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?

@antelopevalley No-one, even privately, in my groups uses the phrase "head girls", "out of touch academics" or similar - it'd be a little odd for me to use it given my academic background. I think, if anyone claims they are being personally targeted for being "intellectual" or similar then that's probably a reflection of how they see themselves. The objections concern behaviour such as posting defamatory blogs and using condescending terms like "domesticated zombies." Then we have the spectacle of some privileged individuals doing a common people act (conscious recognition of privilege goes a long way). This has all been rehashed and it's why I'm asking: what now? Because I do believe we can acknowledge political differences and move forward.

I know what my activist groups are doing: we're out there, on the streets, talking to anyone who will listen, writing letters, and engaging with people like councillors and policy makers. I'm also very appreciative of different approaches which is why I've often felt alienated and disappointed to see nothing forward looking offered beyond repetitive backwards looking statements about who is acceptable and political boundaries.

I think you're right, ArabellaScott. At least here we can get it all out in the open.

It's abundantly clear why I and many other women who weren't in on all the factionalism emerged from the WPUK session at Filia wondering what it was really about. I've had a few 'wtf have I done by talking about this' moments but at least it's out there and at least I understand more and at least I've got women talking about it, instead of feeling constrained and silenced.

I agree with whoever said that we don't need telling who not to mix with or what not to do, or what we must believe before we can be good feminists — we need some socking good ideas of what to do and how to pull together to tackle the threat of gender ideology and the misogyny that accompanies it.

Me? Following the arrest of a woman for telling a drag queen to leave a women's toilet in Cardiff on Saturday, my informal, nameless GC activist group here have come up with plans to carry out a Men in Women's Toilets Stinks campaign over the next few weeks. Details yet to be decided.

At an event designed to discuss, not lecture, and with starting points for those discussions it was possible for many things to be said. WDI USA and UK were busting a gut to speak and two members did. I

I might have the wrong end of the stick but so many modern feminist events these days have famous speakers and panels and there is so little space for ordinary women to talk to each other.

In the second wave, we had speakers but we always had breakout spaces where we talked to each other and discussed and debated and often built theory from the floor.

I miss those days.

@DrLouiseJMoody Thanks for the reply. I was at FILIA but do not fully understand all these private arguments. I do think though FWR posters are incredibly harsh to anyone who does not fully agree with them. I do not believe you can change sex, I also think FWR can be really transphobic at times. I think most people have my views.
We don't want bearded men in toilets and locker rooms, but we don't like the open hate of Trans people I often see or the calls to work with groups who oppose abortions on any grounds.
Women's Place UK is a pretty middle-of-the-road group that recognises biology, but is not transphobic and will not just work with anyone. They disagree with how other some groups operate. I really do not understand what the big deal is. Is no one allowed to say that they do not agree with what other groups do? I have certainly read lots of criticism of Women's Place here for having Transgender speakers. Is that criticism okay? Or is criticism only allowed one way?

Men in Women's Toilets Stinks

Love it! This is what we'd have done way back in the early 80s :)

In the second wave, we had speakers but we always had breakout spaces where we talked to each other and discussed and debated and often built theory from the floor.
This is what happened at the WDI fringe event.

That's very standard for a while day event, isn't?

WPUK have been criticised on this thread for carving out a bit of space for women to talk to others sitting next to them.

WPUK have been criticised on this thread for carving out a bit of space for women to talk to others sitting next to them.

I thought this was the case and that was what made me curious because in my day it was expected and part of being grassroots and feminist.

@antelopevalley I personally have no issue with WPUK setting boundaries. Women can then decide if that's a group they want to align with. My puzzlement is that, having set boundaries, some continue to berate women for engaging in this fight on their own terms. If you exclude swathes of women, then you don't get to influence their strand of activism. I respect that they clearly state their aims and politics: what I don't respect are comments likening a woman to dog waste and no-one saying "that's unacceptable." Silence is, as we're often reminded, complicity.

@YetAnotherSpartacus Indeed, and I'm bored of conference feminism that is dominated by the same few voices saying the same thing (this is why I never attended a recent event - I'm not referring to Filia who have diverse panels). Whilst in academia, I'd see the same group dominate conferences and there is, to some extent, a replication of that dynamic. I don't consider anyone an authority or especially famous and want to see more ordinary women platformed. Much can be accomplished by simply getting together and speaking to people. I care less about who you are (or who some seem to think they are) and more about what you think and do.

