WPUK launch new wider based campaign - but contrarily only to their immediate followers.

The usual format at WPUK events gives about half the time for contributions from the audience. Meetings are only possible by working with local organisers, who often set up (or have already set up) local groups.

WPUK are socialist feminists. I'm entirely sure every founding member is interested in austerity's impact on women. But WPUK is a campaign group with a specific focus, which it's, well, focusing on!

I don't necessarily agree a hundred percent with everything WPUK says and does (deplatforming Posie, for example) but I don't have to.

As I said previously, I think we need lots of groups of women focusing on slightly different things. That way we can drill down and achieve results. And we can all support all or some or move in and out as suits each one of us.

I'm with BadgertheBodger. I think those demands look good. I'm hoping to get to the London meeting if I can sort out childcare. I went to the one in London last year and was totally inspired. The atmosphere was electrifying.
I just don't buy the gripes about WPUK not speaking out against austerity, or being too close to the labour party, or being woke....I see no evidence of that at all. From where I'm standing it looks like a bunch of bloody inspirational, lefty, working women deciding that enough is enough and starting a movement.
Hats off to them.

I think sometimes very active people can forget exactly how daunting it is for new people to take the first step and get involved. Just attending a feminist meeting can be a big deal, especially in the current climate.

I think there is room for a wide range of gender critical/women's rights groups, all coming from different perspectives. So long as none claim single authority status, all is well.

This. Lots of groups, catering to different-although-overlapping-constituencies, is a feature not a bug.

First-time poster here, but if any of you want to become more involved with real life activism there are ReSister groups popping up all over the UK. Many of us are fed up of being passive about these issues and are ready to take more direct action, surrounded by sisters who feel the same way.

If you want to learn more, search 'ReSister' on Twitter. It should bring up all the branches, so you can find the one nearest you.

I think there is room for a wide range of gender critical/women's rights groups, all coming from different perspectives. So long as none claim single authority status, all is well.

WPUK have been clear that they don't intend - at this stage, anyway - to become a membership organisation: womansplaceuk.org/funding/

AFAIK the three co-founders all have full-time jobs which means they are organising events etc. squeezed around work commitments (no doubt caring commitments too). In that respect, it's astonishing what they've pulled off in the space of just over a year. It's raising awareness of the GRA reforms and enabled other women to take action themselves.

I've worked for membership organisations and they take a huge amount of time and energy to run, let alone start from scratch.

Maybe WPUK will go that way in the fullness of time although I wonder whether the ReSisters movement (if we can call it that) might be the way in which women come together on a more geographic basis.

I honestly think those of us who want to get involved need to get offline and start meeting IRL, given that the platforms we've become reliant on to inform ourselves are shutting us down. (Not Mumsnet btw! It remains one bastion of free speech.)

I don't want to comment on WPUK specifically, but I do agree with you more broadly OP with respect to 'talking heads' events that ask for scant feedback 'from the floor' and no real workshopping not being true to radical feminism (as I remember it in the 80s).

Wasn't WPUK formed only in the last few years by a group of women sitting around a kitchen table saying we've got to do something?

Sounds like a grassroots organisation to me.

I also wonder how familiar the OP is with Mumsnet to talk about the hive mind regarding top down organisations. Op must have missed the criticisms of Stonewall as a non-member top down organisation, the worries about the professionalisation of various charities where they start to be run by people who have no direct experience of the issue but instead follow theory.

And that's without mentioning the campaigns that have originated with Mumsnet users on a variety of issues over the years and more recently in this section the Man Friday campaign.

Sorry, it just strikes me as an odd critique to make about Mumsnet users.

Two points: considering how messed up the situation of meetings last year, perhaps WPUK is quite rational to be a bit cautious (i’m not invited which is fine. I can get to next to nothing anyhoo).
The Tory thing: considering they are the ones in Govt, quite rational to be pissed off with and focus on them. They need to stop screwing women over. Lets give Labour a kick when they come to power, because I strongly doubt they like women any more than the Tories.

Badgerthebodger is right. There's a massive growth in women organising and meeting and it's disappointing to see someone criticise a group that have been at the forefront of challenging what is happening.

Hopefully the OP has lots of examples to share of their own practical contributions in creating local based feminist groups?

If going to meetings has the same level of impact as an evening out, not as a link to political activism, it just turns feminism into an event to be consumed.

I disagree with this. Its a very easy way to put people off attending before they have dared to dip a toe in the water.

• I’m NOT suggesting we mindlessly follow

I think if you think the “hive mind” of Mumsnet doesn’t know anything about forming local groups and grassroots politics then you are wrong. There is room in feminism for us all. Picking apart another groups organisation and aims is not productive or supportive - after all, we’re all fighting the same fight aren’t we? I’m suggesting we mindlessly follow and never question, but WPUK did absolute sterling work last year holding meetings around the country and generally getting the word out. Their campaigning has evolved. So what? If you don’t like it, do something different

SpartacusAutisticusAHF while I appreciate that you feel the use of this slogan is appropriation because you are so very familiar with it from disability rights campaigns, as a non-native speaker of English I'm rather taken aback by that. It's been a slogan across Europe, first in Latin, then in various European languages for hundreds of years and if anything it was appropriated by English speaking people.

But such slogans outside of any commercial context do not properly belong to single people or groups, we share them with each other. If any group, like WPUK, finds it useful, it has the same right to use it as James Charlton had when he brought this to the disability rights campaign.

And this is an effective slogan. Which is why it was used almost concurrently with the disability rights campaign also by those advocating for rights for those affected by HIV and for at least a decade or so (that's what I found with a cursory Google search just now) by groups campaigning for rights for sex workers and by groups raising awareness about male violence against women and girls (in the English-speaking world, like I said it's been prevalent across Europe for much longer than that).

Why the negativity? Hope 2019 isn't the year we descend into infighting. I can't see what the problem is with the demands.

You aren't derailing! You commented on something you felt strongly about, that may well be an issue for other people. It was worth saying!

Do contact them, they should know if people might be unhappy about the use of the slogan.

I guess it feels like it would if another group started using 'the personal is political'.

I can see what you mean! Unfortunately, I think it's inevitable that when a slogan is adaptable it will be used in multiple situations. Would it help to think about the women with disabilities who are affected by both issues? For them it works on two fronts.

I'm not sure if it is appropriation. It is associated with the disability rights movement in the UK and US, but in Poland it's associated with the Solidarity movement. I think it has been used by various marginalised groups simply as a way of demanding they have some input into decisions made about them and it does have a very long history. Thinking about it, it's not dissimilar to 'no taxation without representation', which has also been used in other contexts.

I'm sorry if you feel it's been appropriated though - maybe contact the WPUK and let them know it might be seen as insensitive.