Who‘s coming to FiLIA?

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

Late September clashes with lots of things
Party conferences
Yom Kippur
University drop off week
Very odd that they moved the date as mid October will have been kept free in lots of feminists diaries

Sharing this Manchester event as might be of interest
https://www.womensrights.network/product-page/manchester-fringe-book-festival-25

I saw Jo Bartosh at the Fringe event in Brighton and she was wonderful, never seen the others so looking forward to it.

Gutted I missed Aja's conga - that feels like a simple but uniting and mood improving thing to do after a shitshow at a party. Hope it was a success.

Don't be ridiculous, ResisterOfTwaddleRex. FiLia was a three day event, not the history of a whole country. That photo is a stock image, not of FiliA by the way.

There's no conspiracy as to why September next year - it was to do with venue availablity and party conferences. It's not great for lots of reasons for lots of women, but there we are.

Move along. Nothing to see.

Do you know what? If this had happened at a Mermaids, Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence event…you’d be singing a very different tune. And you know it

Quite. I think "Wheesht, women" covers it nicely

Gosh, Milli Hill has reported that she is absolutely fine after last weekend, so that's a relief.

If what happened? They organised an event on a weekend that was inconvenient for me and lots of other women. Um, no.

“Inconvenient”

Someone take the spade away

There seems to be women on this thread - including some who have said they're new to all of this - very confidently opining, with no evidence whatsoever, on other women's motivations for actions taken, and their likely decision-making on hypothetical scenarios. I'm taking these opinions with all the seriousness they deserve.

And frankly, October was also tricky & inconvenient. I couldn't take the time from work to get to Glasgow last year, sadly, and this year had to box & cox with some urgent work stuff all weekend.

No time will suit every single woman who thinks she might go if ...

Like @ArcheryAnnie I'm finding the huffing & puffing by armchair social justice warriors a bit tedious.

It's tedious, and it also reeks of either unthinking priviledge or simply a complete blind spot to the vital importance of a feminist movement. Do these posters really think that womens' right to meet, talk and organise are some sort of luxury that it's fine to stand at the side of and moan about? That all the physical and emotional labour that went into creating FiLiA doesn't matter and isn't worth building on?

Really? Women's rights across the globe are sorted? Why spend time on a FWR board then?

If people don't like how FiLiA are doing things and don't want to be part of any constructive discussions with them, fine, do you own thing. But for the love of all that is holy or not holy, just leave other women alone to do theirs.

I posted this on the other thread but it's probably more relevant here:

I don't think it's fair to say that women who weren't at this FiLiA should STFU. Having been to 4 of the last 6, 3 times as a speaker, and unable to attend this time, I'm pretty sure I've put in enough FiLiA-work to warrant an opinion.

I think it's unfortunate that the statement fails to apologise for the extreme hurt and distress caused to both attendees and stakeholders and also fails to name the problem (i.e. anti-semitism).

And I absolutely agree with @IwantToRetire about the bait and switch of celebrating an all-female security team and then relying on male security to actually do the security work. Not once, but twice. Inviting men in to police women in a female only space feels very antithetical to feminism and the provision of feminist spaces.

The security team employed by FiLiA is all female. I assume the men that got involved were the venue's who didn't want things inflamed any further.

One of the FiLiA team was standing between JH and JCJ while the venue staff were getting women off the stage.

I think FiLiA's preference would have been for attendees to behave a bit better tbh. They've said they're going to review security arrangements for future years.

And while I'm generally in favour of naming the problem, I don't think the statement about how FiLiA move forward as a charity is the place for naming antisemitism. The reason being that if they did they should for balance mention the conduct of some attendees towards Muslim women wearing headscarves ie taking photos then sharing them on social media as examples of women complicit in their subjugation.

This would then make the document something other than a statement about the event and the actions they have taken/will take to move forward as a charity, which wasn't it's purpose.

They've said they'll meet and listen to individuals and groups. This is going to take longer thañ the week since the conference finished.

I do think they should explain why they banned Aja and Lippy. If it was a mistake, own it and refund their conference fees. It's not ok to takes someone's money and then do this.

Aja has asked for a reason on X, no reply. They've treated her dreadfully because they released a statement saying two people had behaved badly (turns out not Aja whose only offence was starting a conga line) and lots of people jumped to the conclusion it was two blameless women when they were banned out of the blue with no reason given.

They absolutely cannot request other people behave when they themselves had a volunteer running round telling someone that a black lesbian that someone had previously slated online was in the building, and then not letting same black lesbian in the next day. If they cannot make a coherent statement about what happened here then I'd be wary of anyone going to future conferences if they have had any previous interactions with any of them or their volunteers. It is shocking behaviour.

I think FiLiA's preference would have been for attendees to behave a bit better tbh

But some of those badly behaving attendees were FiLiA insiders, Rahila Gupta and Lucy Masoud, for example, or speakers, such as Milli Hill and the Total Women Victory women.

Quite. They've said they're going to review their due diligence processes.

Shedmistress the info about the FiliA volunteer and A was from Milli Hill's blog. She's amended it now. I don't think F have a duty to make a public statement about this situation at this point tbh. There is much more serious stuff for them to be dealing with.

And in terms of attendees' behaviour, the first women who went on stage were two older women who proceeded to take their bras off and perform an imitation of a sex act. I'm not sure that was welcomed by everyone present tbh

Milli amended her piece to change Filia volunteer to someone. She didn't remove her remarks about Aja

It seems to me, reading here about a conference I attended but don't recognise from many posts, that part of the problem is some PPs want FiLIA to be all things for all women.

It isn't and can't be, and some PPs are setting up an impossible standard.

If you don't like what FiLIA does, there are plenty of other grass roots feminist groups, or start your own.

spannasaurus yes, I was talking about F's actions and whether they should make public comment on that aspect of events.

FWIW, I think Milli''s piece was racist, classist, crappy for A and a crappy thing to do to an organisation that has platformed you multiple times. In my opinion, she shouldn't have published it.

Fifia made their own statement that they had barred two women due to their behaviour didn't they? Intimating that it was Aja and Lippy. And Milli hasn't said 'It wasn't a Filia Volunteer' just that it was 'someone' who may or may not have been a Filia Volunteer.

They don't have to be 'for all women' but putting an actual target on two women's backs, women who regularly go out and face down actual violent men is utterly disgusting.

They've had time now to clarify why they barred A and L from attending after the party and they have chosen silence. I'm very glad now I didn't fall for Filia twice and only wasted one weekend's 'conference' fees on them.

This is a good point. Aja has multiple times been on the streets in crowds with angry men who want to harm her. Implying it was her at fault was not on. She's one of the warrior women who regularly face down angry TRA men.

The email from FiLiA did not intimate who the two women they kicked out were. They did confirm later in the week that Lucy Masoud wasn't one of them, possibly because JH had posted on SM that she was.

If people want to put 2 and 2 together and come up with 5, I can't see how FiLiA can be blamed for that.

I have no idea why some women were not permitted to attend on the Sunday, and in the interests of privacy, I don't think I as another attendee should know.

The two women that were barred WERE Aja and Lippy.

If you were barred without reason from something and someone put out a notice saying ' we barred two women from the day due to their behaviour' you'd probably be pretty pissed off that the INTIMATION was that you'd been barred due to your behaviour.