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?

MN FWR has been a great leveller in terms of consciousness raising & awareness for women. Especially women who don't have political or activist or feminist academic backgrounds - who are basically spread far too thin or have way too much responsibility to be more active irl. Being able to read & digest & increase awareness while on the odd quiet moment is what is so important about this place - a place that genuinely centres women & our lives & experiences. So much genuine grass roots activism has sprung from these boards. And it's not picky about which women should be allowed to participate or what rules should be followed for women to participate ignoring MN FWR rules.

The way these boards have helped fuel the push back against the erasure of women's rights (despite significant efforts to suppress & shut down the boards & the women who post here) has been something that should be lauded & appreciated. WPUK themselves have benefited significantly from the exposure they get here. Plenty of us have attended & donated to WPUK & other grassroots women's orgs & have done so not from being on Twitter or FB but here, talking with others & discussing issues that matter.

I can't remember who said it but the impression now is that MN, and women generally, are seen as a resource to use, instead of being active participants & stakeholders in what's going on in the wider world. The contributions of WPUK affiliates here shows the level of contempt for women not falling in line with their exacting rules of engagement.

MN women generally don't suffer fools gladly & the attempts to belittle, gaslight & condescend women here & elsewhere isn't a good strategy for any org depending on support, both financially & in terms of raw numbers of support to lend weight to their aims. There's now a wide range of options for women to engage with & support, as little or as much as they choose to. WPUK discernment over who they consider to be worthy of the term 'feminist' is their right & choice & I say good luck to them & leave them to their very important work. It would be decent of them to adopt a similar stance towards those who do not meet their exacting standards to be included in their endeavours. And that's really about the size of this. They don't want to hear or take on board criticism, opinions, suggestions, feedback or anything else that'll derail their own campaigns. Which again, that's their choice & they can choose to operate however they like. They won't canvass women to ask them what they think. Again, their choice.

So this place, and to an extent twitter & FB, is where women come to talk, discuss, debate, dissect, drill down & work out what all this means for us. And what we do about it. And that's not something anyone has the right to shut down. If WPUK & any other women's org thinks we're here just to be passive & uninvolved in discussions, debates, activism or anything else, they're very much mistaken. No amount of smears, sneers, put downs, gaslighting or lecturing is going to stop women talking about what they choose to. If your event fell flat & your expectation is that women won't talk about it? If your strategy to to keep repeating the same ill advised tactics to belittle & condescend? Guess what? We'll talk more about it! And we'll not sugar coat it either.

The idea that women need to Wheesht for the 'greater good', while the 'greater good' is demonstrating loud & clear how piss poor their strategy is by shitting on women who are getting shit done - that isn't going to work. At all. Women are done being told to Wheesht. That ship sailed a long time ago.

The assumption that we’re all mere keyboard warriors is pretty insulting. I’ve been active since I found out about men going into women’s prisons back in 2015. I contributed to the cost of the venue for Venice & co’s We Need to Talk event, I was in Westminster Hall when Layla Moran told everyone she could see souls & I was out in a red T-shirt for FPFW’s Hands off my rights campaign.

I’m reminded a bit of Jennifer James’s crowdfunder, where there seemed to be an assumption that MNers would all fall in behind her & do as we were told.

I used to be a Labour Party member and attended Filia. I can tell you there was a big cheer when Julie Bindel referenced Mumsnet. I didn't pick up any animosity towards women of different political wings. I saw solidarity between the women of Labour, Greens and Conservatives. I was so inspired. Labour women are appalled at what's happened to their party (I'm not sure if I can even vote for them again tbh). BUT, the vast majority of us are so happy that women of other political stripes feel as concerned as we do. I would like to hear more of their voices next year at conference.

@EmpressaurusOfWitchesBackFromTheDead My apologies for not responding to you earlier. You have my utmost respect for your involvement in the early years 1st meetings. They were absolutely pivotal for the wider movement & increased awareness IMO. I know other women were working on all of this before the increased exposure. But the catalyst for that increased exposure is IMO that meeting where Maria McLachlan was attacked. That was the 1st time a lot of women here saw & realised what we were facing. And decided to do something about it. It certainly was for me and many of the MNetters I've met through various irl activities I've engaged in.

