Declaration of interest:
WDI and WDI-UK
For the last couple of years, since March 2022, I have attended the WDI "Feminist Question Time" (FQT) Webinars on Saturday afternoon or caught up with them later on YouTube. I have also often been to the "Zoom Breakout Rooms" after the Webinars to "Meet the Presenters" and talk to women from all over the world.
The "Breakout Rooms" are open as long as people want to talk, watch films together or plan campaigns (these can be campaigns that WDI simply enables by providing a free Zoom platform and an online file-sharing space, ie. rather than being "WDI Campaigns", eg. last year's "Global Prisons Protests"). Women come and go in line with the Time Zones where they live, with the "late night" (UK time) attendees being predominantly from Time Zones where it is their morning or afternoon.
I have also attended a handful of the Sunday Morning WDI "Radical Feminist Perspectives" Webinars and caught up later with a few others on YouTube.
For info - WDI webinars - these are all free to attend:
www.womensdeclaration.com/en/webinars/
Catch-up on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@WomensDeclaration
There were over 300 attendees at a recent WDI FQT webinar.
Many of us have also attended the free online course "Human Rights Law for Non-Lawyers" that is run as a rolling programme by a Human Rights Lawyer and WDI member based in Germany.
The WDI "Global Platform" on Zoom is used during the week for meetings by individual "WDI Country Chapters", "Special Interest/Planning Groups".
I regularly attend the weekly WDI-UK Zoom Meetings.
Sometimes these are "task oriented", such as preparing WDI-UK submissions to United Nations initiatives.
"This Declaration reaffirms the sex-based rights of women which are set out in the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 18 December 1979 (CEDAW)."
www.womensdeclaration.com/en/declaration-womens-sex-based-rights-summary/
Sometimes we have "catch-ups" from around the UK and work out how we can support local campaigns, or individual women, or campaigns initiated by WDI "Special Interest Groups" or by other women's rights organisations.
"A lesbian delegation to the House of Lords" describes a recent (and ongoing) WDI-UK initiative:
www.womensdeclaration.com/en/resources/statements-and-letters/a-lesbian-delegation-to-the-house-of-lords/
I don't know a great deal about WDI-USA beyond what is sometimes presented in the FQT Webinars and from talking to women from the USA in the Saturday "Breakout Rooms".
However, I think a recent achievement by WDI-USA should be highlighted in the context of criticisms in special edition of The Radical Notion "Gender Critical Disputes" published on Feb 4th.
CELEBRATE EVERY VICTORY
WDI USA Statement on the Apparent Death of the Equality Act
Feb 6 2023
After the intro, see "WDI USA’s Efforts to Stop It"
womensdeclarationusa.com/celebrate-every-victory/
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I am now going to copy and paste the statement from WDI and WDI-UK that was published in The Radical Notion "Gender Critical Disputes" issue, first published on the WDI website here:
womensdeclaration.com/en/resources/statements-and-letters/statement-from-wdi-and-wdi-uk/
Then a couple of very short extracts from the response to this by TRN Editorial Team and Jayne Egerton.
STATEMENT
Our Response to Jayne Egerton’s Comments About Our Work in Her Article in THE RADICAL NOTION
BY WDI AND WDI UK
(page 33 - 34)
Women’s Declaration International (WDI), formerly known as the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), promotes the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights at an international level. Women’s Declaration International UK (WDI UK) is the UK chapter of Women’s Declaration International. The Declaration reaffirms that women’s rights are rooted in women’s experiences as a sex, and challenges all the forms of discrimination against women and girls that result from the replacement of the category of sex with ‘gender identity’ in law and policy, and from ‘surrogate’ motherhood and related practices. The Declaration can be found at www.womensdeclaration.com.
In August 2021 Jayne Egerton published an article called ‘Women and the Religious Right’ in the journal THE RADICAL NOTION. This is a subscription journal, and the article was not made generally available until Woman’s Place UK uploaded it to their website and tweeted about it in July this year. We were unaware of the article’s content until then. On reading it, we were shocked at the way in which it misrepresents our work.
The article implies that WDI and WDI UK work with right-wing Christian groups, although it does not explicitly say so. It creates the impression that we work with right-wing groups on the basis of our associations — and assumed associations — with other feminist groups. It includes no facts which support this impression, as there are no such facts. Jayne’s article also includes assertions about our working relationships with other feminist groups which are inaccurate.
One of the groups concerned is the US group Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), who are involved in strategic alliances with right-wing Christian groups. Jayne’s article asserts that, “There are considerable overlaps between WoLF and WHRC, in terms of UK- and US-based activists who play the leading roles in both groups. This offers some explanation as to why they’ve ended up embracing the same strategy.”
Saying that WDI are “embracing the same strategy” as WoLF is tantamount, in the context of Jayne’s article, to saying that WDI work with right- wing Christian groups. We do not work with any right-wing groups, and we never have. We have a good relationship with WoLF, but we are different organisations who work in different ways.
The other group on which Jayne’s speculations about our work are based is WDI USA. Jayne correctly states that WDI USA were involved with the Title IX Coalition in the US, which campaigns to keep women’s sports single-sex. It includes Save Women’s Sports and WoLF, as well as conservative/ right-wing groups. WDI USA were involved with this campaign until June this year. Jayne wrongly implies that therefore WDI and WDI UK also work with right-wing groups. As with all WDI chapters, WDI USA and WDI UK make independent decisions about the alliances each of us make. WDI is proud to be an international non-partisan feminist organisation promoting women’s sex-based rights.
