Anyone going to Feminism in London?

[LauraMipsum]

The programme is up on the website

filia.org.uk

14 - 15 October 2017 at the IOE.

It was lovely to meet you too omnishambles - and thanks for the film recommendation!

I thought Cordelia Fine and Claire Heuchan were both excellent, as was Sophie Walker, although I won't be rejoining WEP.

Karen Ingala Smith was brilliant too and she gave me a lot to think about. We sloped off after that as we were knackered. DS got a lot more out of it than I had expected - the children's workshops were really well done.

I didn't know you provided the pombears Laura - thank you :)

I never made it! What a shame.
I am listening to the International Feminism panel. So many inspirational activists.

I didn't know that in Spain anti DV group of women went on a hunger strike this year again!
www.womenbeing.co.uk/2017/04/madrid-women-hunger-strike/

sorry I didn't meet any of you all - I was there though from early Sat to late Sunday - just so busy. Both days I took lunch as brief moments of quite and solitude.

My head is still in a whirl.

Highlights for me were:
Claire Heuchan , sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/
Stella Dadzie,
Dr Kathleen Richardson & Melissa Farley on Sex Robots campaignagainstsexrobots.org/
The Changing Face of Patriarchy talk

And Grizelda Grootboom who is a courageous and unfathomably brave sex trade/sex trafficking survivor and possibly the most wonderful orator I may ever been privileged to hear. Check out her story in her book- EXIT.

yes - sex robots and Grizelda Grootboom were my highlights of the afternoon on Sunday

so much to take in!

here's from Saturday the 14th of October the transcript of Claire Heuchan's keynotes address - Interracial Solidarity in the Feminist Movement:
sisteroutrider.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/interracial-solidarity-in-the-feminist-movement-filia2017/

Grizelda Grootboom on Tweeter:
twitter.com/home_hope

^ I was initially hesitant to share this speech, as I can no longer think of interracial solidarity between women of colour and white women as a viable project. However, out of commitment to feminist documentation and the women who requested it be made public, I have decided to post the transcript.

Writers and theorists who remain immobile, closed to any shift in perspective, ultimately have little to offer. Perhaps in the future I will return to advocating interracial movement building. Perhaps not. Either way, this transcript is an outline of the thoughts I held on the matter.^

Has she changed her views in the last 4 days? I found her speech quite enlightening.

Italic fail - the first 2 paragraphs were quoting from Sister Outrider’s blog

I really enjoyed her speech too. I don't know what happened to change her views.

I think she is (justifiably) angry about Rose McGowan saying that if you replaced women with the N word, people would be up in arms eg that there is no cross-over between BME people and women. McGowan followed up by tweeting a really lame apology saying that she was a bit stoned when she made the initial tweet.

Whether anything else has happened to make her completely despair I don't know. It was an excellent speech though and really made me think (and I know I've been guilty of doing what McGowan has done in the past too)

Maybe I’m being really thick but how is the “if replacing the word ‘woman’ with ‘black person’ makes a statement unacceptable (racist) then yes it is likely sexist” suggestion, that Rose McGowan in no way came up with as it’s been said by many many people, how is that equating to saying there is no cross over between BME people and women? That just doesn’t seem to follow logically. Isn’t it saying that people are better at noticing racism than sexism? Or is that racist in itself, because people really aren’t?

Anyway, I am adding suggestions from her reading list on the website to learn more.

I’ve done a bit of browsing on twitter and it seems there were some racist remarks at FiLiA on a panel about body image, resulting in Claire Heuchan (Sister Outrider) and others in the audience leaving. FiLiA have distanced themselves as well saying the panellist was independent. Was anyone at that session?

Guilty here too Millicent and thanks for pointing that out - lesson leaned.

I've used the "insert black people or gay people instead of women into that sentance" device before to try and get a point across when people refuse to see offence. Well intended but yes, some people are black women, and some people are gay women, and some people are gay black women - they get it from every level.

I do try to understand these issues, and I hold my hands up and say that sometimes I don't quite "get it" - but what I do then is have faith that the black people telling me something is offensive is enough, and i accept their word for it. And I keep trying to get it.

