Here we go again! Brighton Police want to interview KJK about a hate crime.

[ScreamingMeMe]

That was a Good Law Project one, I think.

Was there a similar issue when Sisters Uncut raised money after Sarah Everard's murder? I think they then clarified where the money was going and offered a refund to anyone who wasn't happy.

As for JB'S fundraiser, I am absolutely confident that Julie would have spent any leftover funds correctly and with integrity. I am also absolutely confident that, had KJK done something similar, there would have been a huge fuss, with certain women leading the outcry. How anyone can say they cannot see a contradiction is beyond me.

Julie Bindel used the crowd justice platform where all donations go directly to the law firm. She won't have had any direct access to the money.

I also have 100% faith that Julie will have chosen appropriate causes for the leftover funds.

@IwantToRetire Can you provide a reference for this, please? Thanks.

I have not seen this mentioned anywhere, and I didn't see any male security at last year's FiLiA? (doesn't mean there weren't any, of course, but all the security I saw was Female.)

Spoken to a reliable source who is a very senior partner in an international law firm, working for fancy clients, charged out at around £800 per hour. £40K would be 50 hours' work for them. 50 hours for a bit of preliminary advice, letter before action and a settlement? No way. Now factor in the likelihood that this low level piece of work was probably done by someone with a much lower charge out rate and able to rely on settled law (Maya's discrimination case, basic T&C/breach of contract) and you've got yourself £5k worth of fees at most, I would say. That's a big old surplus to account for.

I do agree, however, with pp that once you pay into one of these things, you can't then expect the money back if legal fees have been incurred. But all these crowdfunders need transparency and a contingency plan for surplus funds that is clear to the donors prior to donation.

Yeah I'm not saying JB has appropriated funds. But when you donate money, it ought to be clear where it's going to. If I donate to JB and she decides to pass the money onto WPUK, for example, I might not want that. If she decides that it's income for her general life expenses, I might not want that either. It's just good practice to be transparent about financial matters. I don't know about other women here, but I'm not wealthy and when I give money, it usually means I am sacrificing something else I could have bought/done. I'm not going with food and basic needs, of course, but still I want to feel that my money is being put to good use (by my own standards).

I wonder if Filia, as a charity, have insurance to deal with legals. It's perplexing, to an outsider, that they want to defend this: it's on video that an autistic lesbian was rather aggressively removed by male security and all they had/have to do is state they are increasing disability awareness training, will employ female security, and apologise.

One reason I never donated to JBs Crowdfund - and she achieved a good result - is that 35,000 for a Letter Before Action is preposterous. As someone else said, once you've had a conference with counsel, advice, and a letter drawn up, it's closer to 5K. It turned into, it seems, some sort of fundraising drive for other, unspecified causes.

Something I did during my Crowdfund was to keep receipts because I knew there would be questions from TRAs and I felt morally obliged to donors. You cannot take someone's word and I am personally wary of some endeavours I've seen that simply say things like "large bills" - yes, but if you evidence the amount it'll stop speculation. Would I go as far to say there has been fraud? No. But there has not always been transparency and an attitude of 'Just Trust Us' when we're all Crowdfunded out and, frankly, can't just trust everyone.

For transparency I spent £20 on champagne once my case was over :-]

The problem with left over money is that it would be impossible for everyone to agree where it went. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be clear, but there will be fall out.

And the problem with the JB money is that it appeared to be far too much for the initial action and many people thought the initial action would work 100%, as Nottingham were so clearly in the wrong.

Maybe JB didn't realise how much support she'd get and genuinely intended to raise a couple of grand for a few calls and a letter.

I wonder if some sort of algorithm could be used where the donor can choose to have a proportion refunded if there's a surplus.

It's just good practice to be transparent about financial matters. I don't know about other women here, but I'm not wealthy and when I give money, it usually means I am sacrificing something else I could have bought/done. I'm not going with food and basic needs, of course, but still I want to feel that my money is being put to good use (by my own standards).

100% agree with this.

Whilst I said you need to wave that money goodbye - which I think is the mentally healthy position to donate from - I do completely understand (as I'm not rich or even comfortable myself) that it's a really hard thing to see the dangers to your children from this ideology and want to support those fighting it, but having to sacrifice to do so.

Something like JB''s crowdjustice money - where it would be so easy to be really specific about where the money's going / gone - is a bit of a kick in the teeth for normal women donating and underlines for me that the head girl types just don't understand the reality (lived experience if you want to call it that!) of normal women up and down the country .

They want support without listening to us.

KJK lets us speak, and encourages us to be brave. She doesn't totally get it - she's made some pretty tone deaf comments from her position as relatively well off - but at least she is letting and encouraging women to speak and she does listen too and will sometimes admit she's got it wrong or that she can't understand someone else's point of view. I think her fundraising is clearer and more transparent too.

I only donate to crowdjustice because it does only go for legal fees - but that does beg the question what happens to any surplus? Does that legal team just get a massive bonus? That's not right? What happens?

It's not about getting agreement about what to do with unspent funds (to do so would be impossible), it's about transparency and respect.

I don't think any woman who's donated would begrudge a bottle of champagne for one of the brave women fighting this stuff, but we're not children and we like to be treated with respect. Giving us the specific facts of where our money has gone is treating us with respect.

Yes, I agree that keeping schtum looks off.

I don't think Bindel misappropriated the funds, as Crowdjustice are so clear about where the funds go, beforehand. I do think she was reckless with raising almost £40K, without checking to see if she would need that much, and this was pointed out to her when she instigated the crowdfunding process.

twitter.com/sarahstuartxx/status/1543302324315111427?s=20&t=xLKR-pfEKN_1D8fEhysq2w

She could have set an initial target of £5k/ 10K and then stretched the target, if needed. And she could have specified that the leftover funds go to Sarah from Brighton's legal case regarding single sex spaces, or something.

