Fem 11 de-brief thread

[EleanorRathbone]

Here it is.

The pizza was excellent. The company was great. It was great to meet up with you all. I had a whale of a time. Even though I didn't get to the workshops I wanted to because I was too busy queuing for the loo.

So what came out of it for everyone? We were discussing this a bit afterwards and what I realised, is that many of the regulars here are a lot further along on their feminist "journey" (dreadful X Factor word), than many self-identified feminists. I knew that anyway, but given that it was a feminist conference and there were what seemed to me to be feminism for starters issues coming up there, it made me realise

a) that even on the feminist spectrum, I'm on the radical end (who knew? )

and

b) there is a new generation of feminists just starting on their journey who are motivated enough even at this beginning stage, to go to a feminist conference (I wouldn't have done in my twenties). This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and optimistic. On one level, it's really great that so many women who really haven't engaged that much with the meaty issues that make you drop your cognitive dissonance and liberate you, are engaging with feminism rather than rejecting it out of hand because they're too invested in their denial to go there. That's actually good news. But I'm a glass half full kind of gal...

Hi Queen, I'm now following you on Twitter (twoheadedwoman) and SGM have added you as a friend on FB under my RL name.

Helvetica, I'm so sorry I missed you even after our texts.

I don't think I noticed a young/old divide but I suspect what experience you had with that depends on which workshops you went to. I ended up in the big hall for each so wasn't in any conversations with people up close IYSWIM so didn't really notice that.

What I did notice and you will remember me banging on about it afterwards was what eleanor talks about in the OP. At a feminism conference full of feminists I was surprised at some of the questions that got asked. And it made me wonder whether the views that I hold that I see as quite self - evident are actually quite extreme. I "found" my feminism on MN when reading what Dittany had posted about something - and I have learnt a lot and grown through posting on here. But now I realise that maybe I am a radical feminist (in the true and commonly understood meanings of the word!) even though I thought that I was very nicey sharey not extreme type thing. So on the basis of that I am going to try to pull back to where I used to be when it comes from responding on here - things that I now see are obvious weren't always obvious to me and I need to remember that. Apart from when it comes to obvious trolls

The other things I noticed were that this year seemed more "mainstream" generally than last year which was much more punching the air and felt more grass roots is that what I mean? This year felt more mainstream which is good as it means it's growing and becoming mainstream but it didn't leave me with quite such a powerful feeling afterwards.

Finally, here are my thoughts:

The rooms were really small so I did manage to get into the abortion workshop but was squished on the floor and it was desperately hot and uncomfortable. The woman leading the discussion was a new member of Abortion Rights so although she was enthusiastic, she didn't really know her stuff and a lot of the information about rights worldwide came from members of the audience. But that was good and it was really interesting learning about how women access abortion in countries where abortion is illegal (www.womenonweb.org/ is a fantastic site supporting women who desperately need access to abortions).

In the afternoon, I went to OBJECT and don't have much to add to what everyone else has said except to say that the woman who shouted that they should have invited a prostitute to speak entirely missed the point if it was about 'other people talking for me'. No one woman's experience of prostitution can sum that up. And I liked that actually they kept what they were saying very much statistically grounded. Although that stat that 25% of young women want to be pole dancers made me want to cry.

I enjoyed QT and felt very sorry for the old man - he clearly had some kind of disability (maybe Parkinson's?) and the constant heckling was really unpleasant and ageist.

Overall, I really enjoyed it - it did feel a lot like I was being spoken 'at' and I would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss some more 'advanced' topics - like the impact of pornification of culture on women's sexuality or having a session led by the wonderful Carlene Firmin on the work she has done with young women and gangs - I'm really interested in that area but it's v v complex. I googled her and found she is the youngest black woman ever to have received an MBE. How cool is that?

But really the highlight was meeting all the other FeMNists and having the opportunity to talk IRL. Could have done with more of that! And I have discovered that the wonderful knitted biscuits wash very well :o

Christ sorry - that post was like a really badly written stream of consciousness. Apologies!

Really interesting thread :) I found the conference I went to earlier in the year excellent - would love to come to another one. Unfortunately I don't think I'll even be able to do RTN because of finances :( Maybe next year!

What conference did you go to Bertie?

I enjoyed Sandi's speech and the interesting history facts, although I agree with SQ in that I actually disagree that male and female brains are so different. Maybe we should send her a copy of Delusions of Gender? We should get a commission from Cordelia Fine on this section, but it is such a good book.

I came with DS (age 2), and used the creche but they "lost" him for a good 15/20mins. Although he was back safe and sound, that really ruined the conference for me and I think it should have been more organised and secure.

OH MY GOD they lost your child for 15 mins?

Fuck me you must have been in a right state. I'm so sorry. I lost DD2 in a museum recently for 5 mins and that was bad enough.

I think you need to feed that back to them Belle, that's terrible. They need to know that this happened and stop it happening in the future.

Yes, I came to pick him up at the break. The creche worker said "some other woman took him" - cue me running the halls, trampling people, looking for him. Eventually it transpired that it was a creche worker who had taken him outside (near that lovely 6 lanes of traffic and he is a bolter) but still, didn't know where and she didn't bring him back for the longest 15mins of my life.

Somewhat dampened my enthusiasm. Maybe we can have a workshop on childcare issues at the next FEM conf?

I would feed it back, but not sure who to? There was no real organisation of the creche, most of those doing registration didn't even know where it was.

Belle that is just awful. "Some other woman took him"????? You must have been bricking it. I'm so sorry.

SWC that's an interesting point which I thought of on the day and mentioned to a few others. There was an afternoon workshop about politics and can women cross political divides and all get together to do something about it all. I couldn't get in unfortunately as it was full. But I would have loved to. I also felt that the whole thing had a very lefty / socialist feel to it (and I'm a lefty so that was fine) but I did think that for our non lefty feminist friends the whole scene would be offputting / annoying. As while I feel that at the end a lefty utopia is the only solution for women's rights and for everything really, I know this is a view that some feminists would totally disagree with. And I think that conflating lefty with feminist excludes a whole load of women who shouldn't be excluded and that is wrong. Especially as (from a cynical perspective) people who vote tory are more likely to be successful / have money and these are the people with the power IYSWIM.

Sorry that's a bit of a waffle but I felt that as well.

Someone on here said that for people whose feminism is more important than their party political affiliations, maybe they should just vote for a woman wherever they are irrespective of which party. To try and increase the number of women in parliament.

It's an interesting idea, not one I think many people could stomach (!) but interesting nonetheless.

And I'm sorry I missed you I would have liked to say hello.

Didn't someone make the point at the conference that while times were good the public sector grew and was a major employer of women with lovely flexiblw working conditions etc and so skewed the picture of how women were "getting on" and how much they were earning and so on? And that the private sector has been much slower to change their practices (if they have done so at all) and that as the public sector shrinks back this will be revealed?

I have also noticed in my work that there are lots of ambitious great women in at entry level, but they drop off at middle management and above that there just weren't any. This was more marked the "posher" (for want of a better word) the organisation I worked at. I was a financial services person. So the company I started at just outside london was pretty even and had flexitime and so on - but when I ended up in the city and canary wharf at more prestigious companies the lack of women higher up was stark.

And that's why it's so important having people like you SWC working in that environment and having feminist principles.