What is in Kelvin's Head?

Women Only Train Carriages and All Women Shortlists

26/08/2015

Here’s the thing – I’ve actually been on a women only train carriage.

Just before being ordained I won a scholarship to travel to an orthodox country and went to Egypt to meet the Coptic Church. Actually, the truth is, I chose Egypt because I needed to come up with such a glittering application for the scholarship in order to win it and get some time away from my ordination training in Edinburgh. In the end, I discovered that the scholarship had only one applicant and that I could have won it and had a lovely time skipping around Greek islands instead of going to the Egyptian desert which was a much more tricky trip. However, the nature of tricky trips in countries like Egypt is that they are character forming and no mistake.

Mistake is very much what I accomplished when trying to take a ride on Cairo’s metro system however. I ran down the platform to catch a train that was just about to leave and jumped on just in time. Just in time to see about 100 female eyes swivel in my direction as the doors closed behind me and I realised that I was on a women only carriage. (The last carriage on the train was designated for women and children).

I’ll be honest and say that I’m quite enjoying Jeremy Corbyn’s ability to think outside the box. He said today he would be interested to hear what people (particularly women) thought about women only carriages as a way to safer travel.

I’m against the idea myself. I can understand anyone wanting to be able to travel in greater safety than they may feel they can currently travel. However, I think that women only carriages are the thin end of a rather destructive wedge. I can’t see that it is good for society to take policy decisions that are predicated on the idea that men are beasts and can’t help themselves. Zero tolerance to violence must be the answer I think, not purdah. The argument for women only carriages is not far from an argument for women wearing burqas. And yes, I’m aware of feminist Muslims feeling empowered by shrouding themselves from the gaze of men but no, I’m not convinced that’s a balanced, proportional or even particularly effective way of challenging sexism and male violence.

Interestingly, whilst the women only train carriages idea has caught the public imagination, I’ve become aware that a political party that I once was a candidate for is debating the introduction of women only shortlists again. And again, I’m not in favour. It seems to me that the idea that you can challenge the sexism that leads to women not being elected for things by introducing sexism against men is daft. However, it isn’t only daft, it is unlikely to succeed. And I think that because, unlike quite a lot of people in the Lib Dems these days, I’m a liberal. That means I believe in tackling root causes. The root cause of women not being elected is sexism within political parties and within society. I don’t buy the idea that sexism would disappear all of a sudden with a few more women leaders. I think that’s patronising in a number of directions. People who can’t sort out sexism in their own political party should not in my opinion be given a share in running the country. All women shortlists are not the answer to sexism. Challenging sexism is the answer to sexism. It isn’t easy but fights worth winning never are.

Incidently, I’m opposed to gay only shortlists and black and ethnic minority only shortlists too even though I often argue in favour of greater representation and visibility in both areas than we have seen hitherto.

From time to time people have a go at me about why we’ve not got any women bishops here in Scotland. They changed the rules in England and got women as bishops very quickly. We changed the rules ages ago and haven’t got one.

My answer is always the same. Which of our current bishops do my interlocutors think should be bumped off and which women do they think would be automatically elected in their place? We’ve got no vacancies for any new bishops at the moment and haven’t had many elections in recent years. There’s only been one election in which there was a female candidate and the electors chose a different candidate anyway – my current bishop. I was there at that election and don’t believe gender played any strong part in the selection. Most of the electors were bewildered that the world’s press came and camped on the cathedral doorstep and befuddled when they were told that it was because one of the candidates was female. “Really? Really?” was the common cry as people came in to vote pushing past the press ~~people~~men.

I’m often surprised that my church world is more diverse than other worlds I encounter. My congregation looks and feels a good deal more diverse than the people I encounter at the opera or theatre. It is also more diverse than the recent cohort of leaders in training that I met on Common Purpose.

