which groups are currently lobbying for the rights of girls and young women?

[artisanparsnips]

Or even for a wider feminist awareness?

I was struck by this, yesterday, listening to PM when they were discussing the Scottish Parliament's resolution of period products, and the person they were speaking to - and who had been attending the debate - was from Girlguiding UK. Which I thought was an odd choice. Then I thought, well who else is there?

So who else is there?

I do also have a vested interest in the question, as I am about to take my play equipment fight to the next level, and could do with some help, but have no idea where to go to get this.

I'm only aware of Fair Play for Women, A Woman's Place, Southall Black Sisters and Women's Aid (the last has lost the National Domestic Violence Helpline and related funding, (which I assume is related to their unapologetic focus around women and girls).

There's a gap in the provision her, I have to say.

here

RuffleCrow Women's aid lost the funding for the Helpline because they didn't want to go on working with Refuge. There is a long history to this, and basically Women's Aid (the federation) grew out of Women's Liberation. Refuge is a one woman show and been recently criticised for oevel of pay, treatment of staff etc..

However, they have very powerful friends, which is why they were foisted on WA in the first place.

Unfortunately WA has NOT taken a stand on women only provision.

It is regretable that so many women service providers dont use the EA to be proud women only services. But equally it is sad that so many women service providers are not connect to local women and feminist activism. Maybe if we had been more public in our support for local women's services local councils etc., wouldn't have found it so easy to just push then into the TWAW situation.

As to which groups are working for women and girls there are in fact hundreds. Funders and trustees find it easier to sell the "girl" agenda than the woman one.

Also, most of these have been captured by trans activism so probably aren't women service providers any more.

Girl Guiding being there would be a political choice. There is a deliberate policy of ignoring groups that grew out of 70s feminism, and going for older groups. Girl Guiding of course thinks its okay for boys self identifying as girls to share space with girls.

Traditionally Fawcett would be the main women's organisation standing up for women's and girls rights.

You could also look through this list of women's groups www.wrc.org.uk/help-support-services but many of them will be operating under funding restrictions. And the WRC itself, whilst claiming to be working to women's rights has never made a public statement about women only services, any more than WA or RC.

Brilliant idea for a thread. Sorry to probably echo - getting all the links has taken a while and I imagine some, or even most, of these orgs will be named already by the time I hit the post button. But you can never have too much of a wonderful thing, right?

Nia is Karen Ingala Smith's domestic abuse charity. (She heads it - it's not 'hers' - but I mean it has a clear commitment to women only spaces). They're constantly under financial threat for holding the line on single-sex provision. A standing order for just £3 a month will be topped up a bit with your taxes, if you work, and over a year that could amount to around the £40 mark. If a thousand Mumsnetters did that, just think what a difference it could make to women seeking refuge from male violence, in guaranteed single sex provision. Just from three quid a month leaving your account. Most wouldn't even notice it go.

FiLiA is Fawcett for women with self-respect. Bloody brilliant org. Their conference is in Portsmouth in October and it's scaled in cost, depending on your income. Low income/concession rates are just £20 for the weekend (they ask better off women to pay more, to support those who need the concessions). Great way to meet other women concerned to support the rights and needs of women and girls.

The Centre For Women's Justice is a dream. They tackle the law in terms of the rights and interests of women and girls in the courts - in the words of the barrister Julian Norman, "women are great at getting things done - the courts are how we can do that." Fantastic feminist organisation, and very new - only 2016. If anyone can afford even £3 a month or so, over a year that adds up and can make a big difference.

Southall Black Sisters is a human rights organisation for women. They're staunch and dedicated to the rights and needs of BAME women and girls, and have been for more than 40 years. They're staunch as fuck and always were.

Fair Play For Women have a focus on stats, law, and policy around sex and gender. They're clear, lucid, and provide a wealth of evidenced information. Lost count of the number of times I've pulled something interesting from their site, and gone off to read up more.

