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?

Gosh I wish I had been in the session. I would have challenged that as someone who has donated consistently and regularly for years.

Have you seen the full copy of the video? Part of this was played at the session.
katherinemacosta.substack.com/p/frenemies-wont-free-us?

I don't think that's very fair @MrsOvertonsWindow - I didn't read it like that at all. I think most of us know that Filia ≠ WPUK

It confused me at first too.

It confused me too. It's just a small change but it would be clearer if the heading was something like "Women's Place UK event at FILIA: ..."

Because I didn't know who all the groups are and who's running the conference either.

I was also cross that a speaker from the floor was allowed to say - without a comment or correction from the panel - that all the crowdfunders for women's law cases must be funded by the far right because she didn't know anybody with any money.

Far right? Not just right? Or centre right? I’m surprised they didn’t add ‘American Christian organisations’ but perhaps that would have been too outing?

i was at main hall event - global women’s voices. One woman originally from Rwanda was v pro historical role of white women, black Brazilian woman said women’s movements there excluded black and indigenous voices, S Korea woman touched on similar doubts about western white women not hearing other perspectives.
All heard but that wasn’t the focus.
I think when we win on this enormous cross party issue then people will retreat into their usual political silos or none at all. At the moment we need to occupy the messy middle ground while being aware that the outer edges are darker. That is what Filia does successfully. It is not a WPUK event though I suspect organisers are more to that view than towards SFW.
I hope also that the younger and older women felt that their voices were heard as well at the weekend.
Maya’s speech on Sunday morning is firmly where I stand

Far right? Not just right? Or centre right? I’m surprised they didn’t add ‘American Christian organisations’ but perhaps that would have been too outing?
From memory I couldn't swear if she said "right" or "far right" to be honest. Given we'd just seen clips from the video about far right appropriation of women's causes I think the implication was there.

So what? She disapproved of the legal cases? That doesn’t just sound like TRA tactics...

There's a purity spiral in left wing politics full stop. Demonising conservatives- or anyone who disagrees with you- is very shortsighted, given that means a significant chunk of the population.
Until the left actually listens to people instead of throwing insults at them, it's more or less impossible to get anywhere- on anything!

The whole 'look, there's a witch' nonsense is very wearing. It's like the Tory attitude from the 80s that everyone left wing is hysterical and/or work shy.

Most people, whether labour voting or Tory voting, are centralists. You'd never guess though, from the rhetoric.

Has the thread title been changed? I swear I didn’t see reference to WPUK this morning, that’s why I thought it was some ‘fringe group’ !

I wasn't there, but my gut instinct, when being told who I should or should not listen to or work with is to back away from that.

Some WPUK events were how I really got into this whole issue and I will always be grateful for that. I do question what they have achieved beyond that grass roots work though and they certainly have not brought about real change in the Labour movement have they?

The women who care about these issues are not the kind of women who will be dictated to.

For every dig at the non wpuk wing I see digs from the other side about people sharing platforms with trans people or being prepared to use preferred pronouns if it not costly. Purity spirals go both ways. I think though you have to understand why left wing groups want to maintain their identity as such

See Boudicca2's post about the speaker from the NEU: that speaker did give some useful guidance on how to start changing the structure of the union in order to create equal male and female representation.

But what she was talking about was years and years of gradual progress and at the time of the event it looked as if we might be facing a GE in a matter of weeks. When I came out of the event it was to news of Sunak's appointment, which I hope will buy those of us who want to vote Labour a bit more time.

The suggestion that Allison Bailey et al must be funded by the far right because good, feminist-socialist women are on benefits was an eyebrow-raiser. One or two women did stick up for Posie but the microphone moved on.

I can see that I'm nowhere near as up-to-date and knowledgeable about what's been going on as many here, who wouldn't have been as discombobulated as I was. As I may have said earlier, the very first GC meeting I attended was a WPUK one and I'm saddened that they've taken this direction.

And yet again: Filia is fabulous and this was only one talk among dozens, and the only event I attended that touched party politics, if that's the correct phrase. Everything at Filia is political because it's about changing the world so that it's a better place for women. This year there were talks on women and migration, birth and maternity, pelvic floors, sex dolls, prostitution, FGM, lesbian legal rights, the Hague Mothers launch, a vigil against VAWG, publishing, free speech and religion, paedocriminality — and that's just a start. The idea that by discussing one individual workshop I might be trying to slur Filia horrifies me.

I haven't changed the thread title and if MN do they usually say so — so no, that was the original title.

There are always going to be disagreements over the right way to approach this to get the changes we want @drwitch and I am a big fan of healthy debate. I also know that not all women want exactly the same outcome and that's also fine.

What I object to is blatant lies and unfounded smears. It is not arguing in good faith.

@pattihews - perhaps you could ask a mod to change your first colon to at so there is no doubt this is referring to WPUK and not Filia?

I'm not sure whether I want to do that. I posted in good faith and the title isn't misleading or inaccurate. If people are determined to see a slur they'll find one. I'm feeling almost as policed as I did when sitting in the session and realising what the message from WPUK was. So no, I'm not going to ask for a change.

