Who‘s coming to FiLIA?

[lanadelgrey]

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

It would appear so Datun, Virago Arts Centre decided to withdraw totally rather than have their work censored.

The work was originally scheduled to be shown at the FiLiA 2025 conference in Brighton. However, when concerns were raised about Fanny Graham’s piece Let Women Speak, Virago was asked to withdraw that particular work. After consultation with all of the artists, a collective decision was made: if one piece was excluded, none would be shown. In the spirit of “all for one, one for all,” the artists chose solidarity over compromise, withdrawing the entire exhibition and standing together — in sisterhood and defiance.

https://sites.google.com/view/outofhertinymind/home?authuser=0

yes. Definitely true. I was due to meet up with one of the Virago women. She told me that they had all withdrawn, personally as well as their stall, rather than exclude the art of the member who had depicted a LWS event.

so a trawl through the twix feed of the jihadi lovers collective, who were instrumental in activating the AntiSemitism, very quickly reveals that this was, indeed, their real agenda all along.

and it's not a new agenda.....

Was any reason given?

oh sorry, I didn't refresh. That was in answer to making Virago withdraw due to the KJK depiction

Not having Kellie Jay at Filia
meh

Banning pictures of Kellie Jay at Filia
pathetic

Thank you for posting this, it did bring a lot of clarity to things.

"Personally, I had never before been in a space comprising 3000 women and near-zero men, a space entirely centring women, and it was, frankly, extraordinary."

However, so did one of the replies, from a woman who had a very different experience of the event. This is part of her reply:

I'm pleased you had a good experience. I recognise that feeling of being in space where, finally, being a woman did not mean being automatically dismissed, I was also an academic. I was there at Filia. My experience was very different.

[...]

I spoke to a woman who had been spat at, one who had been jostled, I heard a stall holder tell a small group around her that Jewish women were "weaponising" the rapes of Oct 7th "to make Hamas look evil" (!).

Sitting having coffee with two other women, talking about the issue of how to support Jewish women, we were joined by a fourth women who seemed interested - but then began to tell us that the Israeli military had changed the location of the NOVA festival a few days before "wink wink" - she said it made her "wonder". Yes we challenged her but I doubt it made a difference to her belief in a zionist conspiracy.

An old friend was at the disco, near the front. She saw the spiteful children with the Palestinian flag deliberately wrap it around the elderly, disabled, Jewish woman. My friend went for security and sensibly was not involved in the scuffles.

Large groups of women gathering to support each other is pretty powerful, I know how hard it to organise them, herding cats is easier. But if one ethnic group of women is targeted in this way then it de-legitimises that event as a Feminist event. The group behind this, who were selling antisemitic literature on their stall, have been tweeting since the weekend that their aim is to ensure the next FILIA is "Zio free".

Yet still no statement from FiLiA.

That makes a lot of sense.

Good for them taking a principled stand.

Which is disgraceful and there are no excuses or any justifications for their continued silence.

IMO it's just not acceptable to mention the suffering of Palestinian women in a war which has also harmed Jewish women without mentioning both groups of women suffering. It's not feminist.

I agree entirely, @whatwouldafeministdo , and so I would, from what I heard, the FiLiA comms person who spoke (on her own account) at the Jewish women and allies meeting on the Sunday. She was really upset and angry that this speaker had broken the agreement not to do this. If this was my event and my team - senior volunteers, the trustees, etc - I'd have asked everyone to take a couple of days to sleep then had a day to thrash out a joint statement, which I imagine isn't going to be an easy thing for them to agree, as if this can happen in the first place, there's unlikely to be an easy unity available. I hope they are able to put out a statement soon, and begin the process of repairing relationships and processes (and that's going to take time and work), otherwise this will just continue to fester.