Woman's Place UK Really great conference, amazing names involved, their work and effectiveness is amply demonstrated by the levels of hate and rage from the misogynist dickwads, and their courage at standing up to be counted at a point in history when hardly anyone would makes them real heroines, in my book. It's organised by Labour women, but the reality is that women all across the political spectrum can find common ground on this. It's our rights - indeed, the very legal definition of what a woman is - under attack, and how you vote doesn't alter that.

Safe Schools Alliance has the slogan, "Putting Safeguarding First" which pretty much sums it up. All kids benefit from safeguarding, but girls especially, for obvious reasons. Anyone thinking teenage girls don't need separate loos from the boys never went to a mixed sex school. One rape reported to the police now for every day of the school year, which will of course just be the tip of the sexual assault and harassment iceberg. Safe Schools Alliance offers a wealth of resources, advice and support for any parents wanting to know WTF to do about the regulatory and institutional capture of our educational establishments. They're supporting the Oxfordshire Trans Toolkit Judicial Review. Really helpful to anyone wanting to talk to their child's school about the batshittery of forcing a secular religion on the whole country, on the quiet.

LGB Alliance also looks after the interests of gay men, but the erasure of same sex sexuality is primarily aimed at women, for reasons that should be obvious. LGB are not anti trans, contrary to the enraged claims. Trans people need, and have, their own orgs because their interests are not the same as LGB people's. It's therefore a bit of a puzzler that there's so much rage that they also want an org that puts their own interests ahead, in advocacy. As with women, apparently the T need their own specific groups, but nobody else may.

Standing For Women is Posie Parker's org. I know she's divisive, but anyone arguing that we'd be where we are right now without her is, I think, deluding themselves. Yeah, she'll talk to anyone who'll platform her. The left wouldn't platform gender critical views because of #NoDebate, so she had to go to those who would. The rage that she wouldn't just shut up, sit down, be a good little girl and do as she was fucking well told is nakedly misogynist. Love her or loathe her, she's Standing For Women, and I remain grateful.

If there are groups now for professional women (academics, doctors, teachers, civil servants - gulp - for example?) and someone can link them, that would be aces. If not, I hope they are started soon. There's power in numbers. They can't fire everyone. As Labour are, somewhat to their horror, discovering - there are way more of us than there are them.

Great roundup wellbehaved, I would add:

Project Nettie, aimed at scientists;
"The aim is to simply reassert the definition of biological sex. We do not extend our claims regarding biological sex beyond the scientific fact of biological sex. We do not feed into any political ideology."

projectnettie.wordpress.com

And of course the amazing Stephanie Davies-Arai at Transgender Trend;
"This site is for everyone who is concerned about the social and medical ‘transition’ of children, the introduction of ‘gender identity’ teaching into schools and new policies and legislation based on subjective ideas of ‘gender’ rather than the biological reality of sex."

www.transgendertrend.com

nia is just one of the member organisations of WAFE - women's aid federation. I think you need to distinguish between what one woman who works there says and what the project does in practice. eg Solace has a very strong record in providing a range of services to women.

ditto Southall Black Sisters - the reality is they have been providing the same services primarily to women in the Southall area, without apparently making any differenct to the way women are treated. And again as a VSC have never made a statement about women only services.

I agree that groups / indivivuals using the criminal justice system have had more impact on changes to women's rights, but it is an avenue only open to women with a certain level of priviledge. I would love to believe the trickle down theory, but as we know that doesn't work. The post war decades have shown that to not work and I suspect the same could be said of feminism.

Beware the women who are picked out of individuals, more often than not to undermine the concept of a whole movement of women making and being part of change. Too often they are the women who can work the system, rather than change it.

To me it feels like in terms of women's politics we have gone back to pre 70s feminism. A lot of groups working on women's rights eg 50:50 and so on.

And sorry to say I think FiLia is the ultimate in feminism as a consumer event. About as much political impact as WOW which has turned IWD into a money making event for middle class feminists to enjoy a buffeet feminism. (Sorry stole that phrase from someone who went to the WPUK (not a women's liberation conference in any sense whatsoever) 2020. Prepared feminism offered as tempting little bites.)