But the lack of transparency, the dismissiveness, and lack of accountability is infuriating, especially as @SapphosRock was busy insinuating that KJK be responsible for raising awareness of Sarah's issue. Tell Julie that. She has a bigger platform, and it is possible she could have ensured some funds went towards Sarah's legal fees.

She could have set an initial target of £5k/ 10K and then stretched the target, if needed. And she could have specified that the leftover funds go to Sarah from Brighton's legal case regarding single sex spaces, or something.

That's a good idea. I'm fundraising for such and such, any leftover money will be sent to this other place, and if there's still any more leftover after that, it will go here.

But the lack of transparency, the dismissiveness, and lack of accountability is infuriating, especially as @SapphosRock was busy insinuating that KJK be responsible for raising awareness of Sarah's issue.

Well that's not entirely true is it? I said that KJK's rally has not benefited women and girls in Brighton & Hove as it didn't support any of the campaigns that will directly benefit women in Brighton & Hove. Of course there has been this toxic fallout too.

No I am not saying this is KJK's fault, I am making an observation as a woman living in Brighton that there has been no tangible benefit to any women living in Brighton.

No I am not saying this is KJK's fault, I am making an observation as a woman living in Brighton that there has been no tangible benefit to any women living in Brighton.
Maybe you should have all tried to work more closely with her then rather than shunning.

I am making an observation as a woman living in Brighton that there has been no tangible benefit to any women living in Brighton.

Yet again ignoring and minimising the experience of Brighton women who spoke, engaged, attended.

No I am not saying this is KJK's fault, I am making an observation as a woman living in Brighton that there has been no tangible benefit to any women living in Brighton.

So women living in Brighton aren't affected by the state of the national (or international) debate? It's some sort of hermetically sealed bubble?

Not doing something specifically for a subgroup or region is not the same as not doing something for them.

Everything's interlinked - national wins have local effects, and local wins can have national effects.

I defy you to say KJK has provided no tangible benefit to any women living in Brighton, and trying to salami slice to say one particular event or action provided no benefit is daft. Everything adds up.

(Although I'm increasingly thinking one benefit of this particular event was to help shake out everyone's principles. Insight into possible misapprehensions about values is always useful, and it can hopefully inform strategy in future.)

It was a 'Let Women Speak' event not a 'Let's Raise Money for Causes/Campaigns in Brighton' event and as has been pointed out those who wanted to raise awareness of campaigns or causes specific to Brighton could have taken the microphone and done so. Instead of taking to social media and eviscerating KJK and the event with FuckOffPosie hashtags a better use of time and effort would have been to attend and raise the awareness you deem should have been raised. Why should those who spoke centre you? If you can't be arsed to speak on your own behalf why do you expect others to not speak about what they want to speak about and speak about what you want them to instead?

The people who speak at the event are the ones who shape what is spoken about, not KJK and not those who remain silent.

Can you supply your survey results from your survey of all the women in Brighton so that we can be confident in your assertion?

This is my observation.

If there are any women living in Brighton who have benefited from Posie's rally it would be interesting to hear how it has helped them? I am always open to hearing from people who have a different view.

For background, what is the state of the local Standing for Women groups? Have they taken off? Not seeing much evidence, but maybe they're all on Facebook, where I do not venture.

Is there a local SfW group for Brighton or area?

Although it's not a top-down organisation - it's up to local women whether they'd want to affiliate with SfW or not. (Not sure what you get aside from contacts and merch supplies.)

It seems clear there's a large chunk of women who want nothing to do with her, and in that sort of purity environment I can imagine it might be quite hard to be known as an affiliate... (You'd basically become Tommy Robinson's sister-in-law or something).

KJK's got enough on her plate that she can't personally run local campaigns on top of the national and international one, and if locals don't want to help her, then there's not much she can do about it.

If there are any women living in Brighton who have benefited from Posie's rally it would be interesting to hear how it has helped them? I am always open to hearing from people who have a different view.

A couple of Brighton women have posted on this very thread, @SapphosRock . Try reading.

I think that's the best way to do things.

I've definitely become less naive and trusting over the years and I won't now donate to crowdfunders unless they are really specific about what the money is for and what's going to happen if over-funded. At least when you buy a t-shirt or a hoodie you get the item and don't have that icky feeling of maybe having been taken for a mug.

Heterodorx open.spotify.com/episode/7c47mLRtuMND5anXL3niXE?si=anf9WcJrR1OUTFx8IBWqeg

(Meghan Murphy and the Mean Girls of Feminism)
Happened to be listening to this last night and was struck by how much this mirrors what's discussed in this thread!
I'm still quite new to all the feminism stuff really (came to all this deep digging of what's going on in the culture through depth psychology/anthropology/child development interest rather than political) and loving learning all the ins and outs and history and conflict in the feminist movement. I'm pretty green with feminism, so MN is a rich mine for me. Still trying to work out where I would put myself (if anywhere) and I find the outliers, the 'heterodoxers' etc the most helpful actually.
Anyway, this podcast episode is over a year old, but Meghan Murphy seems to be a rough equivalent in the US as a divisive figure as KJK, yes? (I know she has just returned to Twitter after a ban)
Fascinating to hear her chat about her thoughts and experiences - especially around expectations on her from other feminists and how relevent this is to this thread!

its a great podcast all round for my POV.

At least when you buy a t-shirt or a hoodie you get the item and don't have that icky feeling of maybe having been taken for a mug.

Absolutely, I'm also wary of crowdfunders for court cases that have a low chance of success but are more about raising the media profile of whoever initiated it.