Second Feminist Fightback conference, 20 October 2007

[Luther Blissett]

I've posted politely before suggesting the correct forum, but it's clearly been entirely ignored, so whatever.

Actually I'm tempted to just bin the fucker as it's just spam for something that's been announced before, in the wrong place both times.

Last in

 

[treelover]

Can't speak for London AWL people, but in my home town the AWL folk are genial, compassionate and sussed people, not weird at all.

these aren't real people
its the AWoLs

 

[Laura Sc]

Some updated details:

Feminist Fightback II - Saturday 20 October ‘07

Back for a second year, the Feminist Fightback activist conference is organised by a group of socialist feminists, including the Education Not for Sale student network (www.socialistfeminist.org.uk). It aims to bring together feminists from a wide range of perspectives to debate ideas and develop practical strategies for fighting women’s oppression and exploitation.

Fightback 07 will build on the success of last year’s conference, attended by over 220 people, which gave rise to several activist initiatives, including the March 3 2007 Torch-Lit March for Abortion Rights.

This year we will continue our campaign to defend and extend abortion rights and our discussions will include...

- Is sexy always sexist? Feminism, lads mags and pornography
- Ecofeminism
- Feminists Against Borders
- Islamic feminism
- Race, sex, class
- The gender pay gap, low pay and the class struggle
- Women's struggles in Latin America
- Darfur
- Women against sweatshops
- Introduction to socialist feminism

Plus film showings...
- Love, Honour and Disobey: a film by Southall Black Sisters
- A place of rage: woman in the US civil rights movement

Free creche provided.

Followed by a fundraising social at the Ivy House, 8-10 Southampton Row, near Holborn tube.

Feminist Fightback’s supporters include the National Union of Students Women’s Campaign, the Rail Maritime and Transport Union's Women’s Committee and the International Union of Sex Workers.

The conference will be held at the University of East London Docklands campus (see here for details and directions). For more information, or to register, ring 07890 209 479, or email [email protected]

 

[fanciful]

Personally all the AWL people i know are pretty rude and obnoxious.

 

[Luther Blissett]

This belongs is this forum

AWL don't support Islamic feminists that we know of:

Women in the Middle East - AWL motion pushed through network of womens' officers in 2005, same year as attempt to bar Tariq Ramadan from UK Universities (just like the Bush-right wing, isn't that weird?).

Women’s Union notes
1. That the rise of an independent women’s movement in Iraq is cause for enormous hope.

2. That the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) campaigns for a independent, secular, democratic Iraq in which
women have full equality.

3. That Iraqi women who stand up for their rights face harassment, violent attacks and even death - in some cases
simply for going out to work or refusing to wear a veil - from the Islamist and Ba’thist militias of the so-called
"resistance".

4. That these militias are not a progressive national liberation movement with a few unfortunate excesses. On every
social and political measure, and particularly on the question of women’s rights, they are totally reactionary.

5. That the US and UK will not defend women’s rights. In addition to harassing the women’s movement themselves, the
occupation forces have handed power in many parts of Iraq to Islamists who are willing to accept the occupation.

6. That the US-backed Iraqi government is currently implementing a constitution which forbids any law which contradicts
the "undisputed principles of Islam" and refers family law completely to the jurisdiction of Islam and other religions
in Iraq.

7. That this implementation of Islamic sharia law will relegate 13 million Iraqi women to the status second class
citizens and leave them vulnerable to even worse abuse of their rights than they face at present.

Women’s Union believes
1. That the fate currently facing Iraqi women is one already experienced by women in many countries of the Middle East.

2. That in Iran, for instance, women face constant harassment by the secret police, who can enforce punishment if women
fail to cover their heads faces in exactly the prescribed way. The Iranian legal system is institutionally misogynistic,
as demonstrated by the fact that in Iran boys cannot be executed until they are 16 but girls can be executed at 9.

3. That it is not only anti-Western regimes like Iran which severely oppress women. The US and UK government continue
to support Saudi Arabia’s tyranny besides its total denial of all democratic rights and the apartheid-like system it
enforces against women.

