This Morning got a little tense as Ashley James schooled Gyles Brandreth on being ‘woke’ during a chat about Penny Mordaunt banning certain phrases.
New hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shepherd opened the chat explaining that the 51-year-old MP had reportedly banned ‘woke language’ at Whitehall.
Gyles, 76, began to share a story about his nurse friend who said a London hospital had said mothers ‘must use the term chestfeeding’ instead of breastfeeding.
At this Cat pulled a face as Ashley said her ‘eyes could not roll back further into the back of my head’ at the comment.
‘Firstly that’s not true,’ she shut down the former Tory MP, ‘that’s like the tabloids trying whip up —’
At this point Gyles interrupted the 37-year-old Made in Chelsea star and said: ‘Well hold on, I can produce the person who told me that in this building.’
Ignoring his comments, Ashley said: ‘I’m still breastfeeding and I gave birth in the last year, in a London hospital.’
Continuing to talk over her, Gyles said he had ‘checked’ with the producers that he could make the comment and was told to go ahead as it could be ‘verified’.
Looking slightly frustrated, Ashley explained the guidelines which she was aware of regarding breastfeeding and ‘wokeness’ around parents.
‘If you’re dealing with a trans person, use the term chestfeeding as it’s more inclusive,’ the mum-of-two shared. ‘No one’s trying to ban the word breastfeeding.’
She continued: ‘I think this is what our government are currently doing, they’re stoking culture wars. The term woke actually does mean being alert to social injustice.
‘That can only be a good thing. Bear in mind, we know that currently government has over 50 MPs under investigation for sexual harassment, they would benefit from wokeness.’
Ashley advocated for more diverse MPs, including female, disabled, and people of colour taking on these roles to work towards a less divided country.
Returning to ‘woke’ she added: ‘I feel like this term has been weaponised, just like the term “snowflake”. Actually it’s the people who seem to fear wokeness that are the snowflakes because they’re getting offended by words.
‘All it is doing is trying to tempt for society to care about and consider people’s feelings and to attempt for society to be more equal.’
She used the example of the word ‘parent’ instead of ‘mum and dad’ when speaking about caregivers as it’s ‘pretty harmless’ but means households outside of this traditional view will be included.
Ashley explained the term ‘doesn’t take away’ from mother but widens out the language to not make assumptions about situations.
‘I’m a breastfeeding mum,’ the presenter said. ‘Nobody has ever told me chestfeeding. I’ve got trans friends and none of them were offended.’
‘Wokeness is not the reason public services are crumbling it’s just a nothing story.’
Her eloquent take down of Gyles’ claims have been widely praised online as people celebrated someone on national TV ‘finally speaking up’ against ‘fear-mongering’.
On X, Louis Staples wrote: ‘The way they were all rolling their eyes and she had them looking shameful and embarrassed by the end.’
‘FINALLY someone used the term correctly and challenged the fear mongering media,’ added user s_hussain_1999.
L Kirwan Ashman praised: ‘Oh this is brilliant. so simple, so succinct. Shows how instantly this culture war bullshit crumbles when you apply a crumb of common sense, reason & basic perspective.’
‘I’ve seen so many transphobic conversations recently, that this is such a breath of fresh air on mainstream tv. An eloquent response about ‘wokeness’ that is actually thought through,’ shared Drag Race star Le Fil.
Jake Hagan concluded: ‘No one one is taking away your words or erasing you, they’re creating alternatives for the minority.’
The clip has gone viral as the findings of the Cass Review are made public, after four years of research into under 18s gender health care.
The findings have concluded children had been ‘let down’ thus far by a failure to base gender care on evidence-based research.
Metro.co.uk has reached out to ITV for comment.
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