Sisters Uncut

[PegasusReturns]

Sisters uncut who are said to be a driving force in turning last nights gathering from a vigil to a protest are now protesting on behalf of “women murdered by the state”.

Two of these “women” are rapists who brutalised children.

How can anyone be ok with this?

There's an interview with Patsy Stevenson either from late Saturday or possibly on Sunday. I can't find the link on Twitter, someone else may have it, but in it she talks about protecting transwomen and fails to mention Sarah Everard once. That tells you all you need to know.

It was going to be a Nationally - if not internationally - covered event. A good audience. Good strategy.

@toffeebutterpopcorn

Why does her colour matter? I’ve seen people in SM try to make this a kit colour. I don’t get it - are we not all women battling the same sexism?

You'd need to listen for the context.

One point was that obviously there's history of racism from the police in the past and unfair treatment and so feelings in some communities were running high. They mentioned many were there to also remember the murders of two sisters killed last year while walking home too. But it's that photo that's made the pages.

It's worth listening to the discussion, many different things brought up.

But it's that photo that's made the pages. photo of patsy I mean.

I'm sort of adding to Toffee's post.

They're very striking and visually emotive images of course. Especially ones where she's looking into the camera.

Thanks for the pic CaveMum

I'm not a huge Twitter fan but it's interesting how social media seem to have picked up on this way quicker than the mainstream, who look slow and flat footed this morning.

I've had a quick look at their website, but can't see the stuff about being anti police and anti prisons. Can someone point me to it so I can read. I really don't want people to think this group represents me and would like some come back.

@FemaleAndLearning

I've had a quick look at their website, but can't see the stuff about being anti police and anti prisons. Can someone point me to it so I can read. I really don't want people to think this group represents me and would like some come back.

Have a look at their Twitter feed. The picture in the OP shows that they believe the police/state are killing women in prison.

I saw it all unfold on Twitter on the day. The organisers of the vigil posted that the event was cancelled and for people to respect the decision and to do a candlelight vigil from home instead. Sisters uncut immediately took this as a call to arms with “we will not be silenced by the police” agenda. They posted for women to attend, not to carry id in case of arrest, to quote their rights to protest when confronted by police etc. I also watched the live stream of the vigil and it was peaceful and social distanced for the first hour with very little police presence, then it got more crowded, the chants got more one sided and police stopped more people from joining.. this is where this “kettling” happened that people are talking about. The police then started telling people to go home, this resulted in „we will not be moved“ chants and women holding on to the railings refusing to leave. Including the lady who was featured in the press lying on the floor in handcuffs

Some background on Sisters Uncut from a few years back:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3172250-Sisters-Uncut

Why do they still have an account? Supporting paedophilia is obviously illegal and against twitter rules.

@PegasusReturns

On the plus side the majority of comments seem to be calling them out on it

People are calling them out when they realise what they stand for. But thousands and thousands of women don’t know. 21,000 donated to reclaim these streets/ sisters uncut. They turned up to protests at Scotland Yard and parliament square on behalf of at least two male rapists who killed them selves.

Almost 9000 people liked a photo of their protest yesterday

Probably not far off 2000 women turned out in response to their call to protest outside Scotland Yard last night as well. They do not seem unpopular with younger feminists, quite the opposite, this looks like the biggest street movement against male violence in a very long time.

it's interesting how social media seem to have picked up on this way quicker than the mainstream, who look slow and flat footed this morning.

The mainstream know they have to stick to established facts. This is so incendiary that repeating misinformation could cause significant damage to a medial outlet. But the facts look hard to establish since the first hand stories and stories coming from images and videos are all over the place.

[quote IheartJKR]@TheRabbitOfCaerbannog

Thank you for that link - I’m doing a research project in carceral feminism atm and am looking forward to reading that later. [/quote]
Anti-carceral feminism largely came from Black Feminism, namely the work of Angela Davies amongst others and groups like Incite: incite-national.org/

@PferdeMerde

Why do they still have an account? Supporting paedophilia is obviously illegal and against twitter rules.

Twitter allow MAPs (minor attracted people, or pedophiles as I prefer to call them) to post openly on twitter, including advertising the ages of the children they are attracted to.

Is it still against male violence, jj?

I'd suggest that demonstrations such as the one in Parliament Square are multiplicitous, with agents motivated by multiple concerns.

