WPUK with the help of AGCL have written an article to stop silly gender critical feminists thinking facists are pro women!

[IwantToRetire]

The resurgence of the far right
https://womansplaceuk.org/2024/07/08/the-resurgence-of-the-far-right/

WPUK = Women's Place UK
AGCL = Actual Gender Critical Left

I am sure many women whether feminist or not would welcome a pro-active movement by women to oppose racism and facism.

But this article, as always by what seems to becoming a clique, is just a vehicle to attack other women activists in the UK and USA who have chosen to work in different ways to them.

If, for instance KJK hadn't set up Party of Women and had chosen to attach herself to one of the parties entioned in the article would make sense to raise quesions. But she didn't, she set up an independent party with no allegiances.

WoLF in the US have worked with a range of groups and politicians in pursuit of their primary aims. Why keep harping back to the one occassion they were on the same platform as a group that also had concerns about the impact of trans ideology on children. Is a campaign group being bi-partisan unacceptable?

Wouldn't it be a relief if these two groups would just grow up and stop their endless vendettas and actually do something pro-active?

Think how effective WPUK was in their early days when they just focused on the issue and encourage other women to engage.

They seem to have got bogged down in this circle of virtue and less effective.

Instead of sighing about how wonderful women in France were, why aren't they similarly organising?

As usual its so much easer to blame women, rather than for instance challeging the male left to accept and work and support women who know that sex is a biological reality.

See thread from 2 years ago https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4662757-womens-place-uk-filia-event-the-elephant-ignored-yet-again

Hardly but WPUK are critical of any woman who doesn't campaign in a way they approve of. They even talk about the problem of bipartisan women's groups campaigning on this single issue in the US.

Many of us sincerely thought that if we had an opportunity to talk to left wing politicians they would understand our concerns. Its not just that they ignored us, they actively participated in denigrating us with some senior Labour members even branding WPUK as a "transphobic hate group". Angela Rayner still refuses to apologise for that.

That left many of us politically homeless but aware we needed to work with women we may not agree with on many other issues.

WPUK hopefully can influence the Labour Party. Hopefully they'll ensure women's rights are retained. I'll be extremely happy if they manage it.

I'm not sure it works like that

Where do they do that? I don't think Tommy Robinson can be described as a women's rights campaigner

If anyone's looking for a group seeking to influence the Labour Party from within I'd recommend The Labour Women's Declaration ahead of WPUK any day: an admirable and resilient bunch whom I have never seen take a pop at other women who choose to work differently.

I am so tired of attacks on GC women who aren't far right.

It must be a reflection of how things are discussed on this forum that you have that impression. If you were to follow WPUK on social media or take a quick scan of their website you would see that they have given evidence in select committees, given evidence at tribunals, responded to multiple consultations, worked with organisations like sex matters multiple times to write and sign joint letters, and on things like guidance for schools, the report on the political erasure of sex, and most recently their manifesto. I gathered all that info from less than 5 minutes looking at their website.

There seems to be a very warped perspective on this board. WPUK have published a blog on Tommy Robinson and Reform and their taking up of the sex based rights narrative and women here are really affronted by that and seeing it as an attack?

It could be. They do get publicity here for shaming women, that's the issue for them. Perception is reality etc.

Op explained it in her second post yesterday.

So no actual evidence of anything WPUK have published or said then. Versus all the material you can find to the contrary.

As you haven't a clue about why Edgerton and co are doing this and we do, then frankly your perspective is irrelevant.

Reading through that thread about the wpuk panel at filia is…. Interesting. Anti WPUK posters talking about hidden messaging and coding and what they thought the subtext of the panel was. Followed by women refuting this and clarifying what was actually said during the event. Followed by doubling down by the WPUK bashers of what WPUK really meant.

Their page on submissions does not have much on that's recent. I did. just look. There's a lot of "statements" though. I'm not really convinced they do do all that much aside from telling others they're doing things wrong.

Oh ffs!

Some people seem to be missing/ignoring an awful lot of context.

