How can the women's movement become so divided? Guardian article

"This event is for women, trans women and nonbinary people."

So lots of people then (sadly missed it)

www.kairos.london/event/women-and-the-climate-emergency-with-natasha-walter-trudi-warner/

Read it, rolled my eyes at the usual ignoring of the massive elephant in the room ie how do we keep women safe if men can just announce they are women and cross all the barriers designed to keep them out and moved on

she has nothing to stay whilst sat on the fence with splinters in her arse

Women’s movement in Uk has been stronger in past 10 years than decades previously. We have come together.

So I cba to spend time on reading this because it’s like where have you been?

Liberalism in the third sector creates a truly special kind of handmaiden. The metal gymnastics they must do, to square everything off in their heads, never ceases to astound me.

And for an article talking about the importance of grassroots organising, I do find it rather ironic that she couldn't 'organise' the opportunity to interview any community grassroots women directly.

Should have been a LinkedIn post.

Exactly. It's amazing how it's possible to miss the point so completely. The analogy has been made before, but if white people suddenly started identifying as black, and wanted access to all the things that black people have, and moreover, insisted that "trans black" people were more oppressed than "cis black" people, then obviously everyone would understand why black people were outraged about it.

You cannot, absolutely cannot, defend the rights of women if you allow men to be counted as women.

Debates around the place of transgender women in feminism became particularly wounding and destructive due to the outrage spiral of social media.

Debates around the place of transgender women in feminism became particularly wounding and destructive due to the outrage spiral of social media fact that 'transgender women' are men.

When I ask her what are the key concerns that women raise, Warnock tells me that unlike discussions on social media, they are solidly practical. “Women’s safety comes up all the time – women’s safety on public transport, on the streets.

But not women's safety in RCCs, DV shelters, changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards and sports. No, women don't have any concerns about that.🙄

I'm not even sure that I am a feminist, but even I can see that it isn't feminism if it centres men.

I remember doing an interview for a PhD scholarship (very informal, my supervisor to be had been my personal tutor and already something of a mentor). Towards the end of the interview (this was in 1993, for context) she asked me what I thought about the (then) newish "third wave" of feminism. Having relaxed a bit by then - and being more than a touch intellectually arrogant - I just blurted out something about it being fine for those that liked it, but it wasn't really feminism, was it? Panicked as I saw her left eyebrow head for the ceiling, then relaxed again as I noticed the beginnings of a grin she couldn't quite stifle. I still don't think anything developed after the second wave counts as feminism.

(And yes, I got the scholarship...!)

I posted on another thread a couple of days ago, wondering whether “feminism is failing because of terfs” would be the next TRA tactic. Only time will tell, but interesting timing.

I had a vague memory that Natasha Walter was quite Terfy. But looking at this article from a few months ago, she seems to be one of these women who is trying to take a middle road - which is a futile exercise, as we all know from experience:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/06/heat-floods-droughts-men-more-violent-to-women-natasha-walter-eco-feminism-world

I don't think she really gets it. Most of us who regard ourselves as feminists would much prefer to be spending our time campaigning on things like male violence, abortion rights etc, but we have had to switch our focus to defending an all-out attack on our rights by men who want to remove women's ability to define ourselves as a distinct class of people.

It became divided when it stopped centering women and started prioritising men's wishes and rights.

I can disagree with friends and comrades on many subjects, and still respect them. But feminism is about centring women’s rights. Anyone who claims to be a feminist while supporting men’s right to invade our spaces, steal our prizes etc is taking the piss.

She lost me once she'd shoehorned trans women aka men into the middle of the article. Yet another hand maiden.

I wonder what her opinion is on putting a male rapist in a women’s prison? Whose rights would she be fighting for?

It's just a tired cliche - things were better in the past and they are so much worse now.

From my point of view, the 2010s was the doldrums for feminism, not much was happening. I went on some of those demos too, but I don't see it as some kind of women's liberation golden age.

Natasha has a book to promote 🤷‍♀️

And twisting themselves in knots defending misogynistic ‘cultures’ and defending the importing of cruel and medieval restrictions on women’s lives and and pandering to inadequate males’ insistence on women wearing ‘modest’ 😡clothing.