Diane Abbott grows up and says feminism makes bad mothers

http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/03/diane-abbott-fast-food-curb was what The Guardian thought Diane Abbott said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2256850/How-feminism-blame-breakdown-family-Left-winger-Diane-Abbott.html is what the Mail thought she said.


What she really did say about feminism in her own words:

"As a feminist, perhaps we have been ambivalent about families. In the 1980s, we used to say: 'A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.' The more academic version was: 'The family is the site of women's oppression.' So those of us who came of age at the height of feminism had very mixed views about the family, since it seemed to be defined as a heterosexual thing with a certificate, children and mum at home."

Subtext: "Feminists regard marriage and family as oppression and despise women who are housewives and stay-at-home mothers."

"The days of your mum living next door are over, due to lack of available housing, so young women cast around as a way of measuring themselves as mothers. Because they don't have a nan, or sisters, or aunties dropping in every day with a narrative of what being a mum is, they watch TV to try to find out. And the narrative from TV is about the brands that you can buy for your children.

Subtext: "Feminism has led to the normalisation of the working mother, which has led to the normalisation of the divorced mother which in turn has lead to the normalisation of single parenthood - an undeniably substandard form of parenting.  In pre-feminist days, female relations might have helped plug the holes in the substandard parenting of the single mother, but no longer since families no longer stay together and no one has time for each other any more, because these days most women, even mothers, are expected to work."

"There are these young mums that do not necessarily read to their children, they do not take them to the library, but they think they are good mums because their children are dressed in brand names from top to bottom, and that is because their narrative for being a good mum comes from the media. If your seven-year-old has Nike trainers and an Adidas jumper that makes you a good mum. It permeates people – you are defined by the brands you wear.

Subtext: "The working woman has fuelled consumerism and the culture of consumerism with its obsession with brand names - these are shallow values of empty consumerism.  These morally empty values have filtered through to the next generation, instead of moral values that would help bring about social cohesion and social stability that would secure the future of the nation."

"As a young leftwinger I never thought I would see the point of school uniform, but you get less of that pressure to have this designer brand or the other. There is something wrong when the average child knows 300 or 400 brand names before the age of 11. It is terrible the way children's lives are saturated by materialism."

Subtext: "I was a leftwing feminist but now I am an older and wiser as well as a mother who has a son whose future I care about.  I now see the destruction that feminism has wreaked on British society.  Duty now compels me to speak out.  At least I dare to speak on controversial matters, unlike the current leader of the Labour Party who has distinguished himself only by his lack of courage and imagination in the role.  It is after all my duty as a politician, to raise important issues that would otherwise not be discussed by cowardly politicians who prefer to avoid controversy."