Quote: "noted transphobe attempted to disrupt one of the panels" at FWSA UK Conference!

[stumbledin]

From twitter:

Just left @FWSAuk’s ‘Feminist Hope, Feminist Dilemmas’ conference, where a noted transphobe attempted to disrupt one of the panels. Some audience members asked for a ‘respectful dialogue’ instead of ejecting said individual.

@FWSAuk will NOT stand for hate. #FeministHope #Trans solidarity. (A full statement to follow)

twitter.com/search?q=FWSA%20UK&src=typd

(I wonder who that could have been?!)

[traceyracer]

What happened?

[Lucky222]

Julia Long & Sheila Jeffreys caused uproar & a mass walk out at the Feminist & Woman's Studies Association Conference for Julia making a comment whilst in the audience 😂 (unknown what that was.) There's all sorts of outraged snowflakes spluttering about it under twitter hashtag #FeministHope.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Most of the audience walked out, because of course feminism is mainly about supporting males who identify as women.

[BeMoreMagdalen]

Who is #FeministHope? Is she one of those extra special feminists with a penis? I hear they are the best ones.

[Barracker]

I can't help but laugh.
Room empties after being asked why men are being included in their 'feminism'.

If only it was always that easy.

On the bright side, I have now coined a new phrase for the type of 'feminism' that centres blokes and celebrates the way they 'present'.

Femininityism.

I rather like it.

[stumbledin]

I was trying to come up with some sort of clever hashtag to match #LesbiansOnChairs but couldn't think of anything.

#LesbiansClearingRooms ??

#LesbianCleanSweep ??

[Nondescriptname]

What is the matter with these people?

[BeUpStanding]

Femininityism definitely deserves to catch on

[Creepster]

I rather like FeMANism.

[ChattyLion]

FeminIsn’t

[WorkingItOutAsIGo]

What is shocking, reading some of the tweets from attendees, is how they have focused on dehumanising what they call ‘the terf’. She is not described as a person or as a woman, just as an hateful object. This is so dangerous. This is feminist women treating another woman as an object.

[SimplyTheWorst]

This is feminist women treating another woman as an object.

I think this describes just how deeply the men are in control of what they call their "feminism".

I think we just call it what it is: men's rights activism.

It isn't any kind of feminism in any way at all.

[Pota2]

The conference was organised and attended by the biggest examples of libfems you can find. It’s comical really that they talk about being radical in the academy but basically also admit they want to uphold all patriarchal values but with a side order of ‘being kind’. It’s hypocritical nonsense and it’s not feminism either. I know some of the people on the panels and they aren’t even kind, like they claim to be. Tip: if you’re going to endorse ‘radical kindness’, it’s an idea to not engage in bullying behaviour yourself.

[KatvonHostileExtremist]

One of the tweets claims Julia has links to neo nazi's.

Sigh

Hope these privileged little twerps never actually meet a real neo nazi

[Nondescriptname]

I've never heard of FWSAuk. Is it influential?

[kesstrel]

The resemblance grows every greater to religious cults: this is moral shunning.

Shunning can be the act of social rejection, or emotional distance. In a religious context, shunning is a formal decision by a denomination or a congregation to cease interaction with an individual or a group, and follows a particular set of rules. It differs from, but may be associated with, excommunication.

Social rejection occurs when a person or group deliberately avoids association with, and habitually keeps away from an individual or group. This can be a formal decision by a group, or a less formal group action which will spread to all members of the group as a form of solidarity. It is a sanction against association, often associated with religious groups and other tightly knit organizations and communities. Targets of shunning can include persons who have been labeled as apostates,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning

[TemporaryPermanent]

Ooh this is interesting.

Was the walkout a historical 'reference' to the time when Julia Long suggested men might like to leave a screening of the film Lesbiana in solidarity with women?

Which tbh I think was a bit daft.

Probably not, in that none of the tweets mention it.

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Way to fight the patriarchy.

[Inebriati]

If all you have to do is ask a basic question to make them walk away, they aren't going to get much done, are they.