I read the article, thanks for posting OP. It was a fairly boring read about Tommy Robinson and Reform in the UK and some right-wing politics in the US and Europe. It didn't read as an article writing about direct action by women in defence women's rights. The author seemed to be stretching somewhat to link the two.

In the UK, if the two circles on the venn diagram bisect, with a small group of gc supporters inside, so what ? That's an issue about left wing vs right wing and one for the parties involved to deal with.

Our issue is simply about protecting existing women's rights and insisting that sex matters and is real. That's got fuck all to do with Tommy Robinson and the politics of Farage and his supporters.

That WPUK choose to pursue the path they do is a shame; however, we don't need to lose sleep over it. We seem to be managing reasonably well without them. I also have a clear conscience about (not!) fraternising with the 'right wing'.

Here is a clue.

The second sentence of the article contains the second link in the article:

"Much of this activism has come from feminists on the left, but as awareness of the issues has grown, so too has the appearance of anti-feminist and right wing voices who claim to have women’s interests at heart."

That link is to a 2022 blog post by someone who regularly bashes KJK and everyone associated with her. That blog post is typical and the first sentence is:

"On Sunday 18th September, a group called Standing For Women lead by campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, hosted a public event in Brighton under the banner of Let Women Speak."

Third link in the WPUK article is to a short WPUK statement that includes a list of six links, most of which are to WPUK articles about KJK.

Fourth link in the WPUK article is to another WPUK article, authored by a woman who has posted many times in the AGCL Facebook Group trashing KJK. This post of hers in the AGCL Facebook Group is particularly relevant, as is the reply by the author of the WPUK article under discussion in this thread (screenshot also attached):

Ruth Serwotka
She has derailed the birth of a new women's movement with the most toxic right wing shit and it's been fully conscious.

Jayne Egerton
Ruth that's the truth. It breaks my heart tbh.

Ruth Serwotka
Jayne Egerton: Mine too

Clare Davies
Ruth Serwotka: Mine too. Actually, what breaks my heart even more is that women who follow her will not hear anything against her even when the evidence is before their eyes.

Katherine M Acosta
Clare Davies: I so agree

+++++++

I cannot be bothered to follow all the other links in the article but if you had bothered to follow even the first two that I have highlighted above then you would have had the answer to your question.

Honestly this infighting is toxic. Not everything is about KJK 🙄

Tell that to WPUK. They are the ones who need to learn that lesson.

They aren't posting here relating everything to KJK

I think its a good article and needs saying.

It is a bit worrying that you’re dismissing concerns about far right nationalists taking on this issue as being about bashing KJK. That first blog that you reference, the key point hinges on:

The event, attended by up to 200 people, was live streamed by white nationalists

and the attendance by hearts of oak. If you’re only ever looking through the lens of “this group is bashing kjk” and therefore ignoring the points being raised about the far right taking on this issue. Well you’re completely missing the point.

It’s a bit odd and very narrowly focused to perceive things in that way. It’s as though you think that women raising concerns about the far right are, for some unknown reason, really only bringing it up as a way to bash KJK.

Could you not imagine that the women who write blogs about the far right might genuinely simply be concerned about the far right?

We know the truth though, so why would we need to imagine something you have just come up with today?

Quite enjoying your misplaced confidence of how right you are though. You obviously think you know better what's going on than all of the people that have actually been involved in what's going on.

Frail minded women who might, due to their frail mindedness, find themselves unawares neck deep in a morass of far-right-wingedness.
Is it an attempt to resolve the dissonance that results from the cold hard fact that "the left" (whatever that ungainly conglomerate might be) really isn't fussed about the cunty kind of women being shafted by the trans rights movement?
I'm confused, and if anyone can point me to some kind of analysis that explains what's going on I'd be grateful.

It's pretty easy.

WPUK don't like the current trend for far right figures to try to force team with GC feminists. Simultaneously some GC women don't trust "soc fems" (aka,socialist feminists or lefty feminists) due to past beef so are taking the statement personally.

Meanwhile the squabbling over whether or not the Soc Fems are pass agg bitching about non-lefty womens movement looks bizarre to outsiders and stops us getting shit done.