Who‘s coming to FiLIA?

[lanadelgrey]

I‘m starting to get excited.
Are there plans for a MN meetup?

So much work goes into organising FiLiA. I think it's perfectly right and proper as a feminist to be supportive of women in Gaza, but making a statement about it on the main plenary stage, knowing the divisions it would inflame, and knowing the headache it would cause for the organisers, is wrong. The effect is to sabotage the immensely hard work of Lisa-Marie and her colleagues, and I think it's a shame.

Whilst they weren’t shouting from the river to the sea, one woman was absolutely chanting free free Palestine over and over from the stage. I know because I watched her mouth moving but it in my hazy drunken head, couldn’t work out why the song didn’t match what she appeared to be singing.

The disco stage this was, not the main stage.

And multiple women (5/6 of them) holding aloft their keffiyeh scarves on the disco stage. I was also there, they were selling keffiyeh at one of the stalls, alongside other woven/textiles but it was enough to stop me in my tracks.

Yes, completely agree that the FiLiA disco was not the time or place for flag, scarf or ribbon waving.

Feminism has always historically come from the left - even the pre-Marxist left of Mary Wollstonecraft. It originated as an oppositional movement, in opposition to the status quo - very much aligned with the broad left and an ideology of going against the grain. (The concept of the "left wing" comes out of the political movements of the French Revolution, and Wollstonecraft was writing at the height of the Revolution and the new ideas percolating through from France to England).

@IwantToRetire your account of past women's liberation conferences is at odds with my experience from the late 1970s. There was no circulation of agendas or likely speakers! It would have been impossible to circulate that information to the 100s of women attending. In my experience of being involved in the movement since around 1976, the VOLUNTEER organisers just got on and tried to invite a wide range of speakers on a wide range topics of the moment & of interest.

And as I keep saying, there have ALWAYS been divisions in the women's movement. It's a grass-roots movement which covers 50% of the population. Of course there will be divisions and differences! Not all women think the same things!

Think of the division and deep differences between suffragists and suffragettes. When I was a baby feminist in the late 70s, it was between lesbian separatists and straight women ("sleeping with the enemy" accusations abounded). Other divisions ran along the lines of suffragists v. suffragettes - disagreements between those advocating change through gradual legal change eg equal pay, legislation against rape in marriage etc, and those looking at direct action and women's separatism.

FiLIA is one volunteer group. There are many others - WDI, WRN, Sex Matters, and so on. I think part of the issue is that more recently, a lot of women have come to feminism as an organised movement & way of thinking in the wake of the assault on women by the transactivist /gender ideology extremists. They're not really experienced in the much wider movement that came out of the second wave. It was telling at FiLIA that many of the activists speaking and attending were of the age of second wavers. A lot of women new to more organised feminism don't know a huge amount about past campaigns, and past iterations of the women's liberation movement. For me, it's the tiny fragment of silver lining from the storm cloud of transactivism, that it has re-vivified a very active women's movement.

But new converts need to understand that the women's movement has never had one ideological or practical throughline. And debate over both tactics and strategies is a constant in feminist groupings and organisations.

They put loads into grassroots work and also give many women free tickets and organise and fund their accommodation so that they can attend the conference.

And every FiLIA attendee has the option of donating towards these free tickets when she registers. I gave two "Solidarity" tickets, because I can afford to. It's well worth it.

The Palestinian flag is very much associated ( and increasingly so over the last two years since October 7th) with anti Israel rhetoric and feeling; which easily bleeds into anti Zionism; which easily bleeds into generalised anti-semitism. It would be difficult to deny that, I'd say.

Were people really waving yellow ribbons, or were some jewish women simply wearing a lapel badge?

But weren't some of the people refusing to condemn male violence when it happened to be Hamas against Jewish women actually speakers?

That's a bit more than some random nutter.

Hi @Shedmistress and @TinselAngel , I see you want me to explain why I think tinsel is a troublemaker, I thought it was self evident and I didn’t need to explain but here goes: The trans widows I know have found her impossible to deal with and so have people in the media who wanted to discuss this issue, consequently the voices of trans widows have not been heard. Tinsel resents it when any other trans widow speaks but she is extremely difficult with any media that want to speak to her. It’s a disaster and consequently trans widows are the one remaining group who are seldom represented in the media

Whilst this is true, I think the very least you'd expect from a feminist conference is that all violence against women is condemned. Including when it's Hamas doing it. Regardless of who the women are.

From the outside this seems to be the line that was crossed, by speakers (though there may also have been attendees who agreed).

It seemed that for some speakers the war in the middle east was more important than feminism. Whilst they're free to hold whatever views they have, making part of their speech at a feminist conference about their other views and nothing to do with the conference is at best unprofessional and divisive, at worst using a powerful platform to spread racism / anti-semitism.

This is not in line with what I know about Tinsel, nor in line with what she's said on the thread. She said she was pleased there was a session on transwidows at Filia, and that the people there got to speak. She's said she was pleased a poster on this thread appreciated the transwidow's film. She has been very positive about the panel members.

As far as I can tell she is simply unhappy with the way the Filia organisers interacted with her and built on her work without including or acknowledging her. Are women not allowed to speak their opinions?

What she does seem to have is clear boundaries, a lot of people sometimes find a hard 'no' difficult to hear, which may be at the heart of this.

