This wont make me very popular but if you think how questioning we all are on FWR of who is posting what and why on this forum, I find it really strange that so many are suprised by events at FiLia.
If it was my money I was forking out to go and meekly be told by self appointed experts what my feminism should be, I would do a bit of research as to who the organisers are.
There have been many many threads on FWR about a certain section of feminists who are adament that their version of feminism, very much based on left alliances, is the only right one.
They are the women who accuse any woman who says the issue, (eg mothers losing rights over children transitioning) is so important that if the only people who will platform us are right wing, as collaborators with the enemy. The women who years ago stopped KJK speaking at an event. Who every year tell Julia Long she isn't welcome.
Who even those who didn't know their names had such an alien experience at FiLia 2 years ago that a thread was started on FWR talking about the elephant in the room. The women who were happy to promote the film makers who basically took KJK ideas and publicity style to put them forward as who women should listen to, rather than the originator.
Just as the stopped the instigator of the idea of trans widows speaking in favour of friends. Or the long time campaigning GC activist lesbian from speaking, because she had worked across the divide in the US.
And as this meeting in the US is the one that blew up and was reported on FWR by Jean Hatchet, something those who have been on FWR must remember.
If we are able to remember the links between trans activists, why aren't we doing this for those women who consistently work to denigrate GC activists ie those who are part of Actual Gender Critical Left (now embedded in FiLia) and the network of socialist feminist who are part of the same circle. If you are looking for pointless purity spiral politics this is them. They even thought WPUK not pure enough.
And for socialists, not unlike the Labour Party, they are incredibly elitist. And so caught up in the rightness of their correct analysis that of course you abuse your position when invited to speak from the platform (an elitist concept in itself) you will feel you have to virtue signal to your political allies that you are on message.
FiLia may at best just wanting to be feminist entertainment inc. but if you remove the politics and just go for the big names without looking at their platform this is what happens. It has been going for too many years to claim naivety.
But to be surprised that something like this would happen at an event structured like this is I would suggest, not really facing up to the situation. In buying a ticket you are signalling that you accept others will decide what is important.
Sadly this is a repeat of how socialist feminists divided what was the Women's Liberation Movement. They just couldn't accept that other women would not fall into line with their politically correct view of the world.
edited for terrible typos (again) and to add that this year I would suggest twitter wars have created personal spite on line that has bled into real life. Some of it is just plain nasty.