The Filia lady filming on Sunday lunch was shaking with anger
and when the silly Norwegian woman started speaking
it was awful

Maybe rather than berating the women organisers'and trustees of FiLiA for not having yet made a statement about the antisemitism and other racism, some attendees posting images and videos of others on SM without consent, some speakers using their Substack to publish racist, classist and derogatory allegations about other attendees, some attendees using SM to amplify the vile anti-Zionist material on one of the stalls, the upset that some of Rahila's opening remarks caused, the impromtu demonstrations outside by some of the women attending, the issues that came out of the Sunday afternoon anti-colonialism meeting and so on, people could have a think about what can be done to make women's meetings and conferences anti-racist in the current climate?

I'm not suggesting some sort of brain storm on this thread btw. It's just that I've been trying to think about what a truly anti-racist space that felt safe for all women would look like these days. Just saying, 'no racism' is paltry - yes, there's some obvious racism (taking photos of women wearing headscarves and sharing them on SM as examples of women taking part in their own oppression would fall into this category - yes it did happen, and happen more than once) but there are also differences of opinion over ideologies like Zionism and so on.

It's complicated, bloody complicated. FiLiA did make some mistakes for sure but a small group of women pulled off a three-day conference with 12 workshops running simultaneously nearly all the time, stalls, films, meetings and so much more. It was a remarkable event, so many beautiful things happening despite all the conflict, division and tensions.

I remain in awe and don't begrudge them a few nights sleep inbetween going through the travel and accommodation receipts they'll have received from hundreds of speakers and volunteers, all the emails about 'I left my scarf somewhere - did anyone pick it up?', let alone all the angry and upset communications they'll have received, many with legitimate grievances.

(Also thanks, @ParmaVioletTea, I really needed to hear that.)

As to what lessons we can learn from it, not just for future FiLiAs, but for any feminist gathering: the need for a really robust look at prospective speakers, to swerve any woman of any political persuasion whatsoever who has cheered on violence against other women, or who has celebrated and prioritised men who have committed violence against women.

Definitely. And that would have to include anyone who had ever cheered on or even gloated about the mob violence against Kellie-Jay.

Absolutely.

She saw the spiteful children with the Palestinian flag deliberately wrap it around the elderly, disabled, Jewish woman.

Is there any scope to report this as a hate crime or at least a hate incident?

Along with anything similar that happened.

For future gatherings I guess also tighten up the TofCs for future attendees and speakers.

Agree with all of that @Shinyredbicycle Those of us who have experience in leading and organising large groups and big conferences know how frantic it can get during the event.

Had FiLIA shut down speakers and workshops I suspect they’d be criticised for doing that.

FiLIA can’t be blamed for the deep ideological divisions around the Middle East at the moment, nor about the underlying currents of racism in UK at the moment. Of course, in a politically charged conference, these issues will be raised. The Jew hatred was vile but FiLIA volunteers moved quickly to try to deal with things. Improvisation isn’t always effective. But condemning the whole organisation - particularly when you weren’t there - and casting aspersions on factions controlling it isn’t productive.

Having thought about it a lot more, I think even this - a couple of days to recover then thrashing out a statement - is unrealistic. Rushed decisions are not necessarily good decisions. Perhaps a more achievable thing - and one which acknowledges the work ahead - is just an interim statement to say that they know past and future attendees need to hear from them, that they take this very, very seriously (which I don't doubt at all), and then to tell us whatever it is that they are planning to work on.

This won't make me popular here, but I think that's fair enough. KJK has been very, very critical of FiLiA - as is her right. But if someone made a tiktok calling me an arsehole, then I wouldn't want to hang a picture of them in my house. Just as KJK is free to criticise FiLiA, it's reasonable that FiLiA is free not to want to give over space to promoting KJK.

The child is having a tantrum. This is the calibre of speaker FILiA invited. I don’t need to be told how hard it is to organise large conferences- I’ve done it. Inviting this group was a fuck up of major proportions and they really need to say something. If they are unable to agree on what to say then that simply confirms that some of the trustees/ organisers agree with the antisemites.

Looks like that exchange had just over 100 views. I don't see a time stamp - was it before she apologised?

Why are you choosing to amplify antisemitism?