The (literal) end of the Women's Equality Party

[WomanDaresTo]

Proposing to close themselves: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/26/womens-equality-party-to-vote-on-closing

Shame it didn't work out - i was excited when they launched.

When one of their opening campaigns was for men to be able to stay overnight in maternity wards, I realised they were the Privileged Women’s Equality Party and quit.

Their eulogy for woman terrorising Chris Kaba was the final mail in their coffin. Imagine being the woman who was to be brave enough to take out an injunction against him reading a women’s organisation mourning his death?

What a pathetic bunch of handmaidens Maru and Sandi are. No idea who else is involved and don’t really care

I went to a founding meeting "lets work out what our policies should be" thing and was thoroughly disillusioned by how shallow and disconnected from reality they were long before they even decided that twaw.

I find myself in agreement with this. No idea WTF they were thinking with their lionisation of Kaba but it was in keeping for a group of women allegedly advancing women's rights. While actually helping to regress our status, because they pandered to men.

It's a mystery they stayed solvent this long. They won't be missed.

Good, they won’t be missed by women because they don’t speak for women and they didn’t achieve anything for women they just set the discussion backwards.

I thought it could only be a matter of months when they made that horrific post celebrating Chris Kaba

they’ve always prioritised men. Which was never going to work,

I might have felt sad because they were trying something different, even if I didn't agree with what seemed to be their principles, until the Kaba tweet. Which demonstrated a complete lack of clue.

I was briefly a member. I didn't get involved with the local group because it was TWAW but hoped that wasn't true nationwide and I could support campaigns eg for better childcare. But there was zero communication from the centre until I resigned. The vote to decide if their policy should be twaw was in person only, when I was able to vote electronically for the National Trust's AGM motions that year. Not exactly democratic.
I now belong to a different organisation with Women in its title, who know exactly what a woman is and is extremely well run.

I was a bit surprised - it's not that long since they won a council seat is it? Agree that the Kaba tweet deserved to finish them off.

The ratio on their announcement on X is impressive!

I hope other women’s orgs (the other ones that think men can get women, like The Fawcett Society) learn from this.

x.com/wep_uk/status/1850245789076881443?s=46

What happened with Kaba?

It is a lesson for any organisation set up for women, but I doubt it will be learned. 😔

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5193503-womens-equality-party-and-chris-kaba

They chose to tweet in support of him recently. He was a violent, abusive man.

Twitter post on Chris Kaba

unbelievably, the WEP put out a boo hoo statement commiserating with the black community (like they all think the same thing, right?) on the sad loss of the recently departed waste of space gangster and violent thug at the hands of the Babylon. No, I'm not making this up.

'It takes courage to start a new political movement in a system designed to shut out radical, progressive voices like ours.'

Radical?!

At present the only supportive tweet I've seen in response to the WEP's announcement is from Steph Richards, trans-identfied male. Figures.

Thank you. I have now read up on what happened with Brunskell-Evans (had not been previously aware.

This http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/body-politics/public-statement-to-the-womens-equality-party/ and this http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/body-politics/open-letter/ are well worth reading if you are similarly unaware. How the WEP remained for so long is really worrying. It seems to have been a very inaccurately named party.

I was a founder member too. I wasn't happy when they decided women meant anybody at all, but had some residual hope they'd have something sensible to say about conflict of rights and that they would be the one party (at the time) to at least discuss it. Disappointingly not to be. The only one of them with any integrity was Sophie Walker and they threw her out. I can't remember if I left just before or just after she did, but it was when it became apparent they really weren't about women at all.

The Kaba tweet reminded me of Amnesty feting Cageprisoner.

Good.

That is sad news. ☹️

PP have mentioned Sophie Walker. Here is a letter she wrote about the issue of self ID and now the party decided to (not) manage it www.wepsbr.com/post/sophiewalkerletter

Good.

They were an absolute disgrace and their founders, who clearly only started this vanity project for themselves instead of women, should be condemned.

Sorry womens i have to say there are class issues with feminism which is what they portrayed. Had fuck all to do with me and mine

That was my sense. I was excited about a party for women but I didn't see anything I recognised as being representative of me. It was very disappointing and they've barely been on my radar since.