[Pota2]

The tragic thing is that they think they are. They spend their time trying to work out a hierarchy of oppression, telling ‘white feminists’* to shut up, decline invitations to speak, accept their privilege etc, while completely missing the point that they are missing so many opportunities to get the message out there. Instead, they actively and enthusiastically participate in all the things that are shit and oppressive about academia but think they have done their bit by sitting in a room for a few hours, bleating on about being radically kind. Lots of sycophantic stuff about how great one of the speakers, the union leader, is. A ‘true feminist’ apparently. This is the same union leader who used twitter to bully and harass a precariously employed disabled woman at York University who had apparently misgendered Lily Madigan. The same union leader who says she will do nothing to protect female academics from being harassed and bullied for not fully buying into gender ideology.

• obvs doesn’t apply to them. If you’re white, middle class and one of the cool girls and say the right things, you can basically do everything you tell others they can’t do. That’s why they all adore Phoebe Waller-Bridge and hold her up as some sort of feminist icon despite her being white, rich and upper middle class.

[MindTheMinotaur]

Interesting, it seems that older women continued sitting in. It was only in my late 20s that women I knew started opening up about the sexual assaults and rapes that they'd experienced. It was later still when I had children and was also a carer that I really understood the impacts of the patriarchy. These young women are relatively naive and inexperienced, they have little concept of the patriarchy. Good for Julia and Sheila, standing up for females as always.

[Awaywiththepiskies]

Pota2 I suspect we know some of the same people and secret Facebook discussions ...

[Pota2]

Away I am sure we do. The ‘whisper-network’ is pretty strong with a lot of them. Typical schoolgirl bully behaviour. I think it would have been extremely difficult to have stood up to them and not walked out which is probably why only older more established women stayed.

First of all, it’s a relevant point raised by the question. How, by continually arguing that women’s issues are not important enough, because we’re not as oppressed as others seemingly are, are these people promoting feminism? Feminism is about the liberation of women, not the endorsement of whatever comes out of a woman’s mouth just because she is a woman.
Secondly, oh my god, I have heard misogynistic questions at conferences that would turn your hair white. Did anyone stand up and walk out? Did they fuck.

Some of these women are very hypocritical in that they will talk about ‘known predators’ in the academy but will collaborate with them and publish with them if it advances their own careers. They will happily apply for funding that gives them teaching buyout, ie the labour of a precarious worker. They will include MacBooks in their costing analysis in return for cutting the length of the research assistant’s contract. They make noises about ‘fuck the REF’ but aim to build their profile nonetheless. They are no better than anyone else but they act like they are.

The whole thing is quite infuriating. The performative upset on twitter about how dreadful this was and how they can’t believe how these Nazis can be allowed to exist and how it feels like literal violence. I saw someone describe it as ‘I say I am hurt, therefore I must be in the right’. So much stuff about pain and tears and nausea at hearing someone ask a question. Totally skews the balance between them and the person asking the question.

[Awaywiththepiskies]

'Twas ever thus, I think ... I remember my little corner of the women's lib movement at university in the late 70s, where people would use emotion to turn an argument.

I wonder if it's because:
we're talking about lived embodied* expierence

• we've all (even a lot of tough feminists) tended to internalise the socialisation to be "nice" - which in latter years has turned into "kind" or kindness, as you point out.
  
  No-one expects all members of other kinds of revolutionary protest movements to all be ethically and morally and personally pure
  
  Just women.
  
  I was having an interesting conversation with @DrEM on TWitter this morning about the way that non-historians keep on throwing incorrect made up facts at the early 20C suffragettes in a way that no progressive 'woke' person ever undermines the CHartists for example. I don't know if Dr EM posts here, but she's a good person to follow.
  
  Of course, my consciousness raising group in 1978 didn't involve influence on laws, regulations, or careers. NOwadays this emotive (as opposed to emotional) dynamic can do real damage.
  
  (I've been horrified to read accounts of that YAniv person's Human Rights case, or the abuse & harassment thrown at CAroline FArrell)
  
  I know Ms Farrell sometimes posts here, and I know she can't really talk about anything at the moment, but strength to you, sister. And to Dr. Louise Moody

[Karabair]

What did Julia Long say to cause the mass exodus?