Women’s Rights Network Scotland has imploded

[rogue2025]

Hearing all sorts about things kicking off at WRNS.

Women being accused of ‘security breeches’.

Scores of activist women chucked out with no warning or right to reply.

It seems that the Scotland admins don’t want women talking to each other without permission.

So much for being a ‘membership’ organisation.

Why do so many feminist organisations end up in power trips like this?

The gender fight is hard enough without ‘mean girls’ turning on other women.

Power really does corrupt.

Yes this is basically it in a nutshell. It's a shame as everyone supported the overall aims. I've been quite shocked at the way it was handled tbh.

Do those who “join” the Women’s Rights Network (you have to be vouched for by another member to be let in) realise that it is a limited company with a very command and control top down management? There is a suggestion that they are seeking charitable status to source funding other than just donations from their “members”.
There are no democratic processes in this company and using a list of names, supplied to one of their admins by a member of an informal chat group without permission of the named people and using that to throw a large number of people out of WRN seems rather unethical and against data protection standards.

This is why I don't join groups.

Did this not also happen with another group? Scottish Feminist Network maybe? Something like that. It's more peculiar to the left than to women's groups specifically.

I know one of the women who was kicked out. She wasn't a member of the other alternative group and was just removed without any notification at all. She had hardly engaged with WRNS. Certainly hadn't been plotting behind the scenes!

WRN is definitely NOT a lefty organisation. I know some very active women who were removed for challenging racism and homophobia within the supposedly "non-political" organisation which apparently welcomed robust discussion... And no they weren't abusive.

WRN is not a membership organisation in the way that most women's groups are. It isn't a charity or CIC with any form of democratic governance, it's a "private company limited by guarantee without share capital". In effect, the 6 directors led by Heather Binning can do as they wish. The "membership" have no say whatsoever.

Definitely a clique and not lefty. Any "membership group" that is actuly a private company run by 6 directors led by HB is not what the lefty feminists of the last century argued for. Personally I would even query whether WRN is a feminist organisation.

MY WRN group is fantastic. We know we disagree within the group about politics, religious beliefs and social issues and yet we manage to be respectful to each other and to not be snowflakes every time someone takes a line that someone else might disagree with or expresses themselves in a manner someone else might not choose. We are there to defend the sex-based rights of women and that involves practical, grass-roots, local activites rather than endless lamenting and navel gazing.

Because they are purely anti-trans organisations that contribute nothing to feminism and are staffed by a mix of people from the far-right to the center.

Calling them "feminist" orgs is an insult to feminism and to women.

Obviously if your organisation is based purely on creating conflict in order to rake in money and attention eventually you're gonna turn that inwards.

Here comes the lamenting and navel-gazing👆

Is your group's chat moderated? My friend in Glasgow says WRNS admins jumped in all the time to remind them which topics were off the table and frequently reposted the rules.

I'm not going to comment beyond what I've already said. I trust everyone involved to be adult about whatever happened and sort it out.

You thought surrogacy is OK, not surprising no one agreed.
You got the huff and left.
No woman who actually cares about other women supports surrogacy.
If that's close minded then I'm happy to be it.

No. Apart from the need for vetting, nothing else in common. Scottish Feminist Network is not a charity or a limited company, just a grassroots women's network.

I think @MothPosts is a tad misinformed. WRN is for women and children. It was set up to protect women’s rights and the safeguarding of children.

WRN is not anti anything .
WRN is for women.

Hahaha MothPosts. Pull the other one mate.

No, most of the women were broad across various political persuasions. Also politics was not allowed to be discussed anyway, the main aims being protecting women's rights.

"Far right" aye ok. And also, nobody was raking in money. Would have been nice!!!

I am entitled to my opinion and I watched another member get bullied out the group. Two sides to every story. If you want to call getting berated out a group taking a huff then fine.

Ooh a drive by scolding. I can tick that off my bingo card for today!
Thanks @MothPosts

There's no two sides to renting wombs and buying babies.

I am PAYE so I don’t really understand this, excuse my ignorance, but this means WRN is for profit? The directors get paid?

How do they make their money? Through merch?

I didn't know this but explains things that I found confusing. Because I somehow assumed that it was a feminist network that wanted to focus on women being able to connect locally and have local actions.

And as with the early days of Women's Liberation which was a loose network of local women's groups (CR and other wise), local groups then created their own focus. And an attempt by the central admin office (Women's Liberation Workshop) was quickly opposed.

So maybe out of this women who have been able to connect locally will just carry on in whatever way suits them.

It might have helped if from the start WRN had been clearer about not just their objectives and how they thought this should be done.

Only saying this because I do know of quite a few women who had thought they wanted to join but got alienated.

Not that i think prioritising women's safety isn't important, but there must be a way of doing this without then using that mechanism to be a contral mechanism.

Your opinion and you are entitled to it. But if an organisation states they are open to discussion and others opinions but then berate and bully people who disagree with them (including being nasty to a woman who had a late abortion and including the PMs of abuse I got that "made me go in a huff" when all I did was express an opinion) then I want nothing to do with them. Classy women to say the least.

Tiger and John - you two know each other from WRN in real life?

i don’t think I have seen that on MN before!

Laughable. But you can believe what you like. The DPRK is democratic, the nazis were socialist and any organisation that calls itself a "woman's rights" org is obviously fighting for women's rights.

Gonna set one up myself tomorrow actually. We're gonna be called the "Women's rights foundation" and we're gonna protect women and children by campaigning to give free parking to people of native british descent. I think Posie Parker will love it.

I've attached an extract from their Articles of Association. The directors are unpaid.