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?

Completely agree that KJK has been brilliant at giving women a voice. But I think it's unfair to say that other women - including WPUK women - haven't done that too. They've inspired me. So has KJK.

It doesn't need to be an either/or.

Oh Good!!

Then you agree with many of us who have been repeatedly posting this since the thread began!

No reason why they shouldn't , I'm just surprised none of them had any misgivings about how the branding would come across.

Because like the rest of you, I care deeply, passionately about this.

And it bloody hurts to see you lot tearing chunks out of the other side. I want women to engage constructively with each other. I want this thread to stop. Really ghastly watching loads of you laying into Jean Hatchet.

The irony of your accusing a woman of being 'aggressive' in a thread that is just basically a long attack on a bunch of named women who aren't here does not escape me.

Maybe I am learning the new 'etiquette' after all, eh?

She's a personal friend of mine too and I am bloody proud of her. She is a strong, principled feminist who has done an amazing amount for women in Brighton & Hove.

So we're getting lectured about 'tearing chunks' (I don't think anyone has done anything like that).

But others are free to cast aspersions, accuse us of being 'far right' and all sorts of pish?

No. I'm attacking nobody. I don't name call. But I am fucking angry.

The over the top response to us uppity lessers showing insufficient deference, is really telling.

Exactly what went through my mind!

Seriously, @JudeanPeoplesFrontOrPeoplesFrontOfJudea have you been reading another thread as well as this one?

That is such an odd comment. If you could indicate where "women named on this thread described as though they were virtually depraved" it would be really helpful.

You have also mentioned seeing comments about Selina Todd on this thread when none exist.

Disagreeing =/= laying into

Who benefits? Is anyone willing to engage on this? At all?

I honestly can't see what the benefit is. I think it's just a quasi-spiritual dread of being contaminated by the impure. Except instead of hell, they're scared of being on the Wrong Side of History. (Sometimes, they even panic about the Wrong Sort of People having read their social media comments.)

I think some would rather be in history books as valiant, ideologically pure historical figures who lost their fight, than be recorded as successful campaigners who were "problematic" in some way. No matter if accepting a loss means sacrificing a generation of women and girls.

No. I haven't gone and berated anyone on Twitter about this. I have unfollowed people. But I haven't used my account to start threads attacking other women on the same side as me, no.

And if it isn't obvious to you that Jean Hatchet - who was responding utterly politely throughout this thread, in the face of frankly a lot of provocation - was being bullied, then you have absolutely no idea of how this all comes across to ordinary women trying to avoid the internal arguments and focus on the goal.

Disagreement =/= bullying

Having your arse handed to you on FWR is a rite of passage. It's not bullying.

'you have absolutely no idea of how this all comes across to ordinary women'

See, I would say exactly the same thing to you.

So perhaps we are both perceiving things very differently.

It's interesting how many people have swung by to appoint themselves referee on this thread and throw a few punches in for good measure while claiming they are peace envoys.

Those fruit farmers are on the nose.

you have absolutely no idea of how this all comes across to ordinary women

I'd hazard a guess that we are ordinary women except Tinsel, who is extraordinary, but we can't say that out loud cos her head will get too big.

<bats eyelashes>

But I am Queen Bee! Not Tinsel!!

🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝

Looks like I need to deploy this again

🤷🏻‍♀️

How very dare you.

then you have absolutely no idea of how this all comes across to ordinary women trying to avoid the internal arguments and focus on the goal.

Irony overload.

She's a personal friend of mine too and I am bloody proud of her. She is a strong, principled feminist who has done an amazing amount for women in Brighton & Hove.

She's been posting outrageous misinformation on twitter about SFW US events. To the point of providing the US TRA ideas for signs for subsequent protests. (To be fair, there's certainly more than just her gone in hard to suggest women have been the aggressors & maced some innocent passing children in a fit of rage). Amps up the next group of protesters, doesn't it?

That's not really something to be proud of, is it?

The rest of us are some sort of Schrödinger's woman. First we're told we're just women on a random internet forum who don't understand how important WPUK are and how they've shifted the Overton Window. (I agree they helped shift it. They also hosted a talk about prisons, which was very important to me, for reaons already covered, and have hosted other talks I found relevant.)

Then we are told we don't understand ordinary women and cannot know how they'll read this thread. Well, it's a random internet forum so they won't come across the thread, surely?

But actually, on the subject of windows being shifted, the window has to some extent shifted further than WPUK were fighting to move it. We're now beginning to question the wider social impact of courtesy pronouns, and the precedent it sets.

It is on record that women in prison have been disciplined for not using she and her for male prisoners. Using opposite-sex pronouns is a cognitive burden. In one study, 81% of female prisoners had a medical history of traumatic brain injuries... When I publicly demonstrate my trans-inclusiveness by using preferred pronouns, I strengthen the expectation that everyone should do so, including those who are least able.

I also, with my cheerful acquiescence, prioritise the feelings of the transitioner over the feelings of their family members, and signal to the families that they can't ask me for support. If you're imagining a cute child and some mean parents who just don't 'get' gender identity, that maybe seems fine. But what if it's a middle-aged male, and a cute child who can't manage to refer to his father as she? Do the adult transitioner's feelings really outweigh their children's feelings?

Hepwo attacking women. Well I never.

Thanks for engaging on this. You're the only one who has.

You could be right. I think there is more to it though. I'm just wondering if anyone will engage in good faith on this issue. There's certainly a bit of tumbleweed blowing through my post, you being the exception.

My working theory? Those very delicate & important closed door discussions have a part in what's going on. 🤷🏻‍♀️

WTf?