FemiFest

[FloraFox]

www.femifest2014.com

Anyone going? I'm thinking about it.

I have never mistaken a very butch woman for a Trans person. And in terms of this conference, it is women we are talking about.

I just wanted to reassure any woman who looks "masculine" or "butch", that you will not have any issue if you want to attend FemiFest.

I think it just comes down to manners. There would be no way to 'police' an event intended just for lesbian women in order to prevent heterosexual women from attending. I would just expect heterosexual women to respect lesbians' space. Similarly, I'm sure some trans women could attend this conference without being noticed. It would just be rude of them to do so.

I think it would be rude yes. The women attending would have a reasonable expectation that they were among other FAAB women only and may interact differently because of this.

I would consider it rude if I attended a lesbian event, however interesting the speakers, because I am not a lesbian. It would still be rude even if nobody noticed.

Of course it would be rude. It would be dishonourable - it would violate the honour code of that community. This is not an idea specific to feminists. Plenty of places have an honour code or trust system predicated upon a collective but ultimately unenforceable pledge to follow a set of rules.

Well it sounds really interesting to me!

I know there's no creche, but could I bring an exclusively breastfeeding baby?

Do you think that would happen? Do you just think transwomen are out to cause trouble and block discussion of things? Or is that just an impression you've got.

Well, you asked a straight question, that merits a straight answer. I do think that some transwomen would attend with the intention of forcing a specific agenda and would police language and terminology to eradicate any discussion which implies that certain physical charactaristics are part of what being a woman is. I think Thor because I've seen it on a few blogs.

God, this phone is harder than the iPhone to type on.

Yeah, the spellcheck is substituting normal words for almost any other possibility, the stupider the better.

The thing is, I can understand why a transwomen might do that. That's a priority for lots of them, I guess, so why wouldn't they want it on the agenda? But I look at the whole shared girlhood mess, and it does appear that there are transwomen who are very determined to block that kind of discussion. And it seems to me that some with those views are the same who will turn up at conferences to assert their right to attend and that the discussion is moderated along specific lines.

There are other conferences, meetings etc etc every year about DV, rape, prostitution etc to which trans people of every possible stripe would be welcomed, and in fact, radfems implicitly barred. Why is it such a huge problem for women to want a couple of days discussing these things without the possibility of threatening behaviour from transactivists?

The more important question here is not 'why can't transpeople come to an event organised by radfem UK' but 'what the hell is so scary about women wanting their own spaces, even for a few hours over a couple of days, that makes transpeople and MRAwankers want to stop them doing it?'

TeWiSavesTheDay - Of course you can bring your baby. And I have seen other women at radical feminist events with babies.

Many of the topics being discussed aren't suitable for children to hear, but obviously this is not an issue with a baby.

And I know that the Nottingham Women's Conference, although not a radical feminist conference, does have a creche.

Hey, I have a question (I don't know very much about all this beyond my readings of the last few weeks): Do radical feminists protest, sabotage, and blockade trans conferences and festivals? (Been reading about the Michfest and others.)

Does it ever happen?

Anyway, reading that fword link just now and yeah, this is the position -I think it's the mainstream position of feminism (?) - that led me to believe I was not a feminist and that feminism was not useful to me or women I know: "Feminists more than anybody else should know that being a woman is not about socially constructed gender roles ... If 'woman' can (or should) be defined, it is by subconscious gender, that part of your id which knows who you are and would still know if you were a brain in a jar."

I can't see how that position and the project of dismantling gender can be resolved. They are fundamentally opposed, aren't they? (Also, it means I'm not a woman, so it doesn't seem very useful in terms of understanding how society works and why things happen to me and other people who I previously thought were women.)

But.... being a woman whatever the fuck that means IS determined by society to have a well defined series of parameters. My understanding is that, under patriarchy, choice is almost impossible. No one has any real idea of what 'Being A Woman' means in any other context than that laid down by patriarchy. The only real way of defining 'woman' is through her DNA. Anything else is just the performance of patriarchal femininity.

Tanacot, I have never known about any radical feminists doing that. Radical feminists I know say they support the right of Trans people to meet by themselves.

No, I can't find any examples either. I'd like to understand why.

This is the article I was reading in the New Yorker, btw, in case anyone hasn't read it: What Is A Woman? The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism.

I asked specifically about trans festivals, but thanks!