Basicallly I am saying there are any number of women's groups working in very much a top down way, where as self elected group do good turns for those less fortunate.

I dont think there are any groups working on the basis of service users being the executive.

Even Focus E15 which is probably the most radical grassroots women's group that has come into being in the past decade operates under the guidance of one branch or other of the Communist Party.

But of any group they are the one most at the front line of women experiencing the double oppression of state discrimination and sex discrimination ie homeless young mothers.

I'm wary of naming some orgs that I believe to be truly single-sex because I don't know if they're trying to fly under the radar as being so. It's a tricky one - name them as such on Mumsnet, and they will be subject to a great deal of pressure that they may not want. Solace are brilliant, yes. But Nia are vocal about being single sex, and others in the Federation aren't. I'm not really wanting to lay an org there to support women, running on a shoe string, open to mass lobbying, given the audience for Mumsnet is not universally supportive of women's rights in this matter.

I also think it's important to show support for orgs that do speak up, and to show that support financially. Because that will mean the others can risk doing so as well. Fawcett are fading while FiLiA and WPUK are thriving, and Fawcett can see that. It matters.

I'd absolutely advocate women finding out if their own nearest women's aid federation org. is single sex, if that matters to them, and showing support accordingly.

The whole point about public law is that it is trickle down, though. Law sets precedents. Maya Forstater's case is an excellent example: the higher up it goes, the more binding it becomes, and if she is, as we hope, successful, the safer women are in speaking out at work. At the first Tribunal, it binds nobody - the higher the court, the more effective the judgement. Be interested to see if he appeals that. If Oxfordshire's Trans Toolkit is deemed unlawful at JR, then my own LA, and God knows how many others, have to remove their own accordingly. If the Tavistock case succeeds, even in part, then that alters practice and affects thousands of children and young people. Same with Girl Guides. Harry Miller means the police need to tread far more lightly when silencing free speech on this. And so on.

Taking cases to court requires privilege, yes. Benefiting from other people doing so doesn't. At all. We all benefit in numerous ways all our lives from other people's court cases.

I'm sorry you don't rate FiLiA. I very, very much do. They work hard at making it affordable, and cover a huge range of issues that support women's rights at a time when those rights are under existential threat. And WPUK, likewise. You may dislike the workshops and approach, but that doesn't mean other women do. And they unite women, who make connections and form alliances, and then can go away feeling braver, less isolated, and energised to make changes for themselves. The women running these orgs do it in their own time, for nothing, in order to support women. You may prefer a more anarchic approach - I really, really don't, because I personally believe that approach by itself, in this day and age, would make for invisibility, in law and in media, and that would in turn equal powerlessness. And that's fine, that we disagree. The women's movement should have provision and space for us all. You're able to organise the sort of meeting or group or event you feel would work, and have value, too. We're going to need everyone to turn this ship, after all.

Interestingly, my own mum was a grass roots feminist in the 70s and 80s. She admires the greater organisation and reach of FiLiA and WPUK and is booked in with me for October in Portsmouth. She's a Greenham Common veteran - I can still remember playing on the floor with the other kids at her Woman's Group meetings, which alternated from house to house. The world has changed, and I don't think countering hugely organised, extremely well funded lobbyists will happen from an anarchic, organic women's movement. We need to organise and we need to unite. And I think doing so in a visible way, and educating one another en route, is the way forward, as well as more informal connections and conversations.

Be interested to see if he appeals that. - sorry, that was when Harry Miller's sentence was up there - cut and pasted it to the end and didn't take the second sentence!

Great list, Well, thanks.

I’d add
londonfeministnetwork.org.uk/ if you’re in London

Resistersunited.org - formed in 2019 to defend women’s rights, has groups around the country.

forwomen.scot/ - Scottish group opposing loss of women’s single-sex facilities in proposed changes to the law.