Women’s Rights Network imploding

[NameChangedWren]

WTF is going on? There are letters circulating with members alleging bullying, and anyone who asks a question is suspended and comments deleted. The leader calling everyone to urgent meetings with bizarre messaging: ‘there is no letter, and if there is it’s full of lies, and you can’t see the letter just trust us, and ooh look, something shiny!’ Should I cut my losses, cancel my standing order and just follow Let Women Speak?

If you are indicative of the women who are members of this group then it's not hard to believe the accusations that have been made in this thread.

Slow hand clap for all the women on this thread trying to undermine WRN. Well done. You must be so proud to have garnered Fred Wallace's support.
Now, can you do the rest of us a favour and take a long hard look at yourselves and tell us what the point of this vitriol is?
It is clear that this thread includes some former members who believe they were wrongly removed from WRN. What do you hope to achieve? Airing your grievances, hearsay and petty unpleasantries in public won't change that decision. And as far as this member is concerned, what I have read here underscores the soundness of that decision.
If you are not a member, what do WRN's internal operations have to do with you? Zero.
So why are you so keen to undermine an organisation which is doing so much to defend women's rights and give a wide range of women the opportunity to come together on this issue.
No one is forced to join WRN, if it's not for you fine. But don't kid yourselves that this thread is doing anything to advance women's rights or uncover some dreadful wrong.
All you are doing is creating a time-wasting distraction from the real work, and lending support to Fred and other troons.

No one is trying to undermine anything.
The WRN “leadership” has behaved in an unacceptable authoritarian manner towards its volunteer members - in Scotland, Wessex, Suffolk & now Buckinghamshire.
They’ve made some very poor strategic decisions, ignored the useful knowledge their members have in various areas, police, prisons, healthcare, education etc and refused to let anyone contribute in case they “want to take over”.
WRNS also has failed to ask for volunteers to attend useful events when none of the inner circle were available.
Perhaps they should re evaluate their way of behaving and be more appreciative and respectful of their formerly enthusiastic volunteers?

You seem to be very invested in defending WRN @WittyLimeBiscuit. If you don’t like women on this thread expressing negative views about your organisation, why don’t you do something about the mass expulsions of innocent women, unfair treatment, lying about other organisations and dodgy financial dealings? Because none of that is exactly advancing women’s right either, is it? If WRN is about more than giving a few prominent women a platform, treat the ordinary women doing all the work for your organisation as if they have women’s rights!

It’s obvious you don’t believe WRN has done anything wrong. That actually makes your opinions feel desperately sad and irrelevant. Trying to invalidate the experiences of these women is genuinely shitty behaviour.

You say these women “believe” they were wrongly removed from WRN. That’s the wrong word, Witty, they KNOW they were incorrectly removed. Many of them hadn’t done a single thing wrong, not one word out of turn, nothing.

Maybe if you pulled your head out of the backside of your supreme leader for a moment, or if you actually are one of them, you might be able to see things from the perspective of women who have been gaslit and DARVO’d since these mass expulsions began.

You’re either delusional or badly misinformed (I can’t decide which), but either way, you’re doing far more damage to WRN’s reputation than the disgruntled women here who are simply sharing what happened to them.

The majority of the women who have been unfairly removed and are shocked and disappointed by the lack of accountability and poor behaviour of the WRN leadership, are the very women who have been carrying out the heavy lifting of defending women’s rights on behalf of the organisation and women everywhere.

People speak of the WRN and leadership as if they magically do all of this work alone; it is the members, many of whom have families and jobs outside of the WRN who are giving their expertise, voices, skills and time to the cause.

Women who are wronged have every right to speak out.

