Who‘s coming to FiLIA?

Terrorism isn't politics.

Terrorism is random bombings, death, injury, opposition to open debate. It's an attempt to change the route of politics through violence either aimed at unarmed civilians, or using those civilians as a shield.

Any organisation that knowingly invites a blatant supporter of terrorism to what is meant to be a conference would instantly lose my support. Any organisation that fails to do due diligence on a speaker should be brought up short and told to reconsider its policies.

The rules around charities are rightly very strict. If Filia wants charity status, it has to deserve it.

I think it would be impossible for Filia to be pure enough to please everybody. There are a very few voices shouting on social media about how terrible it was and that they will never attend again. Hopefully Filia will listen to those voices and consider if they need to change anything for next year.

The important thing is that this is huge conference, literally thousands of women who come together to discuss all kinds of things. These thousands of women will go away more knowledgeable, more inspired , and some of them will do things that really change things for women.

I find it sad that some feminists seem to want to destroy Filia - with that amount of people of course there will be some with problematic views, there is at least one incident at the party every year, there is at least one incident of women walking out in protest every year. But to want to end the whole thing because of the actions / views of a few? Do you really want to hurt a few women so badly that you want to bring down the whole conference?

Yes@lanadelgrey& @IamSarahI was at FiLiA from 11 on Friday and I agree all you have said.

I hope to see you all again in Blackpool next year.

@IamSarah it wasn’t though and continued to be a problem over the weekend. That has been well documented.

Unfortunately I think this would be like asking speakers to avoid gender ideology because it sparks division and causes fights. Isreal Gaza is very topical, many women and girls have been affected and continue to be. Feminists will inevitably have strong feelings. FiLiA should be a place where those views can be aired and debated respectfully.

What actually happened couldn’t have been foreseen and was swiftly dealt with by organisers.

I think that is repulsive behaviour. Disagree all you want. Run your own conference. Please don’t report organisations to the charity commission because you disagree on politics. The world needs filia

I am glad Filia is being reported to the Charity Commission for platforming a terrorist supporter from the USA. They either failed in their due diligence or they knowingly invited a terrorist supporter to speak at their conference.

They managed to do due diligence when they refused to let Virago have a place to display their art because they didn’t like the tiny representation of KJK.

I was at the whole conference from Friday lunchtime onwards.

The stall with the photos of hijabs on - the hijabs were gone by the time I got there Friday lunchtime. Her stall was near the Free Betty Lachgar stall which had a nearly life size cut out of Betty in her Allah is lesbian t-shirt, and opposite the National Secular Society stall. The stalls were definitely not pro-religion!

I attended the solidarity for Jewish women sessions and I was really heartened by them.

At the party I saw a woman throw a drink on Lucy Masoud who then threw a drink back. The first woman I think was then thrown out, if she wasn't she should have been.

And all of this was peripheral to some really, really excellent speakers and sessions.

The pro Hamas chants and intolerance for those opposing women raising a divisive issue unrelated to feminism that will only cause discord at the conference puts me off going to Filia events in the future. all speakers should have been told to avoid Israel Gaza as a topic as it doesn’t change anyone’s minds and just causes fights

This is heartening.
https://x.com/nicolelampert/status/1977146340736905424?t=Maxf7s8PeVIdzPNohDng3w&s=19

Amazingly powerful event this evening with @bindelj @HWistrich @HeidiBachram @FreyaVanadiss @lubafein and others in Brighton discussing the silence of the feminists post Oct 7 and how the concept of ‘believe her’ was turned on its head.
We were hoping we might get about 70 people - we ended up with 250 (a maximum for the space) with a long waiting list.
It was an important reminder to the Jews in the room that we do have allies who see Jewish women as humans, who understand the fight against Islamism (especially for women) and most of all, a reminder to some at the main @FiLiA_charity conference:
RAPE IS NOT RESISTANCE
Lovely to see so many friends there too.

(pS I’m on the BBC 1 show Sunday Morning Live about 10.30).

So no consequences for the woman who threw the drink (a friend of mine was there and saw this) presumably because she’s one of the core soc fems who are entrenched in the organisation.

I’ve been to 3 FILIA conferences but I can’t see me going again.

For what it’s worth, the atmosphere at the conference was not as sinister as the comments of those who weren’t there would suggest. The incident at the party appears to have been very brief - I was at the party and wasn’t aware of it until I saw people talking about it on Twitter afterwards!

But… I think FiLiA needs to expressly dissociate itself from those Hamas supporters. I can only assume they didn’t research them properly. I’m pretty shocked tbh, I saw them both there and they looked like butter wouldn’t melt…

To be fair, they’re too self obsessed and patting themselves on the back for their vandalism to notice from what I’ve seen.

Except they didn't chuck out the perpetrators.

This whole thing is hideous and shameful. It was bad enough when they had male security staff physically remove a woman from the party in Portsmouth, and then refused entry to her friends the next day. But this is worse.

This is Filia statement. So there was a fight?
I find the whole thing disgraceful.

x.com/K_IngalaSmith/status/1977455528025444845?t=phiHrOEAah-1GqBH3NIgzg&s=19

Blackpool

Gaza City or Kabul would be on trend.

Blackpool

Also from Aja:
https://x.com/AjaTheEmpress/status/1977413570104013085

In 1930’s Germany antisemitism took root the strongest in academia (and whatever the 1930s version of the lanyard classes was) before filtering through society.

Has it been announced yet where FILIA is next year?

Well. Won't the TRA's just be chortling about this.

And that tiny minority had a significant impact on many women, unfortunately.

Thank you for the IAmSarah part of this morning though. That was one of the positive events.