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...

"Ime the younger/ childless feminists dont even register childcare/ childbirth/ breastfeeding/ maternity leave and pay/ pregnancy discrimination at work/ unequal distribition of housework/ single motherhood/ cits to family benefits/ post split custody disputes/ pnd as feminist issues."

Absolutely true, I certainly wasn't aware of these issues until they happened to me / my friends / I read about them on here.

That is something that impresses me so much about some of our younger feminist friends who don't have children when they know about this stuff, understand the issues, and speak so fluently about them. (Thinking some of the women on here).

We should AW! God knows, I've got a lot of advice on how flexible working does (and doesn't) work. There is a lot about rights that could be shared - I think a lot of the time women don't think about what they are entitled to until they are actually pregnant (I know I didn't) and so all that might be useful. I would be happy to do a talk. I think it's really important (although not v exciting)

Evening all, I'm completely new to Mumsnet and thought Feminism might be the place to start as I've been lurking for a while but have only just got round to joining

I was at FEM 11 on Saturday, starting to feel like one of the in-between feminists now because although I am 'young' (27) I am now pregnant with my first child and so really aware of all the issues surrounding motherhood, which I agree aren't so evident among the 'new generation'. I went to the UK Feminista Summer School in 2010 were there were a lot of 'baby activists' and the main concerns were objectification, porn, body image, lad's mags etc. I talked to a woman at the time who had felt that issues around motherhood and parenting in general were not very well represented and I wondered if there would be any focus this year. That's really not very good to hear about the creche, Belle; I hope you get decent feedback from them about it.

I enjoyed the day; went to the SBS session on migration and cohesion in the morning, which was very good albeit packed (had to sit on the floor; should have asked for a seat tbh). In the afternoon I had wanted to go to the session on including men because I wanted to experience it due to the fact these sessions always seem to cause controversy. It was full, however, so I ended up in the one about women in politics working across parties to effect change, which was okay (was feeling a bit ill at that point).

Panel-wise, I wasn't fussed by Zoe Williams; found there was something a bit 'off' about her. Carlene Firmin was excellent, Sandi T had her ups and downs as others have already mentioned. Anti-Porn Men men - again not fussed, thought the one in the afternoon panel didn't seem very well prepared which always bugs me about panelists in any situation.

The difference I have noticed between the generations at this event and others I've been to is that those aged 50+ are much, much more negative about involving men in the movement, whereas for a lot of the younger generation (20s), this seems to be a crucial point. I was sitting next to some retired women on Saturday and they were really not happy about having men tell them things. There is also the divide on porn/lapdancing etc, which I see people have mentioned.

Welcome to MN, ballroompink :)

welcome, BRP

and congrats on your pregnancy

Hi all. I'm a MN newbie. I was at F11 - the statement Bea Campbell wanted to write was about the Levenson Inquiry into the behaviour of the press which Shami Chakrabarti is on the panel for. In response to a question from the woman (running this campaign : www.facebook.com/#!/turnyourbackonpage3 )
about the glamourisation of sexual violence in the press
Shami suggested people send in images (that have a negative impact on women's equality) to the inquiry to be used as evidence and considered. I wonder if it would be worth following the idea of that statement up?

Welcome, BallroomPink and FoodUnit

:o

welcome, FoodUnit

Hiya!

Rilla - I think I saw you at the Abortion Rights workshop as well, if you were near the door and had what looked to be a VERY tiny baby in the sling? :) I imagine what the woman who spoke to you may have been thinking of was the way that you constantly get this "as a mother" crap from anti-abortionists, as if anti-choicers have the monopoly on the views of mothers. Women are frequently told that the only reason to be pro-abortion is if you're a hard-faced cow who doesn't want a child to disrupt her supposedly champagne lifestyle, and this is a stereotype that you were (by your very presence, with baby) actively counteracting. Does that make any sense?

I was there with some other ELFs, and it was lovely to meet so many of you - even if it was rather brief due to a combination of poor phone reception and certain ELF mumsnetters plying me with alcohol. Ahem.

Totally agree with the earlier comments about the Abortion session - but I was really was amazed that it was so popular, and mostly full of young women. The woman running it mentioned that young girls in the US are more anti-abortion than previous generations, and I sort of thought the same thing was happening here, so it was encouraging to see what looked like teenagers and women in their twenties, as well as older women.

I got talking to some other women there (including a mother and daughter) about the struggle to drag other female family members along to the conference, which was quite funny - all of us shaking our heads over the fact that our sister/mother/daughter/Aunty Pam couldn't be persuaded to come.

Hi all

Elephants, isn't there some stat that shows quite a high percentage of women who have abortions are already mothers? I'd have been annoyed too.

It didn't occur to me until it was mentioned here that there wasn't anything about issues around motherhood. I'm not a mum and am unlikely to be one, but I agree it's integral to a woman's experience of life (even a childless/childfree one in terms of attitudes etc) and it should have been covered.

Do you think (sweeping generalisation alert) that its absence reflects perhaps a lack of mothers in the people who organised the conference?

If women on this board want to run a session I'd happily support in whatever way I could.

BRB I ended up in the same session as you in the pm for the same reason. After a big lunch I was a bit sleepy...

I was at Fem11 too, with ELF - sadly I had to rush straight off afterwards, was sorry not to meet more of you guys.

I definitely agree with the comments on Sandi's speech - the first part was great but I was actually quite annoyed with all the female/male female brain stuff. I'm going to write to her about it, I think.

The session I went to in the morning, which I don't think anyone else has mentioned, was the End Violence Against Women workshop, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. The main focus was the media, both how the media encourages a culture in which VAWG can flourish, and how we can use media to combat this. The session was absolutely packed - people were standing in the corridor outside - but we still managed to get a good discussion going on things in the media that have pissed us off, what the impact of technology has been, how we can empower young people to deal with all these harmful images, etc. They also showed us a video they'd made about stopping rape, which you can watch

We also brainstormed for feminist ways to create change using media - the one thing that really stuck in my head was about FB. I brought up the subject of those women-hating pages - the ones like 'it's not rape if she doesn't wake up' - and how, no matter how much you complain to FB, they leave them up. Apparently the thing to do is to complain to the advertisers that appear on those pages as this will get them taken down straight away. Definitely worth remembering.

Hurrah!

At least Bea Campbell didn't convert you all into satan/witch-hunters.

By that criteria the event was a genuine success!

I had mixed feelings at FEM11 - I always enjoy being surrounded by women who think equality is important. But at the same time I felt a bit homeless because I would like to push beyond equality and towards more acknowledgement and appreciation of unique female qualities and strangely the feminist arena does not seem to be the right place for that.
I will be writing more about this topic on my blog at sepalia.com. If any of you feel similar ... please get in touch! It would be nice to build a community around 'beyond equality'.

Yes I'm more on the 'valuing difference' spectrum of feminism than the 'equality' side. Doesn't mean we're not all good feminists though.

What gets to me sometimes is that people expect feminists to all agree with each other when no one expects that of all socialists/liberals .