Defending arbitrary purges, bullying at the top, and “trust us, there’s no letter (but if there is it’s lies)” messaging as “sound decisions” while telling women to shut up and stop asking questions is exactly why this thread exists and why so many long-standing members are walking away (or have already cancelled their standing orders).
The issues pre-date any outside commentary: dozens of women removed with no warning, no right of reply, no evidence, no vote – including 1-2 hundred women across the country dumped. Local groups leaving en masse. Side chats banned. Questions deleted. Urgent Zooms with deflection tactics. That’s not “vitriol” from critics; that’s a pattern of controlling, undemocratic behaviour reported by the women who were actually there.
You ask what former members hope to achieve by “airing grievances”? Accountability. Basic fairness. The chance for other women to see why groups are splintering and decide for themselves whether WRN is the robust, representative organisation it claims to be. If the removals were so obviously justified, why the frantic denial, the loyalty tests (“asking questions = lack of trust”), and the refusal to engage substantively? Sunlight is the best disinfectant, especially for a group that says it speaks for women’s rights.
As for non-members having “zero” to do with WRN’s internal operations: nonsense. WRN isn’t some private members’ club that keeps itself to itself. It campaigns publicly, takes donations, produces reports, lobbies politicians, and positions itself as a key voice in the fight for sex-based rights. When it behaves like a cliquey cult that purges dissenters, that affects the whole movement – including the women it claims to represent who might otherwise join or support it. Public scrutiny isn’t “undermining”; it’s what stops any organisation from rotting from within.
No one is forced to join, correct. But equally, no one is forced to pretend everything’s fine when it’s clearly not. Calling this a “time-wasting distraction” and accusing critics of “lending support to troons” is just more deflection. The real distraction is the leadership’s refusal to address governance failures, which is driving away committed women and handing opponents ready-made examples of infighting. A strong movement needs robust, transparent structures and the ability to tolerate internal debate – not demands for blind loyalty and slurs.
If WRN is doing “so much good”, it should be able to withstand a few awkward questions without imploding or telling critics to take a long hard look at themselves. The fact that it can’t is the problem.

The upsets outrage on this thread at being forced out of WRN is in interesting contrast to the response to a thread last week where a poster was complaining about the WI trying to coerce members to sign up to the belief that transwomen are women

That poster was told she was unreasonable and that no one was forced to be a member of the WI and if she didn’t like it she could go elsewhere.

I am losing track of where the purges have taken place!

Niven you have mentioned Scotland, Wessex, Suffolk & Buckinghamshire.

Suffolk or Sussex?

Wales was mentioned early on in this thread.

Someone else cited "Buckinghamshire and Calder". Where is Calder?

It is beyond reassuring that in some of these areas a mass expulsion has resulted in new, effective, locally focussed groups being established. Perhaps they might never have been set up had WRN not existed in the first place? Or maybe they would have developed anyway from the original "Shoppers Groups"? Impossible to know.

However, there are also women, some of them on this thread, who have found the experience so unsettling and distressing that they have decided that they can no longer be involved in women's rights activism.

WRN leadership need to take some responsibility for destroying their trust and confidence and deterring them from further involvement with any women's rights organisation.

Then there are the smear campaigns, the women who have had their reputations trashed to justify their expulsion. They must be rolling their eyes in disbelief to read the WRN Scotland Announcement stating, with regard to an alleged campaign of accusations, "No opportunity was given to present a rebuttal of the accusations".

Women have made very reasonable requests for transparency about: the creation of WRN Ltd. as a vehicle for Heather Binning to claim ownership of WRN; disbursement of income; employees; consultancy payments to Directors, and an explanation of why Scottish members were asked to pay donations into a Director's personal bank account rather than to WRN.

There has been no official response from WRN. Instead, various WRN women (including Coordinators and/or Directors from the content of their posts) have joined this thread to post aggressive, insulting comments and make further accusations. If there is anything on this thread that is damaging to WRN's reputation it is this unprofessional response and their appalling behaviour.

Given what we have been told, by them and by women who have been expelled, it is difficult to believe that this has not been sanctioned or directed by WRN leadership.

