I am hestitantly outing myself as the one who talked about debacle, but cant really say where it was I said it.
But was within the context of the WPUK workshop at FiLia.
The problem with FiLia is that it has about as much to do with women's liberation as going on a package tour and then thinking you know about the country you were escorted through.
But if you want your feminism curated for you, and accept that someone else (who may have personal rather than political reasons) chooses who has a platform and who doesn't they you pays your money and accepts what you get.
And on one level that doesn't matter, but it does when it turns out it is the same small friendship group that is basically promoting their friends and there brand of feminism.
The Elephant thread allowed women to explore this ongoing deceit as something they hadn't realised was happening. And thanks to one poster whose name I have forgotten found out that WPUK directors now has members of a group called Actual Gender Critical Left who are the chief maligners of KJK and Kara Danski (is that her name) and quite honestly it seems very personal rather than political.
Added to this dinner party feminism, is the fact, also discussed on FWR that it appeared that the trustees of FiLia are using money dontated or granted to them to run the conferenct to sue a woman who asked for an apology for being thrown out (violently by men) from the social she had a ticket for 2 years ago, and a similar though less violent one this year.
The problem is FiLia is really feminist entertainment inc. with about as much political intergrity as any corporate brand. Or at best fanzine feminism. But they are thrilled to be able to tag themselves onto big names and get spoken about as though they were actual political activists. So whilst the jousting for top billing is going on between the organisers and the names, actual feminism, which is what women are doing at the grass roots is just trampled over or ignored.
Not forgetting that the cost in terms of time and money is beyond most women.
And no it had nothing to do with why women's liberation fell apart after the Birmingham WLM conference in 1978. Partly because no actual woman who was part of WLM would have attended a conference where they sat dutifully in rows whilst their superiors talked down to them from a platform.
The only similarity is in fact the endless attempt by some socialist feminists to be in charge of the agenda. The Birmingham Conference fell apart because some socialists feminsts felt a vote on women being safe from male violence wasn't a priority. This ended up with microphones being snatched and / or turned off. Which could have been funny but had a huge impact on those attending was within minutes what seemed like a very large group of women bumping along in what seemed like a shared direction turned out not to be true. Or maybe that a few women were able to disrupt it enough and no one had ever had to deal with a situation like that. And it broke trust. So no one tried to do it again.
So what is going on at FiLia is also about how, through the back door rather than an outright stand off over a mike, some socialist feminists are setting the agenda.
As the so called Women's Liberation Conference organised by WPUK.
Its funny how all these groups who actually despise who the WLM worked and it fundamental principals are quite happy to use its same to give what they are doing validity.