Agenda for Feminist Fightback conference, 20 October

The second socialist feminist Feminist Fightback conference takes place at the University of East London on Saturday 20 October.

Please find below details of:

* an activist planning workshop for Feminist Fightback, Saturday 6 October, in London
* the provisional agenda for the conference, Saturday 20 October
* the Education Not for Sale gathering "Education for freedom", which will also take place at University of East London, on the day after Fightback (Sunday 21 October).

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1. Get together to plan, make materials etc for Feminist Fightback

From 2pm, Saturday 6 October, at the London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate Street, Whitchapel, E1 1ES (Aldgate East tube)
Feminist Fightback is only a few weeks away, and we need as many people as possible to come and help out with preparations - banner-making, envelope stuffing, definitely not illegal flyposting - and we'll also be talking politics and having a laugh... all genders welcome! For more info email back or ring Laura on 07890 209 479

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2. Provisional agenda for Feminist Fightback
For updates and more details see www.feministfightback.org.uk
ENS Women: www.socialistfeminist.org.uk

Saturday 20 October, University of East London Docklands Campus (Cyprus DLR)

Throughout the day day: stalls, exhibitions, film showings (including Love, Honour and Disobey, a film by Southall Black Sisters; and A Place of Rage: women in the black civil rights movement)

11.30
Registration starts

12-12.30
Welcome and introduction to the event. Speakers will include Feminist Fightback organising committee and the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq

12.35-1.45 Workshops
a) Is sexy always sexist? Speakers include: K Good (Shark Infested Waters); Sofie Buckland (ENS Women); anti-lads mags campaigners
b) Race, sex, class. Speakers include: Barbara Bush, author of 'Imperialism, Race and Resistance in Britain and Africa, 1919-1945'
c) Latin America: Speakers include: Central American Women's Network; Heather Shaw (No Sweat); Alejandra Crosta (Argentina Solidarity - invited)

1.45-2.15 Lunch
Lunchtime workshop: Women in Darfur. Speaker: Jo Read (Day for Darfur)

2.15-3.30 Workshops
a) Ecofeminism. Speakers include Women's Environment Network
b) Gay liberation and women's liberation. Speakers include Maria Exall (Communication Workers' Union executive; LGBT representative on TUC General Council)
c) Introduction to socialist feminism. Speaker: Laura Schwartz (Workers' Liberty)

3.35-4.50 Workshops
a) Islamic feminism. Speakers include: Haleh Afshar, author of 'Islamic feminisms', Yassamine Mather (Campaign for the Abolition of All Gender Based Misogynistic Legislation and Islamic Punitive Laws in Iran)
b) Debate on women's representation in politics. Speakers: Katy Clark (Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran), Janine Booth (independent socialist candidate in Hackney and RMT activist); Sam Lyle (Warwick University), Ellie Crimbo (Oxford Women in Politics).
c) The "gender pay gap", low pay and the class struggle

5-6 Action: workshops
a) The fight for abortion rights. Speakers: RAG Irish pro-choice campaigners, Oxford Pro-Choice Forum, ENS Women, Abortion Rights (invited)
b) Feminists against borders. Speakers include: International Union of Sex Workers and ENS Women

6-7 Closing plenary: what future for socialist feminism?
Speakers include Eva Caradonna (IUSW), Amrit Wilson (South Asia Solidarity Group), Heather Shaw (ENS Women), Janine Booth (chair, RMT Women's Committee)

Followed from 8pm by a social at the Ivy House, 8-10 Southampton Row, two minutes from Holborn tube, to raise money for Iranian women's liberation organisations

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3. "Education for freedom": Education Not for Sale gathering, UEL, Sunday 21 October

What would a democratic, egalitarian, sustainable education system look like? How do we get it?
This gathering, which will take place at the University of East London's Dockland campus from 12-5pm on Sunday 21st October and is sponsored by Education Not for Sale, looks at the challenges facing radical and socialist activists in the education sector.

More:

http://www.free-education.org.uk/?p=392

Feminist Fightback
e-mail: feminist.fightback@gmail.com
Homepage: http://www.feministfightback.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

Please email if you want creche places

01.10.2007 14:41

There will be a free, professionally staffed creche all day. If you want to book a place or places, please get in touch in advance if you can.

Feminist Fightback
mail e-mail: feminist.fightback@gmail.com
Homepage: http://www.feministfightback.org.uk

last years conference

01.10.2007 16:38

Whilst I don't discredit the work done by those involved in Feminist Fightback, having just researched some of the other work you do, I have to say that I found some aspects of last year's conference really undemocratic. In one discussion, a woman whose views didn't fit with the views expressed by a panel of speakers was literally shouted down, almost as if her opinions weren't at all valid. The panel of speakers in this forum also seemed to present only one side of a particular argument.

Rachel

I agree

01.10.2007 18:23

I went to the conference last year and was suprised by how un-activist it was. I attended a workshop on sex workers rights, in which one woman basically talked for over an hour on how liberating sex work is. In the 'female sexual expression', they had a panel of pro-porn women and BDSM activists and we had to listen to speeches on how violent porn and violent sex can be liberating. I understand this collective do do good stuff- I attended their abortion rights demo for example, but it seems when it comes to prostitution and pornography, they take a fashionable view- that being sex work and watching porn is empowering for women. I can't understand how socialist feminists can ignore the exploitation of women involved in prostitution and pornography, just because a few women say they like it. Lets hope this years is better.