Heather and the other WRN Directors need to stop digging themselves into an even bigger hole and thinking that those awkward questions will just go away if they ignore them. They won't. This will only get worse, because more and more members will become aware of these issues. The sooner they bite the bullet and start being open, honest and respectful of members and donors the better.

I’m not in WRN and never was. I’m a fellow traveler as I support the need for women to network and mobilise support for each other. As a neutral observer, I believe the behaviour of disgruntled ex members, combined with toxic critics who are jumping on a bandwagon, is disgraceful. Go and start your own organisations and stop trying to destroy this one

27 pages of proof as to why some women were removed from WRN. How any network would get anything done with you women “on side” is beyond me. If I join something and don’t like how it operates I leave. You all claim to be the biggest, best and only feminists in town and yet here you all are doing absolutely nothing but bitch and gurn. Why hasn’t a new bigger and better network of women formed from this group of stars? Is it coz you is shit at it? Many of you claim to be lifelong feminists and yet here we are with men in women’s spaces pretending to be us and you let them. Too busy bitching at each other to fight the real threat. WRN are getting shit done what are you doing?

I'm not a member and never was but the irony of disgruntled ex members being told to go start their own organisations, when that's exactly what they originally did, only to have them mysteriously taken over by random new admin and consolidated into a company owned by one woman who won't take any dissent is strangely reminiscent of 'if you don't like men in your all women organisations, go start your own'.

Oh Fanny, joining a group and then leaving because you don’t like it is very different from joining something you genuinely value, building real connections, and then having your access to communicate with those women, women you’ve shared time, energy, and friendship with, suddenly and arbitrarily revoked without warning.

Try to imagine this: You’ve built a network of like-minded women around a shared cause. You chat with them daily in the group chat, pluck up the courage to travel and meet up in person, campaign side by side, and form genuine friendships. Then, one day out of the blue, the door is slammed shut and bolted right in your face. You have no way to contact them. Despite repeatedly asking the leadership for an explanation or the chance to rejoin, you’re completely ignored.

Some of the expelled women live in very rural areas, are isolated, elderly, or dealing with health issues. They have no one locally to discuss these topics with, and suddenly they’re left with nothing, no explanation, no recourse. They were simply cut off. And they did nothing wrong.

Have you no compassion? No understanding? Do you really not get it?

There’s no dispute that WRN has behaved badly. As a previous poster noted, some women were put off for life and never joined other groups, we lost good women because of it. Others went on to set up new, successful groups, promising never to treat women the way WRN treated them.

The most recent posts have focused on the latest issue involving WRN and the Alloa Women’s Festival. It’s entirely fair, and important, to question whether WRN withdrew voluntarily or were cancelled. If they withdrew, then they’re blatantly lying to their members and unfairly smearing the festival organisers. If they were cancelled, it suggests their position in the women’s rights movement may be weakening. Yes, they do some very good work, but at the cost of trampling on women, is that fair?

Women deserve to know the truth, but sadly, so many of WRN’s members, just like you, remain oblivious to what’s really going on.

Maybe take some of your own advice, if you don’t like this thread you don’t have to stay, but please don’t try to silence women, this isn’t WRN ;-)

Blah blah blah. You’re all mediocre bit part actors demanding starring roles and proving consistently throughout this thread why you were removed. Even the women of Bucks who started this thread are distancing themselves (privately of course) from you. Dry your eyes, grow up and go and do something more interesting instead of feebly trying to bring down a hugely successful network.

This. Every word of this.