So thank you for that. Sincerely. 🙏

Feminism has never really wrestled with it’s motherhood problem.

Yes, some of the best discussions I've seen on FWR have been about this and I think the gender ideology debate is bringing it to a head. If you're in this fight because of what's happening in your child's school then your priority is not going to be electing a Labour government and then hoping you can wrangle some concessions out of them.

Of course, Tinsel. I just meant that nobody should feel that they have to prove anything and potentially risk their job/livelihood/relationship/safety just to show the value of what women here and elsewhere are doing.

This whole shebang has forced me to examine assumptions that underlie some of the comfortable lefty narratives that I was raised with and accustomed to.

It's been eye opening, disorientating, and ultimately valuable.

I'm grateful to all the women on here that encouraged me to think critically about politics, religion, belief, and thinking itself.

I'm buggered if I'm going to slide back into lazy tribalism or purity.

Same.

No more goodies and baddies for me.

A red rosette doesn’t have any intrinsic value (and I own one!)

Well, that's your prerogative.

I did start with an apology so don't feel the need to repeat it.

Fair enough. On both points.

Where I disagree is the tone of the 'dissent and disagreement' - nothing wrong in open, constructive discussion on different perspectives on goals and how to achieve those goals. We are not a monolith, nor should we be.

But starting a thread just to have a go at others who seek to improve women's rights differently to them? How is the OP any different to those she's attacking? If the point she's making is she hates being attacked for wrongthink, accusing others of wrongthink seems a strange way to make the point.

I remain suspicious of those like the OP who do this - often posters I'm not familiar with, who seem to have just appeared to stir up arguments, preferably as bitter ones as possible.

This does not benefit me. Or women's rights. At all.

This reminds me of a genuine exchange I saw on twitter. I am only lightly paraphrasing. It was about the usual- women associating with the wrong people.

Poster 1: I think people are forgetting that parents have different priorities. When the building is on fire, you don't check the voting record of the people who come to help.

Poster 2: But what if what comes to help is a corporation that plans to flood the village and turn it into a reservoir? When other people are already making good progress putting out that fire with buckets, you can afford to turn down that corporation's help.

Poster 1: Our children are in that burning building.

Never have I seen someone miss a point by as wide a margin as Poster 2 did that day.

But you're doing everything you claim to object to them doing.

Trying to stop women talking to women that you do not approve of, from WPUK, for example.

I want to be able to talk to and listen to all of them. WPUK, TransgenderTrend or Fair Play for Women. etc etc. I don't expect to agree with them all on everything.

But just as you don't appreciate the left trying to shut down conversation with the right, I don't appreciate the right trying to do that back to the left either.

Stuck in the middle here - worried about the direction the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are going. The strength that we have on this issue comes specifically from the fact that it is not a party-political issue. We have and need support from women across the spectrum. Stop trying to further divide women!

And don't say they started it - you started this thread and are choosing to continue it. Practice what you preach.

My OP was about attending WPUK's event hosted at Filia, having attended previous WPUK events and appreciating them, and emerging from a very strange 90 minutes wondering wtf had just gone on. I was unaware of what appear to have been months of FB and Twitter disagreements (I've never had a FB account and I've been suspended from Twitter for describing a man as a man) but I picked up on the strained atmosphere and the lecturing about purity while I was in that room and I interpreted some of what was said as being anti-KJK. I was also furious that the betrayal by the Labour Party was ignored. Others who attended the event were equally confused and annoyed. I posted to see if anyone else had been there and what they made of it. I had no idea of size of the can of worms I'd opened.

Obviously you can choose not to believe me. I feel a bit embarrassed at being so naive, but as I've explained in a previous post, I'm busy with my local Resisters, WRN, running lesbian and women-only activities and tackling local institutions (one of which I work in) on their EDI policies. I'm a busy foot soldier in the GC army of ordinary women, not the kind of person who spends time looking for dirt on the internet. But of course you have only my word for that. You don't know who I am because I name change every few months, but I've been a poster here since 2019.

