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.

I think an alliance is possible but we would have to have a very very strict terms of reference, that sets out the strict membership criteria and clear objectives of said alliance. And it would have to be agreed that this cannot be altered or amended in any way.

A loose affiliation would also require topics of discussion on the periphery of the alliance as excluded from debate,

We can see from various groups and affiliations that there can be mission drift, disagreements on say how hard is the line is, on trans rights, etc. do we include surrogacy?, (no IMHO) even though i do not agree with it.

So we would also have to inspect what issues are lobbied from elsewhere, Christian right, sex matters, Genspec, and defer to them for some more detailed arguments.

I think on reflection this could prove impossible.

We might end up sounding like a scene from life of Brian.

However willing to explore.

The Party you envisage would aim to attract women of the Left. That would inevitably include activists, who would be duty-bound by their allegiance to socialism to ensure that where there was a conflict of values that socialism took precedence over feminism.

There is nothing socialist about the identity politics (including transgenderism) that’s currently touted by so-called leftwingers. And although men on the left have often sidelined women’s issues, they have no valid socialist grounds for opposing women’s rights.

I’ve been a feminist and s socialist all my adult life. No conflict there — though plenty of conflict with misogynists who like to identify as socialists.

It's worth checking out The Laughing Auditor at the trans protest outside a building where a collective of lesbians who wanted to peacefully meet together had the noisy TRAs outside and the kind of behaviour he filmed. On YouTube.

Omg I've just remembered a shouty drunk bloke arguing with me at the end of the night, years ago. "you women", etc etc.

Anyway his (lovely) girlfriend was distraught in the women's loos after - saying "i just don't understand: he was a founding member of the WEP you know" 😂

Oh yes - that was brilliant. Here he is explaining to Andrew Doyle how he was doing his "job" of monitoring the police when he came upon this group of misogynists and homophobes trying to stop the Lesbian Project's inaugural meeting from happening and how they turned on him to try to stop him recording their aggression and bigotry 😂:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=620963746031116

Glinner did a chat with him as well.

I saw that all by myself on you tube the police lack of reaction was startling.

It's amazing how many "progressive liberal" men who proudly proclaim their feminist credentials are actually raging misogynists who can't accept women not acting as they're told they should by those who think they know better than them (i.e. men)

There's barely a cigarette paper between leftist men and right wing men, except the right have decided to reject the notion of trans women are women.

As an update, WEP has voted to dissolve.

Founders and leaders are still failing to grasp their own contribution to its demise.

Members of the Women’s Equality party (WE) have voted to dissolve the organisation after nearly a decade of activism, with its leaders blaming challenging finances and a more polarised political landscape.
The move, backed by the WE’s leader, Mandu Reid, and the party co-founders Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig, was supported by 78% of members at the special conference, narrowly above the three-quarters majority needed for it to pass.

In an interview with the Observer in October setting out the idea, Reid said that while its policies and priorities were as relevant as ever, a lack of donations that started during Covid and changes to politics meant the party seemed no longer to be workable.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/17/womens-equality-party-wep-members-vote-dissolve-organisation

How desperately sad.

Good.

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Such a wasted opportunity. Privileged women who abandoned women's rights and child safeguarding in favour of the niche demands of certain men.

78% voted to dissolve it, does that mean 3/4-ish of one of them wanted to keep it going? I'm struggling to believe anyone else showed up.

Fuckity bye.

I ended my membership in 2021 so couldn't vote, so thanks for the update.

I'm sad to see the end of what could've been something brilliant. I was so excited by the idea of it and was really involved with supporting Harini in the 2017 general election in Lambeth. But like so many others, I quit when they stopped being able to define a woman. So not sad to see what it became being ended.

Kidding themselves that they were instrumental in making changes for the benefit of women.

Shitting on the women who had high hopes for them and gave them their support.

Playing shepherdesses. like a bunch of over-privileged Marie Antoinettes.

If they’d stood up for women they’d be thriving right now.

If WEP had stood up for women, it's possible that women would have had a political force that

• pre-empted the need to go to employment tribunals and that WEP might have attracted that money instead
• argued for affordable childcare
• facilitated the lives of single parents (largely women)
• there would be better treatment of carers (largely women).

Oh, what might have been. Some of the saddest words. I can only hope that there's political space for genuinely women-centred policies to flourish now that WEP has slow motion dripped in obscurity towards its inevitable demise.

Glad they have closed, sadly the ‘women’s’ organisations that centre males are going to have to learn that those males aren’t going to contribute to keep you going when the women leave

Fuckity bye.

It's really the only response.

Have they ever pondered the reason why donations dried up.

This is exactly the kind of thing I would have given money too, if they were in fact a party for women. Instead I have donated to more than a few crowdfunders, mainly those where women have had to take their employer to tribunal because they were discriminated against. The exact thing I would have expected WEP to be all over. Yet, they weren't.

The exact thing I would have expected WEP to be all over. Yet, they weren't.
Are there any examples of anything they did actually achieve?
I’m mystified as to how they justified their existence at all.

They got interviewed quite a lot by sympathetic media, raising their individual profiles. I think that’s it.

Women's Hour just finished a hand-wringing interview with Catherine Meyer and Sandi Toskvig. Dear god, that's my BP buggered for the day, then ...

The GASLIGHTING! The DARVO! The BS! The sheer bloody bald-faced cheek of trying to tell us that the TWAW issue has nothing to do with the demise of the party, yet carefully steering the 'discussion' off that subject every time it's brought up. Nuala brings up a Pink News article, SO pleased that publication is being cited on Women's Hour ...

If I honestly felt that the party really did want to maintain a non-shouty space to continue this debate, as ST just claimed, I'd be a lot more hopeful. But we know damn well that isn't the case.