The current FILIA discourse discussion

For me, the issue is not where your sympathies primarily lie upon the conflict but that the organisers allowed - indeed, facilitated - their own views to the detriment of many women. With 1000 + conference attendees, they should have done due diligence. It began with the keynote and spiralled into a physical confrontation at the disco.

FiLIA lost control of their own conference, failed to apologise to women who were harmed, and now I see that they instructed someone to speak to Aja beforehand to effectively keep her in line. That's TRA type surveillance.

Sisterhood and solidarity only if you think like them and behave in pre-approved ways.

I would think any ongoing conflicts that affect women are fair game for advocacy by women's rights groups. The idea its anti semitic to be concerned about the persecution of women & their families in Gaza & the West Bank is just meant to censor criticism of the Israeli government that weaponises antisemitism to do so.

Was it about speakers who were concerned about human rights violations in Gaza or was it about speakers who openly support terrorists and defend their deliberate, premeditated, strategic, systematic rape murder and kidnapping as a regrettable but justifiable part of the "resistance"? Because in my experience it's usually the latter.

Not sure why anyone would care what is said on twitter. If you are why not join their discussion.

The point about FiLia is not the rights or wrongs of either side or those in the middle, but that one of the organising group having been delegated to start off the conference decided to use being on the platform / having the mike to make a statement reflecting her personal politics.

So first an foremost she undermined the women she was working with.

Secondly as a suppose feminist she chose not to behave in a collaborative way.

Thirdly opened up the conference to ridicule.

FiLia has hardly been seen as having any real politics and has gone for a sort of feminism as a consumer event.

This has left the more daffy original organisers open to being manipulated by more wiley political professionals.

No idea why anyone wants to rehash an old event.

Not sure feminism seems to have got sucked into the quagmire of online commenting about other online commenting.

IMO!

I was at that conference although not at the party. I saw some issues, but with 1,000 conference delegates, it was not dominating the conference as it proceeded - but maybe I didn't see it. I'm just an ordinary member, not one of the "stars" or recognisable delegates.

And I've always said this: the women's liberation movement is a grass roots movement - it can't offer a single voice on ANY issues, bar the defence of women's rights, and centring women (altho' some aspects of the movement forget that sometimes when they misuses the term 'intersectionality.')

I'm prepared to give FILIA the benfit of the doubt - the volunteers who run it, and the office holders work extraordinarily hard. THe FiLIA conference is an extraordinary experience of female community & solidarity - just by being in a large hall wth a thousand other women! Of course, we won't all agree on everything.