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?

I've just seen this. I didn't attend the event you mention. Wasn't aware of it, although obviously it illuminates one rather cryptic contribution from the floor that I didn't understand.

I posted in good faith and I've called Jean Hatchet disingenuous so of course you'll turn it back to me. MumtoMaddy reflects where I am.

And now I really do have to do some work.

Why are people conflating Posie with the far right? She had said many times that she's politically-homeless. She cares about one issue, and that's women.

Agreed. You’ve reminded me to donate to Sex Matters.

@ShhDoNotTell I’m loathe to say it because I hate that it’s true, but so much of it feels like a bunch of school girls who are bitching at each other for top spot.

Thats exactly how it felt

"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. "

THIS

Eh? I haven't 'turned' anything back to you pettihews.

I'm agreeing that there was a disingenuous undertone among the audience contributions, which you seem to agree with me about.

Appalonia yes I agree about the childish infighting amongst contributions from the audience.

It was a shame after such a strong panel.

N*dd
*
yes 👏

Ive been donating to Sex Matters monthly since they were formed. I feel they are the most politically non-partisan group, and their campaigns have reach. I've also donated to other individual campaigns such as legal crowdfunders, Vancouver Rape Relief etc and bought occasional merch from various sources. Including KJK.

I became a friend of Filia a couple of years ago. These conferences with travel and accommodation are expensive for a lot of women and they give as many tickets free as possible, find beds for women to sleep in, coordinate lift shares etc.

Because if you throw enough mud, it sticks

I was supposed to go to that session and I was booked in but couldn’t get in on the day because it was full. I obviously can’t comment on the session, I’ll wait for the video…but I had an inkling it would stir feelings.

When I first watched KJK and indeed Magdalen Berns - I thought, fucking hell, that’s a bit strong. This was a good few years ago, when most feminists (including me coming from a ‘be kind’ place) were still happy to use preferred pronouns. KJK has always been very clear, concise and direct, she has never relented. I believe she shifted the ground, shifted the narrative, enabled us to speak clearly, most of us now call out what we know to be true. She has the power and bravery to rally women like no one else.

I am going to stop prefacing the reasons why I like KJK with …’but I don’t agree with everything she says’, because I don’t do this with other women…and there’s not one women I’ve ever met that I agree with totally. Maybe I used to say that to be accepted by other feminists.

There is space for every woman at the table - each bringing their own talents, graft at the coalface and ideas.

Maybe right wing people have attached themselves to her - she is out there and will gladly take every opportunity to speak offered on the matter, because it matters. But, I don’t think she went looking for it.

I’m also getting a bit fed up of the narrative that right = bad, left = good (not extremes obviously), I think most of us are probably pretty centrist or at least can explore other ideas in good faith.

'I will stand beside the devil himself if it means one more girl doesn't have her breasts removed' - KJK
And I will stand right behind you KJK.

Thank you for this. I've read that and still have no idea what it's about. It's hard enough keeping up with what's happening in the UK, let alone the US. But basically in-fighting and factionalism and accusations of impurity, I'm guessing.

No wonder the event felt off. I kept wondering why they played that video because it seemed so irrelevant to the UK.

Hate this. Hate the game-playing and in-fighting.

And yet it’s always been here. I don’t know what the answer is. WPUK are doing it openly, but they definitely aren’t the only ones. Woe betide anyone who doesn’t behave correctly.

These days, I find myself mostly in-line with Meghan Murphy. I think she’s done the right thing by stepping back from the idea of ‘feminism’ when all it is managing to do is restrict and stifle.

I apologise, I thought you were calling me disingenuous. I'll own being ingenuous. I can't keep up with any of you, you're too clever for me.

Which of the women from the audience who stood up and spoke did you think were disingenuous?

One of the things I do appreciate about KJK is that I can understand what she says immediately, without having to run it through my nuance-ometer. And she says what she means, which is a relief. This decodifying is bloody exhausting.

If you really are looking for a political home on this issue in the U.K. then the party for you is the Communist Party of Great Britain - this issue was raised at the Feminism and Socialism meeting at Filia. The TRA apparently tried to infiltrate them too but without success!

Oh, and it's patti, by the way.

I found it quite distasteful when WP did that statement about KJK, but thought - maybe they were in a corner, maybe they have had a chance to reflect on it and maybe regretted it. When they threw that cartoonist at the Morning Star under the bus at the behest of Kristina Harrison - they made their position clear. Team Peen all the way. So depressing.

Intellectually I am supportive of everyone having value and an important place in the movement and our strength is in our diversity yadda yadda yadda… but WP are utterly crap at winning hearts and minds. I have to squash down my aversion in order to give them a fair hearing now.

pattihews as I've said, I thought the undertone of many of the audience contributions were disingenuous. They didn't respond to what the speakers had spoken about. I wondered if this was because these contributions came from WDI supporters who had organised their own 'fringe' event away from Filia the day before.

I didn't pick up the unspoken 'warnings' about PP but I think that she's broadly an irrelevance to feminism, so wasn't really thinking about her.

I wondered if this was because these contributions came from WDI supporters who had organised their own 'fringe' event away from Filia the day before.
Unfortunately for any conspiracy theorists, I was at the WDI fringe event and can confirm that it was not about plotting what to say at the WPUK session.

Do women on here think there is a way to say “this is what I believe about what feminism means” without it being seen as an attack on women who think differently? Or is it more that the important thing is to stop gender identity ideology, and whether that’s done from a feminist point of view is irrelevant?

These are genuine questions, trying to understand why this has all kicked off so much.

What has unfolded isn’t an MN thing @Woolsy so you can’t really get the answers you are after by asking the women here.

TinselAngel I didn't mean 'plotting'. More a continuation of conversations that had happened separately from what was actually spoken about in the room by the panel.

Conversations that went to a different school.

I meant the women talking about it on this thread, realise it sounded more generally aimed at MN