Jayne states that WDI’s campaign is “driven from the US and UK.” It is not. WDI has chapters in 22 countries across six continents. Each country chapter decide their own campaigning strategies according to their country’s particular political circumstances. Jayne’s assertion that women in the US and the UK drive the campaigning work of women in the WDI chapters in the rest of the world insults those women.
Jayne could have contacted us to find out who we work with before publishing the article. Instead, she chose to make insinuations about our work based on our associations with other feminist groups. We are shocked by this lack of concern for accuracy in an article which sets out to critique the work of other feminists. Given how obviously speculative Jayne’s assertions about WDI and WDI UK are, we are surprised that THE RADICAL NOTION agreed to include them in the article without contacting us for clarification.
We have asked Jayne and the editor of THE RADICAL NOTION, Jane Clare Jones, to meet with us to try to reach a constructive resolution of the article’s misrepresentations about our work. When we have tried to arrange a date on which to meet, Jayne has stated that she could not meet us due to other commitments.
THE RADICAL NOTION has offered to publish our response to Jayne’s article as a letter in the next issue of the journal, due to be published in December [2022]. We have sent this statement in the form of a letter to the journal and look forward to its publication. We also ask that THE RADICAL NOTION make this statement/letter available on its social media platforms as soon as possible.
Woman’s Place UK made Jayne’s article available on their website several months after it was published. We assume that the reason they did not seek to check its accuracy with us before doing so was because we had not made a public statement about it during those months. We are asking them to append this statement to Jayne’s article on their website, and to make it available on their social media platforms as soon as possible.
RESPONSE
BY THE RADICAL NOTION EDITORIAL TEAM AND JAYNE EGERTON
(page 34 - 36)
EXTRACTS
(My bold)
As a (former) member of the private Facebook group set up to advance the Declaration, Jayne Egerton based her analysis on first-hand knowledge. There was a lively and heated debate in that group about putting the Declaration out to consultation in order to ensure that it did not simply reflect the priorities and voices of women in the Global North. How could this Declaration claim to be a global document when it had limited input from women outside of the West? Why was it being launched in New York? The women who expressed these views, including one woman from the Global South, were overruled and it was decided that obtaining signatures from around the world would be a reasonable substitute for such a consultation.
(page 35)
Since publication, the article’s claims about WDI USA have been confirmed by former WDI USA board member Katherine Acosta.
(page 35)
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Until I read this I had no idea that Jayne Egerton had ever been involved with WDI.
I understand that following this early disagreement about the Declaration that Jayne Egerton decided to withdraw from further involvement. I was not there so I do not know if "overruled" is actually a synonym for "voted down" or if there was a consensus view that was at odds with Jayne's preference.
Jayne mentions that "one woman from the Global South" felt that the Declaration ought to have been put out to wider consultation but we don't know from this account whether there were other women from the Global South present who were happy with the proposal.
"WDI Country Contacts" and members from the "Global South" present at WDI FQT webinars, attend the Breakout Rooms and networking Zooms with other Country Contacts. So whatever Jayne's reservations about initial consultation, there seems to be ample opportunity for any of the countries involved to raise any issues they might have about the Declaration.
www.womensdeclaration.com/en/country-info/
In Katherine Acosta's case, Katherine has published several accounts of her involvement with WDI-USA and her reason for leaving and these are referenced in TRN.
There are five Substack articles (out of a total of 16 on Katherine's Substack) and a podcast referenced.
Katherine's substack has very little traction, with only two of her articles reaching double figures (11 and 12) in terms of "Likes" and only half have any comments.
This issue of TRN obviously brings more attention to Katherine's dissatisfaction with WDI-USA. Similar to Jayne Egerton's issue with WDI (and WDI-UK presumably, as she would have been a part of WDI-UK had she stayed on) this is related to a disagreement with a position taken by the wider group of women involved.
It is hard not to imagine that at least some of Jayne's and Katherine's dissatisfaction might be related to the fact that they were not able to control the direction of WDI and WDI-USA respectively as they would have wished.
The obvious solution, to my mind, is to persuade others that they have a better plan and to set up an alternative organisation that is more to their liking.
IMHO their time would be more productively spent seeking to create an organisation that is organised according to their preferences and that campaigns according to the principles they have set out in TRN and various articles.
Why waste time and energy seeking to tear down organisations that are functioning well and achieving such a lot?
I could say the same for the time and energy expended on attacking KJK and SFW.
(Another declaration of interest: I am a member of SFW Locals, Coordinate a SFW Local Group and have organised SFW events, sometimes in conjunction with other Women's Rights Groups).
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ps. re Tucker Carlson
WDI-USA:
"the key demographic in winning this political battle are going to be mainstream liberals who are still in the dark about the dangers of “gender identity” because the media keeps them there."
womensdeclarationusa.com/matt-walshs-what-is-a-woman/
"Who is the Most Watched Host in All of Cable News For Young Democrats? Tucker Carlson"
2 Feb 2022 Mediaite
www.mediaite.com/tv/who-is-the-most-watched-host-in-all-of-cable-news-for-young-democrats-tucker-carlson/