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?

But starting a thread just to have a go at others who seek to improve women's rights differently to them?

Just a reminder of what the OP said (I know we can all see the 1st post but it's worth repeating in light of the above framing of the OP).

"^ ...came out feeling disturbed by what struck me as a very heavy-handed event designed to avoid talking about the elephant in the room.^"

"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."

"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."

I've highlighted the bits in bold as I think that's why it's important to go back and see what the OP said & why this matters. Most of us have seen weeks & weeks of these TRA tactics unravel all over here, twitter & FB. Apparently being called nazis, bigots & fascists for years by TRA wasn't ok but now that women claiming to be feminists are doing it, we're all supposed to capitulate and give credence to the accusations. The thing that struck me about the stooshie that SFW Brighton kicked off is the accusations are identical to what I've seen SNP/Labour/Lib Dem/Greens TRA extremists deploy about women in Scotland fighting against the gender capture & erasure of women's rights. It's been a very nasty way to try and silence & isolate women & to ensure that we never get listened to. And it's almost worked. The GRR bill is more than likely to pass but the concerns women have been shouting about for years are coming to the fore. It'll still not stop this but it's clear our concerns have been ignored & sidelined at the behest of the very worst bad faith extremists who will lie to ensure they get what they want.

WPUK have made no secret of the fact that those behind the banner are fully behind the ongoing 'lines of attack', and the OP picked up on the fact the WPUK event was used as a means to underline that position. She's not the only person to see that, and that's presumably why this thread now needs to be discredited as in bad faith.

Again, if that's what WPUK want & is their strategy - to discredit those active & engaging in activism they disapprove of - women have every right to push back & comment on that. As the OP did. WPUK absolutely deserves that criticism.

"others who seek to improve women's rights differently to them" would be left to get on with doing just that by everyone else here and elsewhere who do not subscribe to the purity politics & TRA tactics that WPUK affiliates have decided is the way they'll conduct themselves. We are all fully behind WPUK doing their thing & leaving others to do theirs. If they just did that, I doubt this thread would even be here!

It's not women here or elsewhere who keep the flames in this clear divide burning. It's still going on now, with the criticism of SFW's US tour, on that awful FB group, every other women's group seems to be deemed impure enough to also get the same TRA tactics being thrown about. Sex Matters have been dragged, TransgenderTrend. No one who has done good worthwhile work is immune from the onslaught where so-called 'feminists' are doing the TRA's work for them.

When people come here & post the tired old 'bad faith' accusations, when the 'inferior intellect' arguments didn't work & the 'let's repeat the lecture' arguments failed too, I'll keep posting to push back on that. Cos I can. And I will.

If people genuinely want to see 'all the negativity' stop, then lead by example.

"the best response was to ignore it. Not to turn it into a flame war, ramping up the division."

You first 🙃

Take it as read women will talk and discuss and debate and critique anything that catches their attention, especially if it's impacting them in any way.

Sorry not sorry if that offends. 😊

Okey doke. And have you read the Louise Perry article that Imnobody4 linked? That might give you a bit of context as to where I'm coming from.

It all definitely sounds like a huge red flag. But I don’t know what would be the next step as I am not well educated on UK politics.

Wow. Now who is patronising?

Christ on a cracker stop lecturing the women WHO ARE IN THIS POSITION.

ON MUMSNET.

Can someone clear up what PP stands for for me please? I’ve seen it in multiple threads but no idea what it stands for.

And for the record, Flo was supporting me and the thousands of mothers like me, not patronising anyone.

Posie Parker. Or previous poster. Context dependent.

Thank you very much!

Posie Parker - the ye olde mumsnet username of Kellie-Jay Keen (also abbreviated: KJK).

"the best response was to ignore it. Not to turn it into a flame war, ramping up the division."
You first 🙃

I shall practice what I preach and bow out. I wasn't at this particular session referred to in the OP, so can't comment on the content of what was said there and haven't attempted to.

As a member of an ethnic minority as well as a woman, I find some of the blatant racism of some of those (primarily men and primarily in the US) keen to cling to KJK's coattails pretty terrifying, so can completely see why some left-wing feminists would be quite reasonably concerned that these men are not given the opportunity to co-opt women's hard work. Or misrepresent us. And equally can see how effective KJK is as an activist and the difficulties of trying to hold a broad church together.

You'll be pleased to know that I will be starting precisely zero threads on this, here or elsewhere, or responding on this one, and will revert to my previous stance of saying nothing further on this. And shall revert to my previous username!

* ...can completely see why some left-wing feminists would be quite reasonably concerned that these men are not given the opportunity to co-opt women's hard work. Or misrepresent us.*

The thing is, I don't disagree with this. But the missing piece here is that not one piece of criticism is directed at those men that WPUK fear are 'glomming' onto the wider women's movement. I have no time or inclination to entertain far right misogynists either. But equally, I don't subscribe to the idea of holding women responsible for the actions or opinions of unsavoury misogynistic men.

Sorry, having just said that was my last post on this thread, this will be my last post on this, to answer your question.

Yes. I specifically followed your reference (thanks for flagging the post). I don't agree with it, though. Of course the Spectator's (being a right-wing magazine) going to claim that feminism belongs to the right now. That doesn't make it true. Nor did they provide any evidence or examples for their claim that feminism had historically previously been a movement of the right. I find this fairly unlikely.

If there was a point in it I missed, that you were trying to highlight, please feel free to explain. If you can't be bothered, that's also absolutely fine. 🙂

100% agree.

