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?

None of the panellists mentioned the Labour party. 'Betrayed by the left...' was the tag line for the event, I believe.

They did pretty much all talk about building an autonomous women's movement separate from the institutional left, building of leftist/socialist/democratic principles though.

Which is completely different.

I think that's being disingenuous, Jeanhatchet. You're absolutely right that SFW weren't mentioned, but the message seemed to me to be clear. I was up front and couldn't turn to see the speakers behind me easily, but if I recall correctly two women mentioned PP/ SFW as part of their comments. So I wasn't imagining things and nor were the half-dozen random women with whom I got into conversation afterwards.

I've just checked the full title of the session: Betrayal by the left, dangers from the right and the need for an autonomous women's liberation movement.
Perhaps I zoned out for a bit, but I can't recall much any talk of betrayal by the current left — which I think is where most of our anxieties lie. There was recognition of how badly unions have represented women and Pragma Patel spoke about the historical fights of black women for equal pay and rights. No mention in the session about the state of the Labour Party from what I remember. I must have missed the bit about an autonomous women's liberation movement if there was one. It was an odd sort of session as someone else has commented. The speakers didn't seem to be particularly tethered to the title and I certainly had a strong sense of subtext and code being exchanged.

'over half the event was given to women talking to each other about grievances over that direction'
If I remember correctly there were two 5-minute sessions where we were encouraged to talk to the people each side of us about times when we'd been caught between a rock and a hard place. The people each side of me talked about personal events, not political events. So my guess is that that was 10 minutes out of 90. But I we can time it when the video is released. Perhaps it was longer.

There were questions/ comments from the audience, during which time two women in particular spoke at some length, concerned that WPUK/ the speakers sitting under the WPUK logos had given the impression that they and/or their organisations were right wing. One of them from Women's Declaration International spoke at length about why she and her organisation where not of the right. I've no idea what had been said or implied by the panel to make her feel that that was how they viewed her/ WDI, but she clearly did. Kara Dansky, found of WOLF, also spoke somewhat cryptically to the US video-maker who'd produced the video about dangerous US organisations. Clearly there was history.

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.
There weren't a huge variety of views really, were there? A woman from Wales said that Wales would always be socialist and then bemoaned the state of Labour here in Wales and how we needed people to know how anti-GC it is. The panel didn't comment. A woman from Scotland said something similar. The panel didn't comment. As I've already said, Kara Dansky and the woman from WDI expressed concern about something too subtle for me to understand. I recall possibly three, perhaps four, more comments from the audience — one of them about right-wing donations funding legal crowdfunders and one of them mentioning SFW/PP. No comment from the panellists at all.

Someone upthread thought the whole thing was odd, and she wasn't the only one. Many of us had arrived expecting discussion about the current left's betrayal of women and yet it was only tangentially mentioned (the state of the unions, women's historic and continuing struggle). It was like talking in code.

Maybe we need to stop listening and paying attention to those talking about differences.

Just comment on and talk about posts identifying common ground.

So instead of "I like KJK, but..."
We have "I like it KJK says..."

"I loved the Filia event"
"WPUK do great work. We need to help them influence the Labour Party and unions".

It's absurd to pretend that only women on the right have any money though.

I've given a fair bit to various fundraisers over the years. I've never voted anything other than labour in my life.

I agree that she made good points about the type of woman who can afford to come to Filia - and maybe it would be an idea for organisers to look at ways of donating to women's expenses as well as supporters' tickets next year. I would happily put in a few pounds to such a fund.

If her comment about crowd-funders was just intended to emphasise this it was ill-judged given that TRAs always accuse these cases of being funded by the far right. I was not the only woman to think this. But, in the moment, speaking in front of a large crowd, it would be easy to say something which didn't come out quite right.

But the panel could have corrected this, or commented but chose not to.

I've just re-read the OP and I do agree about the sense of disingenuousness, although from the audience not the speakers. They were all rock solid with where they were coming from.

I wonder if the disingenuousness arose from quite a few people in the audience having attended a WDI 'fringe' event organised through the Filia app but at a separate venue and not part of Filia for the whole of the previous day (Sunday)?

Obviously, women are free to attend or not attend anything they like, but I wonder if the conversation would have been richer if everyone there had spent the previous two days listening to the voices of those that they may not agree with rather than in an echo chamber?

There were only a couple of questions that were obviously in response to what the speakers said, mostly it felt like just going on Twitter which is a shame because Filia always reminds me that the feminist struggle is so, so much more.

@Clymene when you have £20/50/100/500 or whatever left as "free money" one month what drives you to gift to one feminist cause over another?

I'm curious. Because many donate from solidarity because they see themselves as potentially needing the same solidarity one day - like how low income people give generously to foodbanks. Many donate from charitable feelings - sympathy for those suffering something that won't really affect you but it's awful. Others donate as a transactional thing, to gain influence or control.

I think the solidarity thing is where a lot of middle class centre/centre right women find themselves moved by Maya F for example. It could be them, their jobs. Whereas other women see themselves reflected elsewhere in the movement. Sex trade abolitionist work for example or food banks that gift menstrual hygiene products to women and girls.

@picklemewalnuts 😃I agree

Boadicea2 I think it's likely that the panel ran out of time (the meeting over ran).

And would anyone in that room seriously believe that crowd funders like Julie Bindel (the example she gave) are funded by the right?

