Women's Equality Network Wales silence a black Muslim woman survivor of FGM from hustings

[Shedbuilder]

A black Muslim woman, a survivor of FGM, asked a polite and perfectly reasonable question at the Women's Equality Network online hustings this morning. In the Chat/ Comments facility available to all during the Zoom event, she asked what the candidates would say to a woman like her who is concerned about the fact that all the political parties in Wales seem intent on ending sex-based protection.

She was ejected from the event. She's still waiting to be told why.

This is a publicly-funded women's equality organisation.

wenwales.org.uk

Bloody hell. There are days when I think it can't get any worse, any more obvious...then something like this happens.

How utterly horrific. I hope she goes to the press, like a Jackie Weaver type awareness exercise.

Just awful.

Wow. That is absolutely appalling 😡

That is just terrible.

This is when you know that the other side have no arguments and no concept of the damage they are doing.

Racism and misogyny from WEN Wales, what a stunningly good look.

We'll I think she got the answer to her question. They've absolutely nothing to say to her because they don't care. It keeps getting worse, it'll all come to a head at some point but it's the damage that's done in the meantime that's really a cause for concern.

This is a publicly-funded women's equality organisation.

Also a registered charity.

Women’s Equality Network (WEN) Wales registered in England and Wales. Charity number: 1145706

And yet again, we see that racism is okay if the correct, self-styled progressive people do it in pursuit of suppressing "transphobia".

There is a clear pecking order to whose issues count, and black women are down the bottom, way below white transwomen.

So a woman was ejected from a Welsh women's equality charity hustings on Wednesday (Chwarae-Teg - publicly funded) for asking about gender stereotypes and self-id, and today a Muslim women was ejected from the Women's Equality Network for the same reason.

Unbelievable.

This is a bit of a problem with these Zoom meetings, I think. It's easy to shut people down without much hassle.

This doesn't surprise me. I live in Wales and publicly funded, policy creating 'women's' groups, like Chwarae Teg are totally captured by the 'gender not sex' idea. Chwarae Teg called women 'haters' on their public twitter page when people questioned their approach research on the lives of young girls, when girls were not defined by their sex.

Which is astonishing when all the data they gather and write about shows how clearly that the disadvantage women face is due to their sex class.

In all their material I have never seen them mount any theory or evidence based justification for this approach. We are just expected to accept this is the way it is now. And not think about what that means or question the logical inconsistencies.

In all their material I have never seen them mount any theory or evidence based justification for this approach. We are just expected to accept this is the way it is now. And not think about what that means or question the logical inconsistencies.

YY. There isn't a lot of critical thinking going on.

Just need to make it clear that in neither case were the two women involved participating in the meeting. They were watching and responding in the chat section to points made by the speakers and both were perfectly polite and totally — in the context of women's rights and equality — perfectly justified. I don't know yet whether WEN accused today's questioner of divisiveness and mentioned inclusivity, as Chwarae Teg did the other day. I suspect that chucking a woman out of a meeting on the grounds of inclusivity hasn't gone down well.

These organisations need to be scrapped and new ones, run by real women-centred feminists, created to replace them.

That’s an utter disgrace.

They have to eject people as they can't answer the questions in any coherent way.

They know that males who tranisition have not and do not experience the world in the same way women do. They know this as they gather the data on women's experiences of the world. They have no coherent framework or evidence to justify the position they take. That is why they need to just stop listening and talking to people questioning their position.

I remember seeing a programme where young fascists from different countries were introduced to each other. One was more articulate and intelligent than the others. They were all holocaust deniers. They were introduced to an elderly holocaust survivor. The more articulate one talked very briefly to this man before walking away from him. He had to walk away. He couldn't cope with reality and evidence so he had to walk from it to maintain his position. Its the same here. If
WEN and Chwarae Teg had a strong and coherent and credible defence of their position they would be prepared to defend it., But they don't.

ah the right side of history....

beeeekiiiiiiind only ever goes one way

Well as a charity, they're not doing very well. Seems like a complaint to them is required; swifty followed up by one to charity commission...

forms.charitycommission.gov.uk/raising-concerns/

So a question about the legal rights women already have is enough to get you ejected from a meeting run by a publicly funded charitable organisation? If I have that right, the institutional capture is terrifying.

A complaint to the charity commission seems in order.

When is it ever going to stop? So angry. I see someone has posted a question on twitter to WEN Wales but as yet no reply. twitter.com/IssillyJ/status/1385575043065913345

And the Race Alliance Wales has thanked WEN Wales for being able to attend.

I like how we GCs get accused of white supremacy (even those of us who aren't white ) and yet TRAs pull stuff like this where it's clear they don't care at all about women of colour, at least where women's and trans right intersect.

That’s an utter disgrace

While it's obviously awful, I also think it's a real blessing that the WEP continue to make their stance on sex-based protections crystal-clear ahead of elections.

And I'm also very grateful to the brilliant women publicly challenging them on this issue and shining a light on their inability to protect women - without their bravery, it would be natural to assume that the WEP stood for women's rights.

That's disgusting. Some women arevmore equal than others.

I was going to mention the 'undercurrent' of racism that is apparent from incidents like this. But it appears to be much more than an undercurrent - it's unashamedly overt.

I was going to mention the 'undercurrent' of racism that is apparent from incidents like this. But it appears to be much more than an undercurrent - it's unashamedly overt.

It really is. How on earth did we get to this place.

These organisations need to be scrapped and new ones, run by real women-centred feminists, created to replace them.

That is the only answer. When women are abused for daring to question a new dogma, when an FGM survivor is thrown out of a supposed ‘women’s equality’ meeting — you can’t reform an organisation that has been corrupted to its core.

they don't care at all about women of colour, at least where women's and trans right intersect.

There are times when 'intersect' seems as if it should be replaced with 'collide with the full impact of a pedestrian v. juggernaut' (I shall leave the identity of the juggernaut as an exercise for the reader's own preferences or known context).