There's quite a bit of spin on this! Really unfair. The event was deliberately about dialogue about the future direction of feminist politics and over half the event was given to women talking to each other about grievances over that direction. It was conciliatory and honest. Women who weren't there should listen to Pragma Patel's speech when it is released. Pragma isn't part of WPUK but she is a feminist legend and resigned this year as CEO of the phenomenal Southall Black Sisters after decades of feminist achievement. Pragma always looks at the bigger picture including globally and would hardly concern herself with targeting one individual who was not there. Some women perhaps came expecting a fight that wasn't there. No one mentioned SFW on that panel. It was about much wider issues for feminist politics than one woman. And it was good to discuss with a huge variety of views on it. I didn't ask questions because so many other women needed to. The session should have been longer is the only criticism as we did seem to be getting somewhere. This tribal nonsense is not what it was about. There is a rising global threat of the far-right. We do know what the far-right is. Pretending we don't is dishonest. That's what we discussed. How does feminism protect the gains made against such politics. Feminism as a whole ... not one woman within it.

My apologies! I spelled Pragna's name incorrectly.

The woman who spoke from the floor did not say far right.

She said working class women who are grassroots organisers struggle to get the attention and money needed to sustain their work. But the crowdfunders within hours reach hundreds of thousands.

Because a different demographic gives to these legal cases - women with disposable income. And if you look at where women with disposable income tend to sit politically it's is more often the right. Centre right sure. Even centre, lib dem types if you like.

It was not a point about organised far right funding but about what kind of person has a spare £100 for each legal challenge, there are many.

She also said if you listened she doesn't oppose the legal challenges and sees that they are necessary. She was just part of one herself.

It's sad that these contributions from the floor are not filmed as women can come on Mumsnet and say whatever nonsense they like and then say "oh I can't quite remember" when challenged. Luckily for all here I remember.

Absolutely. You write that very clearly.

@pattihews, you say this, with understandable exasperation:

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.

But ... for some old gimmer socialist feminists like me, there is no other way to do it. The 'salons' idea is something that I've been promoting as something that we can at least DO. It is a way I can connect with younger women and pass ideas and experiences and memories along the chain.

I'm too disabled to have attended FiLiA this year. Too old, too fucked. I managed very little of Portsmouth FiLiA but made my mark in my own way behind the scenes.

And I can invite women to my house. I can make connections, from the House of Lords to the Police Commissioners to the local Labour Party councillors to the women who live on my street.

We have to turn the Labour Party inside out.

I get what you are saying about the seismic change needed, but please please don't underestimate the power of the 'salon'. The social memory of feminist resistance exists there, from union activism to Greenham to Reclain The Night.

I was there and found it quite dispiriting. I definitely came away with the feeling that if I didn’t align myself with the left I was just wrong. Obviously it’s more complicated than that - I listened to comments about what we actually mean when we refer to the ‘left’, and influencing things from the inside - but much as I admire WPUK they’re asking me to keep faith with the Labour Party when the party absolutely refuses to listen to them and many other well-informed women. If Kier won’t listen to WPUK I’m wasting my breath because they won’t take any notice of me.

I am reminded of previous entanglements with a destructive, very ‘left-wing’ union; I felt like I had to declare my allegiance to the left in order to be listened to. The sad thing is that generally speaking I agree with where WPUK is coming from. But I can’t really fault a Labour Party supporting group for supporting the Labour Party. It just means they are not my group any more. I thoroughly agreed with Maya’s speech which seemed genuinely inclusive and indicated that Sex Matters can cope with differing political viewpoints. So I’ll work with them 🤷‍♀️

I thought it was great.

If you didn't like it that's also fine, I didn't agree with everything I heard at Filia.

I think it's good to hear different perspectives from different women.

I thoroughly agreed with Maya’s speech which seemed genuinely inclusive and indicated that Sex Matters can cope with differing political viewpoints. So I’ll work with them

Yes. I loved that Maya stated explicitly that Sex Matters would talk to a wide range of people and that she praised both Posie and WPUK.

On this forum I read several people who preface comments with something along the lines of - I'm no fan of Posy Parker.

I have to say her first interview with Triggernometry linked here and her media spats with Harrop really alerted me to the fact that there is an issue to be addressed.

So I have been listening to what she says ever since. I also listen to JB, JCJ, Woman's Place, BBoyce, Glinner, Genspect, Filia and others. There are times when Kellie Jay is "in your face". It is a working class trait, and I recognise it as standing up for yourself. Occasionally she is slightly unwise in letting off steam. However, I really don't understand what she does that causes so much vitriol towards her. Why do people need to continually preface what they say with - I'm not a fan.

I see a mother, who wants to protect kids, who will stand on a single issue for all women. She is unrepentant about it. Currently she is in the US in circumstances that are really quite scary with her single message, standing for women. What on earth am I missing?

That's strange. I was at that meeting and I heard Pragna Patel talking about her experiences in '70s and '80s feminism and how important it had been for them to maintain a firmly anti-racist stance, Katherine Acosta talking about how the evangelical right is co-opting other campaigns in the states, Phillipa Harvey talking about how, for her, staying in the NEU and slowly and surely influencing policy etc is the right thing to do and Ali Creasy talking about how her life as a single mother is made harder and smaller by right wing policies and the work that she and other women did to support migrants trapped as Calais.

The necessity of continuing to build an autonomous women's movement separate from the institutional left and right-wing politics which are fundamentally racist, was a consistent theme.

It was very disappointing when the breath and depth of discussion that the panel opened out was reduced to Twitter spats and talk of Posie Parker by audience contributions.

The woman who spoke about right-wing funding is a long-standing, working class feminist activist who sounded gob smacked at the amount of money GC crowd funders have raised so quickly when she had to scrabble around for every penny to host a working class women's conference a few years ago.

The 'fringe' meeting was the WDI, held at a separate venue on the Sunday, btw.