No-one is trying to stop anyone else from speaking to WPUK women. Have you still not read this thread?

Mood 😱
Tone 💣

Trying to stop women talking to women that you do not approve of, from WPUK, for example.

I'm not trying to stop anyone from talking to WPUK — why would you think that? I don't disapprove of any of the women I've heard speaking at WPUK events. I don't think the tone was good or that any of them had anything new or particularly interesting to say at the Filia event, but I don't disapprove of them. They'll be a good fit for other women who share their beliefs, but not for me — not now I understand their position fully.

Bit patronising?

Sure that us mums can manage to hold lots of thoughts in our little heads including worrying about paying the bills, encroachments on our civil rights, and how best to engage with what's likely to be the next government on women's rights.

The idea that mothers only think about what's happening at their child's school in a kind of formless vacuum doesn't reflect my experience, either on here or in real life.

Thank you x

I’ll never forget sitting in that venue while the TRAs outside shouted BURN IT DOWN! Someone else who was at that first meeting was Times journalist Janice Turner. I have huge respect for that woman & everything she’s done since.

I saw that same exchange. Yes, it was illuminating and I think the way this is so often framed as left vs right is completely missing the point.

If I had a child caught up in this, I would talk to anyone I thought might be able to help. And I mean anyone. I wouldn't care or even ask about their politics.

But just as you don't appreciate the left trying to shut down conversation with the right, I don't appreciate the right trying to do that back to the left either.

Who exactly is 'the right' in this conversation?!

A last thought from me — that at least this thread will have enabled a few women, like me, who were unaware of the serious ideological differences between the different groups to work out which are likely to suit them best. That surely is a good thing?

Bit patronising?

I think, JudeanPeoples that throwing out accusations of being patronising is little rich, considering the way you lectured us at length without even bothering to read the thread.

When your kid is planning to spend her Tony Blair Trust fund having her breasts amputated in 18 months time, it does sit quite high on the priority list.

Thanks Patti.

I don't have the time to engage with all of this either and as a frequent namechanger myself I take your point on that.

I'm unhappy at what I've seen on Twitter in particular (which I'm on more than MN these days) over the last few months, where some posters seem to have taken admittedly unhelpful/rude comments by certain academic feminists and tried to use that to turn it into a huge bunfight attacking long-term left-wing feminists who've done and continue to do a huge amount to improve women's rights (often facing considerable personal risk/attacks to do so).

I'm inherently deeply suspicious of those launching those attacks on left-wing feminists - again, usually done by people I've never heard of, who seem to start deliberately highly incendiary threads to divide women along lines that would benefit everyone but women.

There is no shortage of far right trolls on Twitter who would like to claim the far right are the true defenders of women's rights (while also objecting to eg abortion rights). Conversely, there's no shortage of far left trolls, who would like to be able to label GC feminism as identical to the far right.

Neither of these groups, or their aim, to associate women's rights with the far right, benefit women or women's rights.

I think it's important - essential - that women of all or no political persuasion get to stay within this tent. And so it's crucial that trolls of either persuasion are not successful in their attempts to divide and rule.

While the original reported comments by those academic feminists were patronising and unhelpful, IMO, the best response was to ignore it. Not to turn it into a flame war, ramping up the division.

Appreciate your point, Patti, that you didn't realise the minefield here. And this thread is also the first (and I hope the last) time I get involved in this discussion either.

I love all of you. Well Ok, not love. But respect, and am interested to hear what you have to say on women's rights.

But if we don't start from a constructive position assuming good faith, then my username may turn out to be a prophecy. As busy women, we don't have time for infighting. Eye on the ball etc.

I have since read the thread.

Your post was patronising.

Fair enough.

But most women don't have a child in that position. Thankfully.

I am still hugely concerned about the impact on women and children's rights and safety. But it doesn't mean I see that in a vacuum.