@EqualiteaSpiller you say “If WRN is doing “so much good”, it should be able to withstand a few awkward questions without imploding or telling critics to take a long hard look at themselves. The fact that it can’t is the problem.”

but that’s not the problem imo. In my view the real problem is that women who can’t organise campaigns or groups, and who don’t understand what is needed to organise campaigns or groups, are gleefully and ignorantly criticising WRN on social media, anonymously, without having to be accountable for anything they say. Some of these women are relentless trouble makers who do little else but promote their own crappy efforts and criticise everyone else. Some are bad faith actors. And many are clueless about their own lack of ability or responsibility. This thread is a really good example of the worst aspects of social media

How do you know these women can’t organise campaigns?? How do you know these women are “ignorantly criticising WRN”? This is laughable. Why are women ignorant when they’re criticising something that happened to them? Not you, THEM. Just stop deflecting and if you can’t answer the real questions on this thread your input here is totally irrelevant and making WRN look desperate. You can’t put a lid on this.

Ah bless. So the real problem isn’t WRN’s secret suspensions, biased grievance panels, deleted questions and “trust us, no letter exists (but if it does it’s forged)” routine. No, the real problem is women who “can’t organise” daring to criticise on Mumsnet. The absolute horror.
Funny that. The very “clueless troublemakers” you’re sneering at include the entire North & South Bucks group – purged for the crime of politely requesting an independent governance review. You know, the same women who:
• Led the hospital rapes reporting work
• Ran FOI campaigns on hospital & university sexual assaults
• Co-delivered the single-sex school toilets campaign (research, challenging Bucks schools, all the artwork)
• Set up the unreplicable auto-letter system to politicians
• Led WRN’s male violence work & got women onto rape crisis trustee boards
• Jointly created and ran the WRN website
• Challenged dodgy PSHE providers in schools
• Led the parkrun self-ID challenge
• Ran the successful campaign to get girls out of Wetherby Young Offender Institution
• Designed all WRN leaflets, logos & materials (English & Welsh)
• Travelled to Paris for Olympics banners & key messages at landmarks & the Stadium
• Personally funded, built & maintained the entire WRN politics database
• Led the Academics group
• Confronted Wickes with an AGP PowerPoint to customers
• Brought WRN Canada and WRN Australia into existence
• Developed the Male Allies group
• Dealt with all membership enquiries for the first two years
• Wrote security policies & ran the Zoom bouncer team after a TRA infiltration
• Womanned stalls at LGB Alliance & Battle of Ideas
• Researched/wrote crib sheets, blogs, reports & politics strategy
• Led the Justice & Research groups
• Interviewed speakers including Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce, Rosie Duffield, Naomi Cunningham, Miriam Cates, Jo Phoenix & more
• Campaigned for Rosie Duffield & Kemi Badenoch, ran street stalls, lobbied local MPs/councillors/PCC
• Produced WRN YouTube videos
• Stopped mass Progress flags in Great Missenden High Street
• Successfully delivered single-sex toilets/changing rooms in Bucks schools & leisure centres
• And on and on…
These women aren’t “disposable keyboard warriors”. They built WRN. Yet the leadership that’s haemorrhaging entire counties (Bucks, Wessex, Surrey, Camden, chunks of Wales & Scotland) stonewalled three letters, suppressed their concerns, cut them off without process, smeared them in secret Zooms with no right of reply, and binned them like yesterday’s rubbish.
That’s not “sound decisions”. That’s a cult eating its own backbone.
Sunlight’s still free, love. Open a window before the whole thing collapses.

If they did all that then why were they thrown out? Maybe they were just there when all that was done by others in WRN?

It’s a reflection on you and your way of behaving that you believe I’m dishonest and somehow connected with wrn. I’m not. You, evidently, once were.

If you’re not connected with WRN then you clearly know nothing of what’s going on. Defend them all you like but that’s really blind stupid.

lol, I think you need to read the thread 🤦‍♀️

I’ve read the thread. I just don’t think you and your co-attackers were as helpful to WRN as you think you were. We all know the person in the office who thinks they’re running the show while everyone else is working around them and despite them.

Sorry typo - it was Sussex

How did Heather be in charge? Shoppers existed, was Heather part of that before it collapsed? Did she take over the admin, grow the network, and then registered it as her limited company?

It’s not looking like a great business
model so
far.