Also, many transwidows are being or have been abused in their relationships by men (identifying as women), so may not be able to always court the media because they may face real-life risk of abuse / harm if they do so. This is why they have problems with representation in the media, plus the media being captured and all about the abusive males who have less concern about their own or their children's safety.

Your accusation that Tinsel is somehow 'gatekeeping' access to transwidows stories is laughable given she started the transwidows threads on here, I think (?) also the website and participated in the film. And the fact the Filia session went ahead. She's done more than anyone else I know to ensure transwidows voices are heard!

I saw one woman waving a yellow ribbon above her head. She was next to the woman waving a Palestinian flag, who moved in front of her, whose flag was snatched by someone not on the stage and so on.

Neither you nor I know the intentions of the woman waving the Palestinian flag. A generous interpretation is somewhat myopic support for Palestine, but there are other interpretations as you point out.

As previously, the FiLiA disco was not the time or place.

It’s sounding to me as if @Dopeydoraz has a personal dislike for @TinselAngel.

https://x.com/JeanHatchet/status/1977384199486050749

Across the entire weekend, where I had contract with many many attendees, I saw one woman wearing a yellow ribbon & many many women wearing yellow ribbon lapel badge. There were also some women wearing keffyieh.

Women are politically different from one another shocker!

Women with different positons on many many topics attend Filia - just as you would expect, women not being a monoclass afflicted with samethink.

It is a pity that women with different political views could not have focused on womens commonality at this difficult time. There is so much that divides women but even those with polar extreme political views have issues in common because they are women.

FiLiA issued a statement to that effect early Saturday morning on no sleep.

Not good enough for many people, attendees and otherwise it would seem.

It's not as a strategic statement, but as an attempt to remind women of their commonalities with one day of the conference left, it was fair enough given the circumstances.

Did they distance themselves from the speaker they'd invited who said she wouldn't condemn Hamas? (including presumably horrific Hamas male violence against Jewish women)

Do you mean this statement? Sorry it's not specific or enough for me

FiLiA’s goal is to bring women together, to build sisterhood and solidarity.
We are being divided by multiple forces, which aim to weaken our unity, shared humanity and the women's movement. Men's wars and men's institutions will never prioritise women.
We need to keep building the women's liberation movement, to raise our collective consciousness, to name and identify all the ways we are oppressed, to build sisterhood, and work together to take down male supremacy.
That is what FiLiA is for, to hold and defend the space to do that. To bring women together, of all faiths and none, even with our differences and disagreements. And to remind us that women come first, all women.
In Sisterhood and Solidarity,
The FiLiA Trustees

I'm not sure they can distance themselves when she wrote their book...

This is laughably untrue. Do speak to the panellists who were at FILIA, Vaishnavi, Emma and Abigail and they will advise you otherwise.

V and Emma are good friends of mine and Abigail a long time friendly acquaintance. They are all aware that I wished them well and for the panel to be successful.

If only I had enough press enquiries to be able to have formed a difficult reputation! The only thing I have held firm with regarding the press is that domestic abuse victims should be offered anonymity and not be forced to out themselves in order for their story to be told, their safety is paramount.

Where I probably have got a reputation as difficult, despite being a former Labour Party member and Trade Unionist is with the soc fems who as IWantToRetire says, have taken over FILIA. And they don’t like me because of my criticism of their groups platforming men like our exes. (Although I’ve never criticised FILIA for the as I assumed it was a one off).

My advocacy is unapologetically trans widows first and my feminism is female only. This is inconvenient for some women on our side, but as my old Dad used to say, tough tit.

I have been to 3 FILIA conferences, I have collaborated with them on consultation responses and they published the article launching the TWV website. I have been a strong supporter of them but think that since the anti Posie workshop they have chosen a side and in doing so lost their way (mixed metaphor?)

I eventually spoke out about them fobbing me off and giving me a different reasons for not having a trans widow workshop at 3 conferences. Then they finally arranged one, in a format I suggested to them, and didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me, let alone involve me. This was just bad manners and in not acknowledging a woman’s work was unfeminist. I don’t apologise for believing feminists should acknowledge other women’s work.

Incidentally Behind the Looking Glass probably wouldn’t have come about had I not met Vaishnavi at Portsmouth FILIA and subsequently been able to encourage other women to speak to her. I hold a position of trust with other trans widows and don’t take that lightly.

That some feminists have a problem with my approach is on them.

(Apologies for typos it’s a long post and I’m on my phone)

Oh dear - I didn't realise she was so closely involved. 😬

That isn't want she said.

Gupta said "as a feminist who has campaigned against religious fundamantalism, I will take no lectures about the evils of Hamas. Nor will I allow that evil to eclipse the evil of the facist govementment of Israel".

You can read it for yourself. She clearly describes Hamas as evil TWICE.

https://x.com/RahilaG/status/1977740462581526658

While the end of her speech may have been divisive & misguided, & not the best for FiLiA's opening plennary Gupta IS acknowledging the evils of Hamas, not suporting Hamas. She ends by effectively calling for two states which, whatever your politics or views on the Palestine/Israel/Middle East mess, calling for 2 state solution is not an extreme postion.

Things aren't helped by people spreading lies, distortions & misinformation twisted to fit whatever agenda they think they are pushing. It would be helpful for all women to just take a moment to investigate things properly before spreading untruths & exaggerations that really are causing harm.

Yellow ribbons are older than Israel.

If anybody thinks they are some pro Jewish symbol they clearly know nothing about the Vietnam war.
And the Korean War
And World war 2