Sara Morrison vs Belfast Film Festival

[NorthernIrishFeminist]

Employers seem to be slow learners when it comes to women's rights! There’s another employment tribunal case being brought by a woman who attended and took the microphone at a Let Women Speak event in Belfast last year and has been treated very badly by her employer Belfast Film Festival as a result.

Looks like we’re going to have to keep gardening until they get the message.

disclaimer. I don’t know Sara and have no connection to BFF I’m just a woman who likes donating to causes that make a difference

From NW

[we also go to a picture of MD in a t-shirt saying "TRANS INCLUSIONAL FEMINIST"]
NC what do you understand that mean
MC talks about the connection to liberation movements
[we get bogged down in terminology]
NC MD was announcing to the world for whom men who say they are women count as women
MC for whom Trans Women are Women

NC are you saying Trans Women are different from Women
MC there are trans women and trans men and men and women
NC so they're different
MC they are women, they're a type of women

NC so are you upset about her lack of regret
MC there are people who are extremist and there are people who aren't
NC so what did SM say that was toxic
MC I never said she was toxic, I said the event was toxic

What a fucking self righteous dose

From NW

NC so if MD attended an event with people holding flags saying if you see a terf, punch them and other toxic messages - if there was would that make MD's association as ill-judged as SM's attendance at LWS
MC it depends what the hypothetical message would be so I can't

From NW

... answer that.
NC you are holding SM to an impossibly high standard,
MC the problem is that the central speaker who had said toxic things in the part - such as "Islam... disgusting"
NC and that's SM's failing.
MC "I don't always believe in guilt by association"

Really, Mark?

Are you sure?

Staunchly supporting the TQ without qualification but denouncing gender critical thinkers and tarring them by association with Nazis.. it makes idiots of even intelligent people like Mark. It's such a blind spot in these men. Doesn't he know any British left-wing GC feminists?

Operation Let Them Speak working well this morning...

From NW

NC goes back to his email about standing up for the rights of women and how it is a message for the far right
NC so you're saying that standing up for the rights of women is a far right
MC I'd just made a film about mussolini and met lots of far right men using that phrase

Fuck me. He’s made a film 🤣🤣🤣

From NW

MC "standing up for womens rights" and it was scaring me. I probably shouldn't have put it in the email but I was hearing it a lot.
NC so going back to SM's speech what is wrong with it

MC it depends what the hypothetical message would be so I can't..

In fact NC had just given him some specific examples of anti'terf' messages, so it wasn't hypothetical at all.

From NW

MC I didn't like her naming partner organisations. "I have not got a problem with SM having this views, but its sharing them in this context concerned me" MC I was slightly haunted by that phrase - Tommy Robinson uses it as do the anti-immigrant people down south

Did I mention that actually drinking the tea I made can also slow me down?

Reader, it was cold.

One of the many many many differences between NC & me😏 is that she can let outrageous statements go, leave them hanging, and move on to the next thing.
I'd be dug outta him!

From NW

MC I am a feminist and its the misappropriation of that phrase which is deeply troubling
NC what you are doing is smearing SM with a trope as MD did with her text about SM
MC "well that wasn't MD's finest hour" but she fires off so many jokes in texts, you'll see that I didn't respond with a smiley or anything

Islamophobia, T Robinson, Mussolini - anything else you'd like to lob in, MC?
But of course, you don't believe in guilt by association!

I think it lulls him into complacency, then she has a killer question, or references it with notes in her submission.

At least he didn't reply with a smiley face...

Should we be grateful?

Don't forget the Nazis!

Oh Mark! You are just spouting utter bollocks.

From NW

MC goes on to say that NC was "so far off beam" with what she suggested to MD yesterday about trying to get SM sacked. "I hadn't even thought of that"

[we go to 4 July - another email from MC about his encounter with SM]
"I'd like formally to tell you about an incident which concerns me as a
board member of Docs Ireland/Belfast Film Festival, and as passionate
believer in our diversity values."
NC why are you doing this again?

MC it was the first time I'd been touched by this personally and I think I want to put this on the record formally as the last email was more casual. "What particularly bothered me was that SM was saying her boss was misrepresenting the situation. I didn't think that was good thing to say that to a board member.

Oh yes. Cos he's also a feminist doncha know... 🙄

From NW

NC you're third point after complaining about the lack of regret SM expressed was "(3) If I remember
correctly, her child is a trans woman, so she is misgendering her here (I might
be wrong about that)."

NC you've never given birth
MC correct
NC do you think a mother might know the sex of the person they have given birth to
MC it's up to the trans person to say who they are and what they are
SD this is a very sensitive are and the C's child has no role in these proceedings

But not for themmuns, only for ussuns

Again - unlike the excellent NC, I'da been dug outta him at that point!