Alot of this stuff is really complicated. it took me some time (and help from MN feminists) to understand the whole gender/sex thing - but now I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on it. It takes some work and some time.

I wasn't at that session Felix

I haven't seen it. I only went to abortion rights, international activism, women in Russian revolution, sex robots and so on - they seem revolutionary from the outside but I think everyone agreed with speakers and all comments were on the same page with Chairs and guests.

I do get that if you are a member of the priveliged class, you need to listen and believe when the less priveliged say that something you have said/done is offensive. I drives me bonkers when men say “but I didn’t mean to be sexist”. Doesn’t matter what you meant, you bloody were. And so as white feminists we should listen and not deny the experiences of BME women.

I’ll go and read more about this Rose McGowan incident and how it offended.

Please do forgive me for jumping in after the event (I didn't go), but was there any trouble either within the conference or outside from trans activists?

The subject was officially ignored, Annie.

I got to meet the fabulous TalkingInTheDark and VaginaFetishist. And there were some amazing speakers.

I didn’t see any panels/discussions on trans issues. I think Mayday had a stall outside, I didn’t have time to stop properly and look, there were quite a few people talking there though. I didn’t see any evidence of any trans activist protest at all.

I think the point is that if you make women an either/or with black people then you obliterate black women. McGowan didn't have a lightbulb moment (like I did when this was first pointed out to me), she brushed off the challenge.

I wasn't at the body image workshop so no idea what happened there

Ohhhh, ok. I didn’t interpret it as an either/or situation, because clearly it isn’t (as in clearly people can be both female and black). I can see if that is how it is perceived then it is massively offensive. I feel horribly close to men claiming they need to be told they’re being sexist.

On Saturday afternoon there was session called 'flaunting fearlessness'
FLAUNTING FEARLESSNESS
Can we reclaim the body positivity movement before it tries to shame us?
A panel of 4 speakers discuss what body positivity means to them, cultural conditioning within the current media body positivity movement, and if the want to change your body is a feminist journey to undertake.
Anti-Shame Week founders will host a workshop to discuss and explore how body shaming changes with age, race, health and body shape.
Speakers: Ellie Richardson, Kiran Gandhi (via Skype), Hilary Farnworth, and Sarah Beckett

A friend of a friend attended because she has been a part of some activist group for ages and wanted to see what those women had to say. Bear in mind that Claire had given the above keynote address only a couple of hours earlier. The panel was (according to my friend) ok, and she had gone to see what the CEO of Birdsong had to say about their commitment to not airbrushing and using 'normal' models etc, anyway, the panel was all a bit odd apparently, There were two young women who kept going on about women just getting personal trainers and everything will be fine and the chair didn't really say much but...

At some point, one of the panel said that incontinence wasn't a feminist issue, which raised some eyebrows, but then one of the PTs said something ill-judged about how white girls are judged on their hair and Claire (who was there) asked a question along the lines of 'how can you say that only white girls are judged on their hair'. Instead of taking two minutes to apologise or back off or whatever, they kind of ignored her. Then they ignored her friends, then anyone who raised the point.

campaignagainstsexrobots.org/2017/10/17/campaign-against-sex-robots-at-filia2017-why-we-must-ban-sex-dolls-robots-in-the-form-of-women-girls/

There were a few inappropriate people there, then. I've heard that someone on one of the stalls called Sheila Jeffreys (lesbian feminist icon) an "old cis woman."

I know she probably didn't realise who she was talking to. But anyone calling another woman 'cis' at a feminist conference should have her mouth washed out with soap and have to write "Women have XX chromosomes and vulvas" 100 times.

I couldn't agree more Empress!

I find the ageism as offensive as the use of "cis". So what if she's old! It doesn't bloody matter.

YY re cis & old.

Re sex robots campaign I have just received a reading list from Kathleen Richardson in advance of the first meet up (in London) to discuss. I signed up @ FiLiA. I won't be able to attend the meetings sadly, but I will keep up with the reading.

You can join the reading group by emailing them - contact on the webpage: campaignagainstsexrobots.org/associates/

Yes, it's all rude.