Honestly am going now. 😂😂😂

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.

And I hope you will have noted that while I am aware of the some of the insults emanating from academic feminists associated with WPUK, I haven't repeated them. Just as I note that all those who were at the Filia even have refrained from mentioning a really crass remark that one particular audience member came out with. We seem to be the ones trying to respect others' dignity.

If there was a point in it I missed, that you were trying to highlight, please feel free to explain. If you can't be bothered, that's also absolutely fine. 🙂

My point wasn't about whether feminism should be on the right or the left. The point for me about that article is how it highlighted the huge number of mothers who are in this fight - many of them on this board, some of them on this thread - not because of the politics or even because of the feminism but because their kids are caught up in it and they are desperate. I'm pleased you feel able to see beyond the vacuum but many posters do not have that luxury.

And it really is a luxury.

Last year, after I'd already been dragged to a summit of a mountain, my autistic spectrum child, who is, like many children in his place, scared of the social demands that come with getting older, and the physical changes, came home from school and told me he'd learned about puberty blockers at school, and asked if he could go on them.

Being a fully-fledged GC mumsnetter I explained about the physical issues with them, and he asked why those side-effects didn't happen to trans kids. Note he wasn't thinking of himself as trans. Just as someone who wanted to stay small, and cute.

We discussed how puberty blockers did and do cause side effects, and he agreed that he would rather grow bigger and have a fully functioning skeleton, than use puberty blockers. It's a year later and he's happy.

But what if I hadn't been so well-prepared? What if the wrong person had heard him say he wanted blockers, and decided that this was proof he was 'born in the wrong body'? What if a third party at school had made a referral behind my back?

Now multiply that up and down the school and the country, and then tell me that hardly any of us fear for our children's health.

Mood 🤬

As a trans widow, I get this quite a lot where

Sorry, I said I was going. But to respond to posts directed at me, do you understand that being in a position to not need to look at the wider context is also a luxury?

I don't have the luxury of being able to ignore the vicious, violent racism of those US men who would like to claim Posie and the right side of history on women's rights as theirs. Because my life and my children's are as much, if not more, threatened directly by the extreme strands of racism they're blowing up.

I'm also poor. We rent. It costs a terrifying amount. We're in debt. My children thankfully don't face having their breasts being cut off in the next 18 months, but homelessness is a constant risk. I don't have the luxury of ignoring the need for a Labour government in this country to address those issues too.

I can and do hold all those issues in my head at the same time. So do lots of women. That doesn't make me less of a feminist. It makes me human.

Wishing you well. We're all in this together. I support you and your children. Please support me and mine too.

Over and out.

FFS pressed send too soon again-

As a trans widow I get this quite a lot where I'll highlight something harmful caused gender ideology based on my own experience and that of women like me, and in return get "yes well that's a shame but I'm not in your position" (sometimes here they'll say how wonderful their husband is) "so my priority is X thing" (that generally causes trans widows harm)

I'm so sorry parents of trans identified children are getting this attitude now too.

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

This comment of @ArabellaScott ‘s sums it up for me.

In my personal life, I know a lot of people who are committed Guardian readers, who probably like a bit of Pink News, who would dismiss a Mail article, and the person recommending it, immediately as ‘right wing bigotry and a right wing bigot’. They are entirely oblivious to the gender crap, obvious to the fact that all the feminists who used to write for the Guardian have been pretty much ousted now and have to write for The Mail, Times, New Statesman, etc.

What we have all witnessed is how nowadays almost no so-called left wing party, paper, trade union, organisation, whatever - will host this much needed discourse.

The knock on effect, is that a refusal to be exposed to anything which isn’t explicitly claiming to be left wing, leaves people very, very disturbingly ignorant to what is happening.

For me, It has been very eye opening indeed, to see how tribalism and ideological purity are essential tools for pedalling ignorance in order to wield authoritarian control.

Now I’ve seen it, I’ll never unsee it.

I’m so much more sceptical when I am warned not to speak to, be seen with, to listen to, etc a person. I think “why? - what’s going to happen to me if I give this person a fair hearing?”.

The only argument can be about optics really. If I give someone who is unapproved of by ‘the left’ a fair hearing, I’ll be tainted in the minds of Guardian devotees.

Well, this works both ways. Guardian devotees are tainted in my mind. Disappointing sheeple they’ve turned out to be.

Furthermore, anyone who tries to tell me who I should or should not listen to or associate with, are also tainted in my mind - I see it as a sign of wanting to uphold authoritarian control - dangerous sheeple-mongers.

WP need to understand that this ship has sailed, the horse has bolted, the cat is out of the bag, etc…

And many of us are “buggered if we’re going to slide back into lazy tribalism or purity”.

EndlessTea

Mood upon reading your post 👏

I agree with every word.

Me too.

The Guardian has no credibility nowadays. Pink News is a misogynist & homophobic rag.

I wish left wing papers had the guts & integrity to speak up for us but with very occasional exceptions, they don’t. So that doesn’t leave us with much choice.

I also have no time for those who are willing to make ad hom attacks. Who dehumanise, use horrible personal attacks, slurs, insults, or insinuations.

There is just no need. Make your arguments, present your evidence, have a civil discussion, disagree robustly - fine.

I'll not support bullying or mud-slinging, whoever does it.

With the ad hominem stuff, I see it as a sign of desperation- a panicked, crazed clawing around - no firm handhold in any logic or reason. It’s very unedifying to make those kinds of attacks - you want to avert your eyes from the indignity of it.

The only appropriate response is “u okay hun?”.