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?

'just organised the largest feminist mobilisation in the UK in over a decade' my absolute arse.

It seems to me they've probably derailed what could have been a genuine grassroots movement of huge numbers of women quietly but firmly saying 'enough is enough' and working on practical solutions for tackling violence against women. SU's appropriation of the event is just going to give men a new stick to beat us with. Totally counterproductive- if improving women's lives was ever their aim.

No-one on here is the least bit surprised at you supporting and defending Sisters Uncut jj1968, why would we be, your posting history shows exactly what you think of women and how ready you are to dismiss and disparage them.

It's really the least surprising thing that I've seen today.

@MsGrumpytrousers

As people have said, there are some good comments on the Reclaim These Streets threads and the admins seem to be doing an okay job. So it doesn't look as though Sisters Uncut owns them or is able to dictate to them. But jesus, what a mess.

On that subject, has anyone else seen some photos of Patsy Stevenson being held by police but not in a mask where it suddenly becomes very obvious that they've been posed? I found myself last night at paranoid o'clock wondering if the ones all over the newspapers (where she's masked) had been posed too. Easy enough to don a hi-vis jacket and mask and look like a policeman. They're very tidy and very clear. Just the police and the one red-haired woman, who's now boasting on twitter about having 'gone viral' - and once again, Sarah Everard's name has disappeared from the narrative.

Btw it's Ms – not Mrs! Gah! Don't make my trousers more grumpy!

I know the guy who took the picture of her with the mask on looking straight into the camera is a very experienced long standing press photographer so highly doubt that it was staged. No idea about the one without the mask....

@ErrolTheDragon

'just organised the largest feminist mobilisation in the UK in over a decade' my absolute arse.

It seems to me they've probably derailed what could have been a genuine grassroots movement of huge numbers of women quietly but firmly saying 'enough is enough' and working on practical solutions for tackling violence against women. SU's appropriation of the event is just going to give men a new stick to beat us with. Totally counterproductive- if improving women's lives was ever their aim.

I doubt improving women's lives was their aim. It hasn't been their aim any other time they've tried to dominate and subvert events organised by women. It's laughable they're pretending they organised a mass mobilisation. They are a bunch of charlatans who are trying to use a woman's death to raise their own profile; to grab funds and to undermine a genuine grassroots desire for change. Whenever I think Sisters Uncut can't be any more despicable, they drop the bar even lower.

I'm not telling anyone how to do anything. I'm defending a group which just organised the largest feminist mobilisation in the UK in over a decade because some people seem intent on destroying them

Haha! No they haven't. This board is the largest feminist mobilisation there is.

Which is why everyone now knows about SU and their defence of male rapists and paedophiles. Including The Times, MPs, and the House of Lords.

Any organisation that supports a twenty year old 6 foot male punching a sixty year old women in the face and would defend the rights of male rapists of women and children to serve their sentences in female prisons , have no right to appropriate the word feminist. How dare they!

I'm defending a group which just organised the largest feminist mobilisation in the UK in over a decade because some people seem intent on destroying them.

Are you saying Reclaim These Streets and Sisters Uncut are the same organisation? I don't recall SU being involved in organising the vigil, applying for permission, taking the Metropolitan Police to court after they denied permission (and winning their case), for which they raised funds in record time. That was all done by RTS.

No one mentioned SU until after they made their appearance at the vigil, but maybe I missed all their organising beforehand?

mobile.twitter.com/ReclaimTS/status/1371118504531922944

Quite a few people on this thread demanding the funds raised by RtS be handed over to SU.
Also info on how to get a refund for anyone who wants to.

Christ, Owen Jones is retweeting them now - that's right, Owen 'I'm so compassionate and kind unlike everyone who disagrees with me who is a rabid right wing bigot' Jones appears to be endorsing a group who have form for physically preventing women meeting up, defending a male who is on camera punching a woman in the face, and who want to pay 'tribute' to male child rapists.

I'm embarrassed for him.

I'd hardly call them wreckers.

Well how about entryists?
But considering wrecking was perhaps better translated from the Russian as, "to undermine" perhaps wreckers is right after all.

I think you are giving them slightly more credit than there deserve there! It was a vigil for a murdered female (you know one of those ones who have 'cis privilege') that Sisters Uncut joined in on.

I was talking about the demo last night.

I was talking about the demo last night.

The one that included honouring male paedophile rapists, we know jj, we know.

@Datun

I'm not telling anyone how to do anything. I'm defending a group which just organised the largest feminist mobilisation in the UK in over a decade because some people seem intent on destroying them

Haha! No they haven't. This board is the largest feminist mobilisation there is.

Which is why everyone now knows about SU and their defence of male rapists and paedophiles. Including The Times, MPs, and the House of Lords.

