Hello, mumsnetters!
I made an account to respond to this post, as it bears little resemblance to my experience of the WPUK session at Filia, so I thought I’d offer an alternative perspective. The title of the event was “Betrayal by the left, dangers from the right and the need for an autonomous Women’s Liberation Movement.”
The first speaker, Pragna Patel, gave an overview of the broad political situation in which we find ourselves.
From the right: “Around the world, women are under intense and sustained attacks from ascendent fascist and authoritarian forces. These forces have become emboldened by the triumph of unbridled free-market capitalism and the widening socio-economic crisis that has deepened disparities in wealth and power. They have ushered in a politics of hatred, intolerance and violence that is driven by ‘fear of the other’ and holds sway as governments themselves become complicit in, if not drivers of new forms of terror and censorship.”
The “so-called left,” she said, is dominated by “identity politics” that “descends into a form of moral absolutism in which internal critique is suppressed.” (See her whole presentation here: )
I was asked to describe some of the anti-feminist Christian nationalist organizations with whom some of our radical feminists have been collaborating, which I did through the video clip. All of these organizations were explicitly formed to roll back feminist gains of the 1960s and 1970s. Some are branching out into the UK, and WoLF and WDI USA also have UK ties, so WPUK thought it would be relevant to a UK audience. (See video of my presentation here: )
Philipa Harvey provided a much-needed discussion of women in the labour movement and how simply abandoning unions when they prove sexist, rather than fighting for change from within, dishonors the women who came before us and organized their own unions.
Working class single mum Ali Ceesay spoke about right wing politics affects women economically. “Every aspect of my life as a single mother, as a survivor, as a campaigner, is made smaller and more difficult because of the policies of a right-wing government. This is what I mean when I say I am on the left, the differences between right and left matter.”
Both Ali and Pragna spoke about the harms for women of colour of right wing politics, with Pragna saying, “If a ‘feminist’ organisation is working with the right, I am left behind. Black women are left behind.”
The session was structured to allot about half of the time to audience questions/statements (after the two 5min discussions among women in the audience.) Presenters were asked to withhold their comments until the end, when we were each allowed 3 minutes to respond to the audience and sum up our presentations. However, as someone stated above, only one person in the audience responded directly to the presentations. Jeni Harvey asked Ali about grass roots organizing.
The first person called on was Jo Brew and she gave quite a lengthy speech. Kara Dansky and Kate Graham also were allowed plenty of time to speak.
I really don’t understand why here and on twitter, some women are claiming the whole thing was a dig a KJK. SFW, the speakers corners events, and KJK were not mentioned at all. Someone claimed the discussion of Heritage Foundation was an indirect clue that this was about KJK. But my video was about 4 Council for National Policy organizations with whom some radical feminists have worked, and Wolf accepted funding from one of them, Alliance Defending Freedom, back in 2015, four years before KJK attended WoLF’s 2019 event at Heritage foundation. Not everything is about KJK!
When the rest of the videos and transcripts are published, I hope thoughtful mumsnetters will view and read them and make up their own minds. Peace out! KMA