Is it okay to work with groups whose principles you dont share as a feminist, but there is a common cause?

[IwantToRetire]

Education not indoctrination
The events was organised by a coalition of groups including the Christian Institute, which opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and euthanasia, Stand By Me Scotland, which opposed the wearing of facemasks in schools during the pandemic, Academics for Academic Freedom and For Women Scotland, which opposes Scottish government plans for people to be able to self-identify their legal gender.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/education-not-indoctrination-tickets-426737442177

Glasgow venue cancels booking for cancel culture conference
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/04e3fa4a-6696-11ed-9c3b-2d9184d0076f?shareToken=4ffe4f56d755905a476b686c75b65dd0&fbclid=IwAR1UHupPu9Xu4bD_gF0JoJb0A9u-bE2RDTcRqmbt9c8bpRUird9JTGbG8o8

I spent years working with an all party parliamentary group. One of the most effective and hard working groups of people I have worked with and extremely productive. They didn't waste time arguing about the things they didn't agree on.

endoftheline precisely!
If you want to achieve an objective you build broad alliances with people who want that, too. If you disagree on other things, well, you‘ll have to find other alliances for achieving those other goals…

Exactly you stick to the matter in hand and leave everything else out of it.

I would say it was the adult, sensible, reasonable grown up thing to do. Furthermore those who think their views will change if they so much as sit in a room with someone who has a diametrically opposed viewpoint can't be very sure of their own views or the basis for them.

TRAs shot themselves in the foot with their no debate and refusal to appear on programmes with anyone with an opposing viewpoint to theirs and now they are hoist by their own petard.

TRAs shot themselves in the foot with their no debate and refusal to appear on programmes with anyone with an opposing viewpoint to theirs

But they'd have gotten away with it too if weren't for those pesky women.

They would and that is why they are so angry that they can no longer hide their deep and utter hatred of women and that's all women including those who pander to them and massage their fragile egos.

Just came across another example of unlikely allies cooperating to achieve a goal:

Glenn Greenwald‘s partner David Miranda (Brasilian left-wing politician) worked together with the right (and left, of course) to give policemen in Brasil access to mental health services. Studies show that this helps decrease police violence.

One key-ally, Capitao Augusto in this is an avid Bolsonaro supporter. And Bolsonaro is the (dictatorship endorsing) hardline (now ex-) President of Brasil who threatened Greenwald and Miranda and tried to prosecute and silence Glenn Greenwald for digging up dirt on him and publishing it. (Also, without Greenwald‘s reporting Lula would still rot in prison instead of being the new elected President of Brasil).

Frankly, I doubt I could have looked past this, had I been in David Miranda‘s shoes, but then again, it is always a question of how commited you are to your goal…

Isn't this kind of how political discource and action HAS to happen?

What's the alternative, get laws changed without actually interacting with the other citizens and convincing them, getting votes?

Because it seems like the way some people see it is that there will be the people who are morally correct, who will somehow manage to impose the right thing on everyone else, through some sort of power play.

That would either involve some seriously non-democratic process, or it's simply never going to be effective.

That thinking seems to be a larger issue in left politics.

VestofAbsurdity · 22/11/2022 18:47

TRAs shot themselves in the foot with their no debate and refusal to appear on programmes with anyone with an opposing viewpoint to theirs and now they are hoist by their own petard.

Yes, this.

So for any any women who call themselves feminists, if they are trying to go down the "no debate" route, should absolutely know and be very well aware - "no debate", "we know best" is not a way to go. Otherwise, you're no better than #nodebate

Fuck off. If that's your attitude - "Women shut up because we are the women who know best and must speak for all women, be told" - Then, No.

We want a debate. We want lots of debates.

I do feel let down by left political parties, all of them. But having left/Labour women telling the rest of us to shut up and to shun KJK, because they - the special cabal of left women - are working all this out behind closed doors, and we needn't bother our little heads about it!

No.

It is people working behind closed doors, on issues which should be completely public and transparent, who are the problem; who have always been the problem.

This is why I cancelled my Labour Party membership.

I thought, "It's worth hanging on in there because there are these women fighting for us and I want to support them and see Labour turned around".

Then I realised that they weren't fighting for us, they were fighting for themselves, for their place at the table to decide what is best for the rest of us.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back after buckling under the weight of Labour Party misogyny and authoritarianism. The final straw was the contempt for and undermining of other women by "Socialist Feminists", including the women running WPUK.

Whatever good work they have done collectively and individually, and I applaud them for it, it stands them in no more or less good stead politically with me than women of other political persuasions who have done good work for women collectively and individually.

Their behaviour has, more than anything else, made me reassess whether any "political brand" of Feminism truly puts women first or is capable of putting women first.

They talk all the time about having the right to establish their own boundaries and they have shown us where their boundaries lie. That's fine, no one objects to boundaries.

They do more though than setting up boundaries, to exclude women who do not support their general political aims. What they do is actively undermine and oppose other women's rights activists.

That is not "boundaries", it is setting out a battle-ground and going in for the attack. Where I thought they were facing inwards towards the Labour Party and trying to reclaim the Left for women, they are facing out, trying to recruit women to socialism and attacking women who they perceive as standing in their way.

That's fine too, but it means that they are not focussed on women's rights first and foremost. Which is also why I distrust their advocacy within the Labour Party on behalf of women.

@TinselAngel I hope can remind me but I recall something about the "Spousal Exit Clause" being bartered away - who did that? Was that within the Labour Party?

Someone wrote about how WPUK had started out as a women's rights organisation but had expended its aims and updated the website. I think a lot of us did not notice and have been confused and hurt by their behaviour towards other women.

Similar to how many of us did not read the small-print on the Women's Equality Party website and were shocked to discover that their definition of "woman" was rather broader than we imagined.

Socialist Feminists seem to despise Radical Feminists. I wish they didn't and would concentrate their efforts on trying to win over the Left. Or maybe they have decided that is a lost cause so they turn on other women in their frustration?

Whatever. I'll work with Socialist Feminists on the common causes of defending and promoting women's sex-based rights and safeguarding children but not to the extent of attacking and undermining other women who are doing the same thing.