – and we’ve handed them over to the leader of the council today.

I was thrilled to see how many women got involved – from activists involved in other organisations who wanted to see more secure funding for dealing with domestic violence; to the students who wanted better cycle paths; to a 12-year-old who was concerned about lighting around the play area in the park opposite her house. Women care about politics. And with tax credits, Sure Start, the minimum wage, increased protection from discrimination in the workplace, more dedicated police units for dealing with domestic violence – and so much more – women are better off under Labour.

So what we’re doing this #mobmonday is campaigning for one of Labour’s many brilliant woman candidates – Brighton Pavilion’s Nancy Platts – and reminding women voters in particular why they need to vote, and why they need to vote Labour.

Please do join us on the Virtual Phone Bank between 6 and 8pm (if you’ve never used it before – it’s very simple, just select ‘Brighton Pavilion’ from the drop-down list of constituencies and follow the instructions from there – but if you need any further help just email me or drop a DM to me @MsGraceFH, @KevPeel or Nancy @Nancy4Brighton). Don’t forget, whether you’re canvassing for Nancy or for other Labour candidates around the country, tweet about your conversations with voters using the #mobmonday hashtag so we can see just how many people are involved.

And if a woman tells you that they’re not going to bother to vote – or if anyone does – maybe you could remind them what women went through to get the vote, and how many women across the world still don’t have that chance. If they tell you to talk to the man of the house, tell them you want to talk to them. If they demand to know what Labour has ever done for them, tell them.

Oh, and if you happen to speak to a man who tells you he’d never vote for a woman, keep him talking while you tweet about it. You’ll probably get some interesting suggestions for your response…