Women's Place UK is a pretty middle-of-the-road group that recognises biology, but is not transphobic and will not just work with anyone.

I think this is the issue. WPUK is middle of the road, not radical - they are trying to do is find a middle ground within an exclusively left wing environment. Not a feminist environment, a political left wing one.

The middle ground they are working to is somewhere between 'women are female' and 'women is an identity'. With this in mind, the middle ground for WPUK can never exclude at least some men.

Which is fine, but FWR is a feminist space, not a left wing space, so its prefectly reasonable to have threads critical of WPUK here.

@ZuttZeVootEeeVo where is the thread criticising Sex Matters then? They were at Filia speaking in the auditorium and say they are not a feminist organisation.

As well as solidarity tickets, Filia source local women who can offer a bed or settee, coordinate lift shares etc to make it as possible for as many women to attend as they can.

On a similarly practical note: for Portsmouth FILIA, I was able to supply visitors' parking permits in advance for anyone who needed them, for a zone reasonably near the venue, with parking maps. It was lovely to connect with the campervanners who came from all over. Having that back-up plan for being able to park near another woman's house, who herself is a FILIA attendee, is reassuring.

If there is anyone in Glasgow who can do the same, that would be immensely helpful.

You are feee to start one

We were at Filia. One of the reasons I'm exhausted and hoarse is that I talked to so many women around me for three days. Unless you buried yourself in a book or focussed on your phone, there was talking — about everything imaginable. In the queue for an event, in the queue for the loo, while I was eating lunch or having a coffee... I occasionally sought silence in the gin bar when sessions were on. There would be other silent women on sofas, hoping I wasn't going to talk to them. No one needs to build in an opportunity for women to talk at Filia.

What happened at the WPUK meeting is that we were given a short period of time to discuss in two and threes our experience of negotiating tricky situations when we were between a rock and a hard place. I presume some women talked about the Labour Party situation but the women around me chose to talk about personal experiences around work and family life. When question time came round we were told to focus on questions relating to what the panel had said. It was a way of letting people express frustration with Labour privately, but not allowing it out more widely.

We don't want bearded men in toilets and locker rooms, but we don't like the open hate of Trans people I often see or the calls to work with groups who oppose abortions on any grounds.

Can you point me to threads/ posts where people are calling on women to work with anti-abortion groups? I haven't seen those.

There would be other silent women on sofas, hoping I wasn't going to talk to them. No one needs to build in an opportunity for women to talk at Filia.

The difference between this and 'the old days' is that it wasn't idle chat but an opportunity to give women an opportunity to talk in a way that helped build the agenda and any conference outputs.

Often, groups had scribes and thoughts were fed back to the floor and debated. There were opportunities to see where there was consensus and dissent.

Usually, things ended in the pub :)

Kellie-Jay says it is fine to do this. I said on FWR in the past this wasn't okay and got told I must be a man.

Agree with this.

I don't think Filia is an issue for that. I am a centrist and have voted for labour and the conservatives over the years. I like Starmer, he is a centrist. I disliked Corbyn and would never have voted for him. Filia and WPUK events have always felt fine to me, although Filia was too much about Transgender this year personally. WPUK have a certain viewpoint about the labour party that I do not agree with, but they have always been perfectly welcoming at their talks.

So, what did you particularly enjoy at Filia?

@ArabellaScott The talks about birth, migration and motherhood.

Ah. And back we go to KJK.

@pattihews I was answering a question. I will bow out now. This looks to be going the usual way. Attack anyone with a different view.

No — I want people to have different views and talk about them freely. I want that to be allowed. I'm possibly closer to you in political terms than you imagine. Left of centre but not sure how far to the left I am these days.

My 'Ah. And back we go to KJK' wasn't an attack on you: I was musing that it all seems to come back to her — and you'll have noted, I hope, that I'm not a fan but appreciate that she galvanises women WPUK can never hope to reach. I'm for pluralism. I don't do the purity number.

You seem to think everyone's out to get you, antelope, and I don't think they are. And I'd like to say yet again that Filia welcomes all kinds of feminism.

Too much about trans? I didn't attend a single talk about it (though I would have liked to go to the sports one - but that would have been the only one, if I'd made it)?