Charliegrrl
mail e-mail: charliegrrl
Homepage: http://www.charliegrrl.wordpress.com

Are you sure you were at last year's...?!

02.10.2007 16:07

As someone involved in organising the conference both this year and last year, I have to disagree with Rachel's view of events - we searched for ages to find people who'd debate our (varied) views on sex work and pornography, but no one would come, which we made clear at the start of the session. That's why the platform was unbalanced, and there certainly wasn't any shouting down of differing views on the floor - unless you count "Charliegrrl" who repeatedly shouted over speakers she didn't agree with. Fightback is open to feminists with any views, even within ENS Women we don't all agree on these questions!

Charliegrrl, those are pretty unfair representations of our views. As a speaker last year, and someone who's probably the furthest on the anti-censorship side of ENS Women, I don't think it's as simple as "watching porn is empowering", or that we simply take the fashionable views.

Sofie B
mail e-mail: volsunga@gmail.com

SWP recruitment drive

02.10.2007 17:29

Yup, anyone was free to speak - anyone with an SWP membership badge that is! This conference was organised along the same authoritarian lines as all other red conferences. As a man, I went along as an interested participant, but one who respected the fact that in the feminist movement, it is women who should lead the struggle for their own emancipation, Unlike many of the paper-shilling male SWPers there, who repeadedly told women (including a couple of my friends) that they were choosing the wrong path to liberation, saying female liberation can only come when the proltariat vanguard overthrows the shakles of blah blah blah snooze! I dont think most of the participants were reds, and i hope they can go on to stengthen the ties they made and create a radical feminist movement free from party political bullshit and desperate recruitment bids.

(A) Sab x

I certainly was at last year's conference

02.10.2007 19:09

The discussion that I was talking about was the sex workers discussion. I don't know who the woman was who justifiably challenged the views of the panel but, particularly in light of the experiences she claimed to have had, I found the response of the panel to her views shocking. We listened to the panel of speakers for a long time and, whilst I'm thankful that they took the time to speak, their response to the woman who challenged them was ridiculous. I don't know if there's some history there or what. I, personally, am not anti-porn but I think we need to think long and hard about the social conditioning that makes some women, and many men, think it's acceptable to watch and take pleasure from pornography that glorifies rape.

Rachel

It's not just the SWP that does front groups

05.10.2007 17:56

Just for clarification, it's not the SWP behind it, but another leninist group, Worker's Liberty.

However, it might do some good if there are people there from a libertarian socialist perspective, just to redress the balance.

Mark

Sad

10.10.2007 20:12

What's really sad is that many people who read these things will, given the nature of things, assume that what's been said is true, rather than the total nonsense it really is.

I went to a feminist conference earlier this year, FEM 07 in Sheffield, which was really tightly controlled, to the point where you had to register in advance for sessions, people were denied stalls if they didn't fit in with the organisers politics and we were told not to give out leaflets. (We just said, politely: piss off.) Feminist Fightback was completely different: it was incredibly "libertarian" and in fact a bit of a free for all.

Want evidence of this? Email the person sorting out stalls (who is in fact a member of the SWP - so much for the theory that this is a group-dominated event, since the SWP and Workers' Liberty hardly get on) at

harriness@hotmail.com and copy your request to

feminist.fightback@gmail.com. I guarantee that, as long as you're a left or campaigning organisation of some sort (ie not the Tories), you'll get one. Even if you're eg a radical feminist group incredibly hostile to the conference. Similarly, come along and hand out leaflets, sell your publication or whatever on the day. You'll be welcome.

Or look on the agenda -

http://www.feministfightback.org.uk/?page_id=4 - with debates about precisely the kind of issues that Rachel and Charlie are getting upset about; and about Islamic feminism, despite the fact that many of the women involved in organising this think that's a very problematic concept. Or the fact that Abortion Rights have been invited to speak, despite their previous hostility to the project/refusal to send a speaker last year.

"Unlike many of the paper-shilling male SWPers there"

Since there were, in fact, only three SWP members at the conference last year, and none of them sold their paper (too nervous of being criticised for the SWP's poor record on women's liberation, I suppose - though in fact they would have been totally free to sell it), doesn't this suggest you're standards of factual accuracy are generally not very high? And doesn't your use of the word "reds" suggest that in fact you're not very left-wing?

Amina

And

11.10.2007 12:14

Rereading this debate again and feeling more and more sad and angry.

Another example: the debate about women's representation in politics - addressing exactly the kind of disagreements that someone claims people were harangued about last year? Where else will you get these kind of debates? Nowhere. And yet we are accused of stifling debate.

In terms of being a front, the organising meetings have involved not only left Greens, Labour Party women, anarcha-feminists, and general lefties, but also members of Marxist groups other than Workers' Liberty eg the SWP and the Socialist Party. Quite rare! And yet it's apparently a front...

Amina