For posterity - start of Women's Liberation 50th anniversary conference, transcript

What a squirming mess of pusillanimous academic numpties on display. Julie Bindel served them up on a platter as the damp squibs they are.

To invite a man to speak on behalf of a woman shows that they’re have no understanding of feminism at all and have no place organising a conference on the subject.

A major conference on feminism should not be a fucking “safe space”, particularly not a safe space, intellectually speaking at least, for men. It ought to make you cringe and cheer and burn with rage and contemplate your own socialisation with despair.

Thank you for the transcript OP - I reckon this will go down in the annals of feminism as the day a venerable university abandoned ethical scholarship to grasp at the cheap tinsel of wokedom.

Alas poor Harriet Vane.

Great work, Pom

The audience POV video is a shocker.
I would also love to know who the historian on the back row is, she was excellent. As was Julie B.

It’s quite clear from Selina’s planned speech (published on the Filia website) that it is not a ‘Thank you on behalf of the History Department’ and it would no sense for her male colleague to read a story from Selina’s mum’s childhood.
Well done to her colleague for declining (and I loved the shout out about (paraphrasing) ‘You tried to replace her with a man!’ The irony of a feminist event asking a male colleague to speak instead of his expert colleague!

Fascinating and appalling.

Thank you for the transcription.

As well as saying she was not happy about the treatment of Selina, Samira later stated very emphatically that her equal pay case was about sex discrimination and not gender discrimination.

Samira's section - did she stand up for Selina?

She briefly said something about how the situation made her feel very uncomfortable (she disapproved)

Awesome work as always pombear

Pombear’s great work sent me to Twitter, which I avoid as a rule, and I was greatly cheered by Dr Jane Clare Jones’ inspired tirade against Lola Olufemi, who seems to have been instrumental in this and who then refused to attend herself but had her execrable undergraduate word salad statement read out at the conference in her absence. mobile.twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1233770543377199105

pombear thank you so much for transcribing!

I've been out for a few hours and hoped to catch up with the livestream/rewatch the opening, but it now appears to have been made private? I would also have liked to see Samira's section - did she stand up for Selina?

Does anyone know who the unnamed historian who spoke out is?

I'm clearly being thick here
Selina is a Prof at Oxford
she writes about the history of women and their rights
the conference was in Oxford
and some women thought she should be stopped from expressing her research based views
say what ?????

Can I pass on thanks to pombear for the work that went into this. It has been widely read in another forum and greatly appreciated. The women who deplatformed Selina and accepted the nonsense reasons behind it ought to be ashamed of themselves

This is appalling.

Sorry should have made it clear that the video was filmed from the audience so it is much easier to hear what audience members are saying.

Thanks, pombear.

I am reminded of this quote almost ever day now.
Helen Saxby: Women are not just expected to be nice whilst fighting for our rights, we're expected to be nice instead of fighting for our rights.

I'm an utter newcomer to this board BUT
speed skimming that video on silent (long story)
the people at that lectern do not resonate with me in any way
they are not 'me'
so I'll stick to events where I might feel engaged

Horrifying and embarrassing in equal measure tbh

From the other thread this is a video showing the start of the conference.

And although JB was great the unnamed woman historian made a number of really good comments that is it well worth listening to.

Just so ashamed that so many women we are told we should respect as feminists chose to continue to participate in this fraudulent event.

And so sorry to any young women who went in all innocence thinking they would learn about WLM.

All they learnt was that academic rivalry is poisonous, many of the speakers who stayed are from various factions of the left so this was as much about inter left warfare (like Labour LGBTQ++++++++++ pledge) - and off course people, in this instance women, using the trans issue to make themselves important. This is about women who are handmaiden's to male approval.

The whole thing was just the very worst sort of faux event.

Complete shitshow. When you capitulate like that, it will never be enough. They should have had the courage to stand their ground.

pombear - thank you so much for this.

Thanks pombear. What an absolute cringeworthy shitshow!

I am very angry that what should have been a celebration and reflection of a momentous historical event has been disrupted by idiotic lib fems. The organisers first mistake was in not vetting speakers to find out if they had a material understanding of sex and of the oppression of women. Organisers of events like this really need to start sorting out the wheat from the chaff rather than just inviting anyone who labels themselves a feminist and setting themselves up for disaster.

So people have withdrawn from the conference. For, for reasons.

Because reasons, innit?

Thank you Pombear! This is hilarious and horrible in equal measure.

I was at Selina's workshop at the WPUK conference. She is absolutely brilliant!!!
As was the conference.

What a shambles. It’s telling where cowardice leads. What a sorry way to ‘celebrate’ feminism.

it's been surreal. Having attended the WPUK conference the other week, it's clear who the mantle of feminist theory and action has been passed to, and it's not the organisers of this conference.

They've now deleted their twitter and closed down the livestream chat.