I'd suggest quite a few people were there to protest against police action, the new Bill going through Parliament right now, etc.

That's a shift away from the initial vigil.

One reason - and only one - for the vigil was an awareness that, despite all claims to progress in the arena of women's rights - and a concomitant implicit narrative that we are 'done' with the need to place women's lives front and forward, in an un-hyphenated way - when it comes down to the reality of women's rights at the most brutal level, we really are not 'done'. Not done at all.

I'd suggest that what has happened, what is happening right now, is a pushing of the knowledge & resulting protest - by women - of the fact that women are a group who are harmed as women by male power into the background again.

It's subsuming the particularity of that knowledge/protest. And making that insight part of a hyphenated catch-all once again.

So I do wonder about how great this will be in the long-term.

Are women's voices front and forward in that Parliament Square protest?

Is male violence really front and forward?

Or is it a weird, hyphenated dissent?

Is it, in fact, co-optation of women's anger?

Co-optation and then siphoning off of that anger, energy, etc in other directions, for other causes?

That, I think, is a kind of theft.

@Nelia5

I saw it all unfold on Twitter on the day. The organisers of the vigil posted that the event was cancelled and for people to respect the decision and to do a candlelight vigil from home instead. Sisters uncut immediately took this as a call to arms with “we will not be silenced by the police” agenda. They posted for women to attend, not to carry id in case of arrest, to quote their rights to protest when confronted by police etc. I also watched the live stream of the vigil and it was peaceful and social distanced for the first hour with very little police presence, then it got more crowded, the chants got more one sided and police stopped more people from joining.. this is where this “kettling” happened that people are talking about. The police then started telling people to go home, this resulted in „we will not be moved“ chants and women holding on to the railings refusing to leave. Including the lady who was featured in the press lying on the floor in handcuffs

Yes a few of my neighbours went and their account is similar. They are quite upset about it. It started peaceful, and about Sarah, but turned into something else that felt very unsafe.

Clearly the police handled it terribly. But there's that video with a hell of a lot of men together fighting the police (also men). Why were they there? Were they all supporting partners but then bunched together?

I hope someone is able to report on this with nuance. Yes the police are misogynist. We've been saying that on FWR for years. But seriously, who thinks that releasing sex offenders & defunding the police will be a good idea? Privileged fools who pay no attention to women's stories or global politics, and the people who manage to retain power whatever the situation is. Men.

Is anyone else here in the Reclaim These Streets Facebook group? It's got about 12K members. I've been posting and messaging their admin because an admin's pinned post refers to Sarah Everard's murderer as the policeman rather than saying he's on suspicion, and that's exactly the kind of thing that could jeopardise the court case.

There's activity from Sisters Uncut on there and yesterday evening, weird posts from someone called Kell Farshéa.

First there was this one:
"can we agree that if the Brave Sister's Uncut arrestees are charged - the money raised in todays £320,000 donation fund, after legal costs incurred by RtS, will go to provide legal & social support to those women and pay any legal costs and fines they incur
and if they get custodials that rent, bills and financial responsibilities they have will also be paid out of that fund
(edit: And women in other cities who held vigils like liverpool where vigil organisers were told they would be fined £30,000 and told "you dont have rights anymore")
because those women put their necks on the line, stood up to the plate, were arrested, aggressively, by police men whose colleague in The Met killed Sarah Everard
And this is a moment where we, as women (and our allies) should stand together & look after our own."

Then people (incl me) started asking what the agenda was, whether this person was a member of SU or not (they were claiming not to be while referring to them as 'we' which seemed a bit of a giveaway), and some other difficult questions, this was one of their answers:

"well reclaim-these- streets bottled out on their "demo" and no one else stepped up the plate
so when Sisters Uncut did - knowing they might be arrested by violent police officers, and colleagues of the alleged killer of sarah everad, i would say thats brave.
And if sister uncut had not stepped in there would have been No vigil at all. Just police stopping anyone from laying flowers
they didn't hijack it
they enabled it to happen
and if you were able to go and pay your respects to sarah its because brave women held the space for you with their bodies
without sisters uncut there would have been no demo, for you or anyone to attend, or complain about
if anyone is hijacking this it you & those like you who want there to have been a magically created demo that was banned by the police but not enabled by the sisters uncut, a fsiry ring where women could lay flowers in spite of likely arrest by the police, where people who have campaigned for 5 years against police violence towards women are the bad guys and a non existent invisible organising group created a fictional demo which the police stood back and respected and everyone went home feeling spiritually healed
but next time the police ban a demo over something you feel passionate about - feel free to step on and put your liberty online and spend days being called acab blm hikackers and watch whilst the group that suggested the demo in the first place have hoovered up £500,000K with no accountability, structure, plans but a twitter account, Facebook page and all your donations
And ask yourself
why not give money to people to enabled a vigil for sarah to go ahead when the alternative was women being told, yet again, by the police, to stay at home after dark and light a candle instead of being outside reclaiming the streets"