Bizarrely enough, I had the opposite experience when I visited WPUK stall. I was chatting with the nice lady and I mentioned the great work they do, and how I think it's great female trade unionists were involved. She cut me off and said they are a non political, cross party organisation. I agreed that is the most important thing.

I don't think the fear is PP but of the far right, like Tommy Robinson's Heart of Oak and Citizen Go twisting our women's rights campaign to further their own causes. Those are no friends to women.

Filia was an amazing event and women are free to agree or not with any session. I think WPUK do great work, I wish I could have been there to hear them speak.

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.

This is precisely how I feel about her. Her views feel like they are motivated by ignorance as much as concern for women but she's never advocated violence or discrimination and clearly lots of feminists interpret what she says differently from me.

Feminism is not socialism, socialism isn't some magic answer to everything and if we are serious about permanently killing self ID then bickering between groups is a luxury we cannot afford.

This might provide some background to Jo Brew's and Kara Dansky's comments:

womensdeclarationusa.com/wdi-usa-statement-on-jayne-egerton-piece-in-radical-notion/

I genuinely don't think anyone needs to spell out 'I'm not a fan of the far right'.

It smacks of people listening to TRA stirring.

If the far right want to shout about single sex spaces, all power to them I'll join in.
When they shout to restrict women's reproductive rights, I'll shout back at them.

Why the angst? Can't we just ignore it? It's whataboutery and klook, a squirrel' all rolled into one!

We can't solve the fact that those supporting women's sex based rights have a range of backgrounds, political leaning, experiences.

It's a strength, not a weakness.

but@donquixotedelamancha ignorance of what?

agree with all of this
especially the mother bit

It really pisses me off, pp flagging off Posie Parker. She has women around her like Julia Long, and the women who set up Object and Nordic Model Now, all long standing left wing lesbian feminists. She's also just had to cancel her event in Portland due to very credible threats of real violence against her from Antifa. And pp have the gall to call her right wing??

*slagging off

I give money to wherever I think needs it and if I support the cause. Recently I've given to Keep Prisons Single Sex, my local foodbank and a small gardening business run by a couple of single mums to help get their van back on the road. I make regular donations to my local refuge, children's centre and to a dog rescue.

None of these are ever likely to benefit me - I'm never going to need a foodbank, I'm single so won't be a DV victim and I'm unlikely to go to prison. But I have enormous empathy with women getting fucked over by the patriarchy.

I also donated to Maya and Allison's crowdfunders. Not because I'm middle class but because I think they're massively important for women in terms of reestablishing our rights.

I managed to miss Maya's talk, but several women spoke to me about it. Yes, this is where I need to head now — Sex Matters.

Christina, I think I heard what you heard. I just don't get the movement bit. Lots of unconnected women/ groups of women doing different things to support other women. Which is what I imagine lots of us do in our everyday lives. But I wouldn't have described that as an autonomous movement. To me a movement is a more joined-up thing. And even if it does count as a movement it doesn't seem to me to be an adequate remedy or response to the stripping of women's rights in Scotland now and Wales before long.

I've just been asked to do an assignment that needs to be completed for tomorrow morning so that's it from me for today.

I think the solidarity thing is where a lot of middle class centre/centre right women find themselves moved by Maya F for example. It could be them, their jobs.

And here we go again. I wish women would stop dividing us up by whatever class or income or political group they imagine others to be in.

Autonomous from party politics is what they meant.

Agree Boadicea it was odd. But most women in the room knew exactly what was at stake and there were as many supporting Posíe and other activists who don’t exactly align with the aims of WPUK or Feminism generally. I didn’t get the impression that anyone was unaware of the issues. I do think the woman talking about union activism chose to ignore what many unions have ( not) done for their gender critical members. All the speakers preferred to ignore the real damage that the Labour Party has done, but I know from friends still in there fighting that this is a huge issue and they are well aware of those of us who will spoil our ballot rather than vote for any of them, with honourable exceptions.

I thought that the meeting was attempting some kind of reconciliation, but no one was under any illusions. NB there were many of us from the fringe meeting who are not far right but believe we need to have an autonomous movement, outside party politics. Agree with the poster above that KJK has managed to attract all sorts of women and we should be able to discuss across the lines. We need to get all women with us on this issue even if they don’t like lesbians, or if they don’t agree with abortion rights. Doesn’t make any of us fascists or racists.

Yes I was there. I agree it didn’t feel nice and I am new to all this. I know a bit of the background but not all. It felt like there was a lot of childish infighting going on honestly and was embarrassing as a newcomer. We have one clear battle to fight. We need to topple gender ideology. Indeed we should talk openly about the Labour Party and why politicians like Jess P is keeping her mouth shut - yet reads out a list of dead women every year knowing that her party policy of self id will open the door to more dead women. That rubs badly with me.

And as to Posie - I don’t give a flying ARSE who she allies with or votes for. Kids are getting hurt. Women are getting hurt. Laws are being changed. We are in a CRISIS. Indeed it is MUCH better from a marketing and PR point of view that you cover your bases. She will bring in women others can’t. So let her do it. Things are burning.

There was even talking about money raising and how that had to come from right wing women. Firstly how fucking condescending. Why can’t wealth women vote Labour? Many do. It’s so retro and old fashioned. Secondly who gives an arse where the money comes from. This is a fight. We all want the same thing.

Its immature and pathetic

I think she disagrees with you.

It's on the conference app if you want to talk directly to her and clear anything up