Excellent point datun

You know you're part of a feminist movement when you come under constant attack from aggrieved males.

I am absolutely not transphobic, nor do I condone Sarah's vigil becoming a protest. But what Sister's uncut had was an excellent opportunity to raise awareness for gendered crime and assault in a peaceful way, constructively telling all women how to stay safe and all men how to not murder/assault us. But they are completely radicalised and took anger that isn't theres to express to ruin a rememberance service for a victim.

What was planned to be a mass gathering of mourners to pay their respects to someone they related to in some way was ruined by ridiculous people claiming they know what's best. No man is going to listen to us and take on board what we're saying if they're all being labelled as racists by some ridiculous people claiming to be 'sisters'. If sisters uncut want me to be their sister I'm disowning myself. They've now put non-cis women in more danger than they were in before, and they and cis women are bearing the brunt of men's anger.

I think you are giving them slightly more credit than there deserve there! It was a vigil for a murdered female (you know one of those ones who have 'cis privilege') that Sisters Uncut joined in on.

I was talking about the demo last night.

How many women there knew that they were supporting a group who support male punching women in the face and allowing male rapists to serve sentence in female prisons?

It has been fascinating learning about SU-a truly grotesque organisation who care more about the rights of male rapists, then women. I'm also concerned about ACAB (all cops are bastards) appearing at supposedly women centred demos atm. These are not our friends....

Please don't use "cxx" it is an insult to women. We are not a sub group of our own sex!

I really appreciate this thread. I only joined Mumsnet for this board just before the deadline for the GRA consultation so it is useful to have this kind of information. Sister uncut are clearly focused on people not women. They are delusional if they think they encouraged people to attend Clapham Common, women were always going to attend.

Moreover, if you mean women who are non gender conforming i.e transmen , just use transmen.

This board is the largest feminist mobilisation there is.

Abso-bloody-lutely.

Over the past three years it's been so energising to see so many angry, determined feminists gathering together. The women's conference in February last year brought together nearly 1,000 women, and it was organised in the space of a few months. This board has played a huge part in that.

A friend posted about the vigil on FB and a couple of us commented that the ACAB and SU crew should not have been there.
They replied with "I see no sign of SU"
with a picture of their banner

Sometimes I despair

There were several anti-austerity campaigns which named themselves uncut following the successful UKUncut protests against corporate tax dodgers

I do know that - I'm not stupid. But I'm always interested in the words people use - words have connotations.

And for those who are reminded of SWP shennangins - Yes! I remember at university my women-only feminist discussion group (back in the late 1970s so yes, just women) was regularly disrupted by a SWP member who would interject into any discussion, however irrelevant her comments were, that women would never be liberated until the proletariat were free.

Now I"m always up for a bit of Marx & Engels, but you know, even in 1978 we could see how women were treated in Russia, China, or Poland ...

Ah the SWP. As a student in the 80s they were still a load of argumentative idiots back then. They didnt seem to be for much but they certainly knew what they didn't like. Boy did they let everyone know...

You know you're part of a feminist movement when you come under constant attack from aggrieved males.

Exactly. Who are women hating males supporting exactly? And who are they targeting?

Apologies to those frustrated by those of us who are catching up. For myself, I am really grateful that there's one place on the internet where I can reliably find out this stuff. If it helps, I'm taking what I'm learning here and going out and fighting the good fight with it.

The person posting about Sisters Uncut on the Reclaim the Streets FB page has just made a huge personal attack 'outing' me as a GC feminist (the horror, the horror) and, usefully, quoting a lot of non-facts and bogus statistics that – thanks to other feminists like you all here – I've been able to refute with links to reputable sources. If you'd like to join in, or just see what the other side say (nothing you haven't read before, I'm sure, but for newbies), it's here:
www.facebook.com/groups/282187170119807/permalink/284116069926917/

On that topic, I do agree that going over old ground is tiring. And we have the same discussions over and over again. I've been thinking about what I could do, with the skills I have. What I've seen even in my brief time on Mumsnet is fantastic responses and brilliant summaries and great solutions. And there's great stuff on Twitter too (and I got suspended for the first time today and realised it's only a matter of time before I lose my account). My skill is in collating information and building usable websites.

So would it be useful to set up a website to store all these responses to FAQs and refutations of common tropes and also to collate good information sources? I'm already losing track of census data and crime figures and YouGov polls on self-ID.... I did think about a feminist wikli (because the domain feministwiki.org.uk was available) - but then I found that feministwiki.org is already up and running. So back to the first idea: a resource for getting up to speed, and for having discussions, basically. Might that be a useful resource?

(Obvs, copyright issues to be looked into but I'm just putting a toe in here.)