Victoria Smith has written an excellent article in response to Alastair Campbell’s dismissive behaviour towards women arguing for single-sex spaces and services:
https://thecritic.co.uk/do-feminists-speak-for-all-women/
‘That no woman speaks for all women is hardly a novel observation. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a world in which this were possible, given there are billions of us. One of the most significant challenges feminism faces as a movement — both globally, and on the smallest, most interpersonal level — comes from the fact that women’s views diverge significantly due to age, experience, location and the way in which our personal lives are intertwined with those of men of our own milieu. As Gerda Lerner wrote, “class and racial privileges serve to undercut the ability of women to see themselves as part of a coherent group, which, in fact, they are not, since women uniquely of all oppressed groups occur in all strata of society”…
…Many of us have deep disagreements not just with women of other backgrounds, but with our own female relatives and friends. My own mother believed very much in the idea of males as heads of the household, whereas I do not. It is laughable for men such as Campbell to breeze in and suggest — as if we haven’t already noticed — that when feminists claim to advocate for women’s rights, we literally believe all women, or even all feminists, think the same way we do. We argue; we make judgements; sometimes we change our minds. The situation of women as a class is too important for us to retreat into the kind of relativism that insists you can’t really say one thing is better than another (there are women who support FGM, or advocate for their daughters being married off at 12, or believe that the tradwife movement is progressive). Nobody likes to feel they are telling other women they are wrong about women’s rights — but some are. ’