So yes, they're totally trying to hijack this. And to claim credit for the vigil happening - I find that SO insulting to the women there. And if thy are in fact a group of men then that would make perfect sense - "We organised it because those stupid women couldn't do it on their own."

The sheer incoherence of it is also disconcerting and almost looks deliberate...

Feeling sickened by all of this.

(Oh, and I've had a Tweet reported (one of my less incendiary ones just pointing out that in the UK fewer transwomen have been murdered than have been murderers) so am suspended. Has anyone here got any advice about whether it's better to appeal, or just delete it? Could you contact me direct, or would it be at all useful to start a post? I couldn't find an existing one.)

The mainstream know they have to stick to established facts. This is so incendiary that repeating misinformation could cause significant damage to a medial outlet. But the facts look hard to establish since the first hand stories and stories coming from images and videos are all over the place.
Yes good point about the pesky factchecking . But the story is running away from them (mainstream media) and I would have thought that Sister's Uncut have been around long enough and have enough history for them to pause and at least ask one or two questions.

Probably not far off 2000 women turned out in response to their call to protest outside Scotland Yard last night as well. They do not seem unpopular with younger feminists, quite the opposite, this looks like the biggest street movement against male violence in a very long time.

I wonder how they feel about lying down in protest, in honour of males who hurt women and girls? I wonder if they even knew.

That's really interesting, MrsGrumpyTrousers.

Who is running Reclaim These Streets?

Who?

But seriously, who thinks that releasing sex offenders & defunding the police will be a good idea?

Curious isn't it .

"Black lives matter" -> "release sex offenders & defund the police" (not a terribly popular view among black people)

"Women's lives matter" -> "release sex offenders & defund the police" (not a terribly popular view among women).

You could almost get the impression a male criminal element that doesn't like the police much was infiltrating genuine protest.

quite the opposite, this looks like the biggest street movement against male violence in a very long time.

Against male violence? Why are they lying down and paying respect to rapists and paedophiles then? (mentioned back in this thread).

he signatories to this letter are interesting and demonstrate fascinating alliances between SU GWS and other grousp
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201030013424/peacenews.info/node/8883/‘these-leaflets-are-form-violence-you-must-stop’" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20201030013424/peacenews.info/node/8883/‘these-leaflets-are-form-violence-you-must-stop’

This “toolkit” (so many disturbing “toolkits” around) appears to have been captured as far back as 2016. Sisters Uncut and the Crossroads Women’s Centre are credited as speakers. Apologies if this has been posted before. Just good to have everything in one place.

text reads:

"Gendered Violence in Activist Communities
The Salvage Research Project explored the lived experiences of harm, violence and abuse experienced by women, non-binary and transgender individuals in radical activist communities in the UK. This event will mark the launch of the final report and toolkit with a panel discussion of the key findings and implications for action and social justice.
Background

Recent cases of high-profile male activists accused of perpetuating violence against women activists have highlighted a persistent culture of sexism and exclusionary practices within social justice movements.

Alternatives to the criminal justice system, such as safer spaces policies and community accountability processes, have been the subject of controversy and debate. However little is currently known about the contexts and complexities in which both harms and alternative interventions take place."

source: (scroll down for the fascinating speakers list)
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210315110257/projectsalvage.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/final-report-toolkit-launch-event-weds-21-september-centre-for-crime-and-justice-studies/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20210315110257/projectsalvage.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/final-report-toolkit-launch-event-weds-21-september-centre-for-crime-and-justice-studies/

The subject of the event and toolkit is very important, however it appears to have been captured.

Many twisty rabbit holes can be found in the curates egg of links to the right of the page, many leading to the Crossroads Women’s Centre / Global Women’s Strike and related front organisations.

that's it from me for today