7 responses to “Assisted Dying – Why I’ve changed my mind”

BobS

16/03/2026

You lucidly illustrated an example of a family seeking to pressurise someone to influence the process of death. But what was possibly missing was the voice of the person nearing death. Where was their perspective, their reasoning? Assisted Dying starts and driven by the person dying. They are the ones who, with mental capacity, take those steps, if necessary, to expedite death at that final stage. They, together with medical experts, make those decisions.
The examples cited refer to a family desperate for a skiing holiday and your concern of funeral directors making money through direct cremations.
I fully agree with your desire for a better palliative care system. Having witnessed their work it is amazing. But that is another argument. To conflate the two dismisses the voice of those seeking assisted dying.
Your concern over assisted dying seems to be interwoven by a call for improved palliative care and a demise in direct cremations.

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1. Rev Owain Jones
  
  16/03/2026
  
  Respectfully, Bob S, I think you’re overlooking the one thing that struck me very forcefully from this incident. I’ve always felt profoundly uneasy at the likelihood – I’d say ‘moral certainty’ – that the voice of the dying will in some cases be influenced, even swayed, by the dying person’s assumptions, inferences or intuitions (correct or not) about the needs of those closest to them, and even their desires. These desires might not be articulated, or even correctly guessed – but they might, and as soon as the dying person is subject to them, they are, by definition, influenced in their decision. At that point, Assisted Dying can no longer be said “to start and driven by the person dying.” I’ve been there for a long time – but what I suddenly realized reading Kelvin Holdsworth’s post, was that there’s a much darker issue here, and it relates to a fundamental principle to which I’ve always adhered. Please bear with me, and entertain for a moment an analogy which you might consider to be extreme, and which I’d be appalled to hear deployed by the religiously fanatical opponents of Assisted Dying. It’s this. I have always been opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons, but very prominent among them is that it takes to an extreme the testing of a fundamental principle of justice (which I know I’m modifyng here to make the analogy a better fit, and of course, you’re free to take issue with that): “It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent person be punished unjustly.” I’m aware that there’s a very significant separation between that and this, but I don’t believe it amounts to ‘clear blue water’. Let me try and articulate my conviction in a reasonable way, for you to consider, even if you reject it. I think that there’s a huge danger inscribed in legislation which will, of a moral certainty, permit circumstances in which unwilling dying individuals give assent under pressure to the active premature termination of their lives. This holds true even if a hundred times as many individuals assent freely, and even actively seek, such termination. One of the things that always made me uneasy about the Vulcans was the assertion that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. There seems to me to be no way in any legislation to protect the needs and rights of the few in this issue. At the very least, I think that needs to be acknowledged openly by proponents of Assisted Dying. If we’re about to be taken across a Rubicon, I believe that everyone, on both sides of the decision, need to acknowledge that. (Incidentally, I completely agree with Kevin Holdsworth’s horror (I hope I’m expressing that fairly) at ‘Direct Cremations’ and the way they’re advertised. They seem to me to be open profiteering from the death-phobic culture in which we’re immersed. I fear that the impulses behind Assisted Dying as currently advocated may be a good-faith manifestation of the inability of society to look at the full actuality of human mortality and the relationship between life and death. I may be deluding myself, but I think I’d say that even if I were an atheist.
  
  Reply
2. Val Dobson
  
  16/03/2026
  
  You are wrong to connect funeral companies’ promotion of Direct Cremation with the push for assisted dying. Nowadays, many families simply cannot afford a “proper” funeral / cremation, and funeral grants come nowhere to covering the the costs. The funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    16/03/2026
    
    I’m happy to speak out about funerals being too expensive. However, it is manifestly not the case taht funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs. If they did they would promote these as being about price. They don’t – they promote them as being about not causing a fuss, which is the point I’m making here.
    
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Nigel Kenny

16/03/2026

Thank you for your wise and persuasive words – may they influence MSPs to vote against the Bill.

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Chriatine McIntosh

16/03/2026

Thanks for this, Kelvin – I’ve been thinking more about this as contemporaries begin to vanish from this life.

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Helen Leslie

16/03/2026

Thank you Kelvin. I am someone who has spent the majority of my working life caring for people at the end of their lives. You said exactly what I would want to.

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