Women's Place UK: Filia event: the elephant ignored yet again

[pattihews]

I attended the WPUK event at Filia yesterday and came out feeling disturbed by what struck me as a very heavy-handed event designed to avoid talking about the elephant in the room. For what it's worth, I've voted Labour at every election since 1979. I imagine 90% of the audience had a similar track record.

Put briefly, we had 90 minutes of:
Feminism=socialism and if you're not a socialist you can't be a feminist and if you're not a feminist-socialist you're the enemy.
The right is sly and will lie and try to draw you in (illustrated with a video from the US about the right-wing origins of many apparently liberal groups, including the Heritage Foundation) and you must resist any temptation to get involved with them.
The way to do it is to join unions and change them from within, hold socialist women's salons to recruit and inform and get involved at grass roots level.

There were also regular warnings about racism, which seemed odd and extraneous because WPUK is all about gender ideology.

And then the penny dropped. Though her name was never mentioned, I suddenly realised that the whole tightly-managed event (no talking unless you're holding the microphone) was a warning not to fraternise with Posie Parker.

At lunchtime I encountered several other women, all of them furious about what they'd sat through. Furious in particular because of course the elephant in the room was the fact that the Labour Party, to which WPUK is loyal to death, is the biggest threat to women's rights in this country. And they'd used PP to deflect from that.

I'm not a Posie fan. Posie's clear she's not a feminist. She says things that make me cringe. I have doubts about her motivation and we wouldn't be friends in RL. But I went to one of her events when she came to my area and she can mobilise women the left will never reach and for that she's important and valuable. When I go canvassing for Labour I meet working-class as well as middle-class women who vote or have voted Conservative. They include aspirational minority ethnic women. They have their reasons, and some of them I can understand.

A woman I've never seen before and may not see again joined my table for lunch and explained why so many women were feeling really disturbed. These are TRA tactics.
The huge issue that concerns so many of us (should we vote Labour?) was avoided and we were instead lectured on how to be good socialists and feminists.

Was anyone else there? What did you make of it?

Are you distancing yourself from your posts on the Sarah Ditum thread?

It's not a criticism. It's was KJK herself says. I'm agreeing with her.

No. I still do think that letting the far right anywhere near women organising is somewhere between naive and dangerous, but I don't think this thread criticising the WPUK meeting is the place to have that discussion.

As I have said several times on this thread, I wish the audience discussions had focused on the broader issues spoken about by the panel rather than a rehash of PP/Twitter/WPUK tweet the Mail etc.

As I have said several times on this thread, I wish the audience discussions had focused on the broader issues spoken about by the panel rather than a rehash of PP/Twitter/WPUK tweet the Mail etc.
Well it just goes to show that despite all attempts to corral uppity women, we will insist on having our own will and talking about stuff that interests us.

I hate the insult Head Girls. It implies you are posh. My school certainly never had Head Girls.

Kellie-Jay might say she's not a feminist, but she is doing feminism.

She has made attempts to build bridges with the women sometimes referred to as 'head girls', but they declined.

FiLiA was attended by women from around the world and every single one I met who'd travelled here from abroad was inspired by and impressed with Kellie-Jay's work. These were established radical/lesbian/socialist feminists, lefties of the old sort.

Whose 'we' TinselAngel?

I would consider myself an uppity woman with my own free will, but seem to not be the kind included in 'we'.

Yes, I hate head girl, domesticated zombies and all the other name calling.

More divisions. More forcing people to 'take sides'.

Whose 'we' TinselAngel?
The women who disappoint you by not behaving in the way that you would like us to.

If you don't like the name-calling, maybe don't call women 'irrelevant' then.

Because she clearly isn't.

What bridges has she attempted to make? All I have seen is her pretty nasty insults to some women.

IIRC she invited some of her critics to speak at Brighton didn't she? Jean Hatchet was one, was the other Julie Bindel?

She wrote to several 'known' women, including Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock, and others, inviting them to her Brighton event, only 2 replied.

Would you really not react if you were called the hideous and often misogynistic names she's been called by women who claim to be feminists? Seriously? I don't believe you if you say you wouldn't.

I said that she is irrelevant to feminism. She says explicitly and repeatedly that she is not a feminist. Her campaigning is not relevant to feminist struggles for benefit reforms, abortion rights, affordable childcare etc

I also said that her SFW events are important for some women.

But you know that.

As I have said several times on this thread, I wish the audience discussions had focused on the broader issues spoken about by the panel rather than a rehash of PP/Twitter/WPUK tweet the Mail etc.

Of course you wish that. It would be so convenient if everyone could just forget the six week long trashing of KJK, which you participated in, now that you have decided she is 'an irrelevance.'

We are right back round to the elephant in the room, identified by the OP:

And then the penny dropped. Though her name was never mentioned, I suddenly realised that the whole tightly-managed event (no talking unless you're holding the microphone) was a warning not to fraternise with Posie Parker.

Yes, and they replied saying thanks for the invite and explaining that they were busy that weekend.

You can behave how you want TinselAngel. And I can say that I was disappointed by the discussion in response to what seemed to me to be a strong panel.

Her campaigning is not relevant to feminist struggles for benefit reforms, abortion rights, affordable childcare etc

As LangClegsInSpace said upthread, the campaigning of Transgender Trend, KPSS and Trans Widows’ Voices isn’t relevant to those struggles either. Nor that of Fair Play for Women or Safe Schools Alliance. I don’t know whether the women of those groups would call themselves feminists but are they irrelevant to feminism too?

When one of the WPUK panellists had been berating and chastising women on twitter only a couple of days before, in the aftermath of Brighton, it's a bit rich to just wave your hands and expect everybody else to move on because it's suddenly become convenient for it to be irrelevant.

You can behave how you want TinselAngel.
Good of you, thanks.

I haven't trashed KJK.

I have criticised her decisions re HoO and other right wing actors at her Brighton event and, having family in the States and seen the harm the far right have done on the back of women's groups there, I believe I'm entitled to my views and concerns, same as those who don't see a problem with this.

And that was it. I don't like the cultish feel to SFW (disclaimer that's what it looks like to me, no-one else has to agree), I think the Brighton event was ill advised and has exacerbated divisions there, but think that some of the other SFW events look quite nice and are important for some women.

I don't call contributing to one thread a six week trashing. You seem to be mixing me up with someone else.

Possibly. I don't go on Twitter much. Don't know who the panel tweet as other than WPUK and Pragna Patel, so that all passed me by.

I'm not going to doxx anybody so you'll have to take my word for it.

I thought you said she was irrelevant?

I hate the equating of 'head girl' and 'domesticated zombies' as equivalent insults.

'Head girls' are human and the insult refers to certain well-known human behaviour patterns.

'Domesticated zombies' is completely dehumanising. Zombies are no longer human.

I am dismayed that some people cannot see the difference.

her decisions re HoO

What decisions?!

Yes, good question.