4. That the idea that recognising that that Islamist political movements and Islamist regimes necessarily oppress women
is not anti-Muslim racism. Democrats, trade unionists, left-wingers and above all feminists in the mainly-Muslim world,
many of them Muslims themselves, are the first victims of Islamist violence and repression.

5. That it is not a question of imposing values from the outside, but of supporting those in the Middle East who are
already waging a heroic struggle for democracy and women’s liberation - despite, or rather especially because, they are
in a minority.

Women’s Union resolves
1. To give our full support to OWFI.
2. To support OWFI’s campaign to oppose the implementation of sharia law in Iraq.
3. To arrange a speaker meeting in Cambridge with a representative from OWFI
4. To send the appended motion to NUS Women’s Conference

http://awl-watch.blogspot.com/2005/11/cusu-wu-council-29-nov-2005motion.html

What you really need to do now, in order to put your mind at rest, is to read the comments from three non-voting Women invited by CUSU WU from the Islamic Society*, and decide for yourself whether Sofie Buckland' (AWL) had invited the Islamic Society to the meeting in order to stop her, or to ensure that all sides in the debate were considered before taking a vote.

b) Women in the Middle East

Michelle states that Sofie has proposed an amendment. The amendment seeks to remove the word ‘necessarily’ from Women’s Union Believes 4, so that Women’s Union Believes 4 now states…

‘That the idea that recognising that Islamist political regimes (necessarily) oppress women is not anti-Muslim racism’

Sofie proposes the motion:

Intissar (King’s NVM): Important to support women’s rights, but the tone is condescending. Women in middle are informed and active in these movements. CUSU don’t know everything about OWFI, therefore should we endorse it? She points out that OWFI are socialist-communist in their outlook and that whilst she has no problem with this, there are lots of other people who would.

Sofie: Points out that the organisation politically neutral.

Sarah (Caius NVM): The motion refers to the whole of the Middle East. In Egypt over half of graduates are women.

Aminah (Lucy Cav NVM): Shari’a law supports all that this motion says. It would be more correct to oppose the governments enforcing this negatively, not oppose Shari’a law itself.

Kate Franko: Language entirely too political. Suggests re-writing and re-submitting. Terminology too volative for women’s conference.

Sofie: Explains that the deadline for motions to be submitted for Women’s Conference is this week.

Sarah (Caius NVM): Clearly inflammatory towards Muslims. There is a huge problem of sweeping generalisations about all Muslims. We cannot apply western attitudes to the Middle East. Is this representative of what Iraqi women want, or what Cambridge women want?

Sofie: The motion is attacking political Islam, not Muslim life.

Aminah (Lucy Cavendish): But Shari’a law is Islam.

Caren (Darwin): Found wording offensive and a grouping together of contradictory points. As a Jewish woman she offers a personal example of life in the Middle East, where she doesn’t feel oppressed. Suggests that the motion has incorrect wording for the desired effect.

Intissar (King’s NVM): Essentially about importance of democracy. Do we have the right to impose opinions on others?

Rachel (Emma): Suggests to move to vote.

Caz (Queen’s): Needs further discussion at some point.

Michelle – suggests that a speaker meeting may be a more appropriate forum.

Amber (Selwyn MCR): Essence of motion similar to other hot current issues.

Intissar (King’s NVM): Factual inaccuracies. Points to WU notes 4 as a sweeping statement.

Vote: 18 for, 1 against, 3 abstentions
http://awl-watch.blogspot.com/search?q=awlful

Does AWL support MPAC UK Feminists? No, they don't.

 

[Luther Blissett]

This thread is in the wrong place - it should really be in the 'announcements' forum.

There were around 100 people at last years event - which clashed with two others.
Although 220 are claimed to have attended, it was cerainly not 220 women throughout the day, since AWL's event clashed with both the Anarchist Bookfair, and the Women Against Fundamentalisms event, which incidently was full of Islamic feminists discussing Islamic womens' issues. Present at the WAF event was the late, great, Arab feminist Mai Ghoussoub (ex-fourth internationalist, raised as a Christian in Lebanon), plus Islamic, Jewish, Black feminists - there's an excellent report over at Permanent Revolution: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=882

 

[urbanrevolt]

Personally all the AWL people i know are pretty rude and obnoxious.

Personally, though i think we should rise above all that shit and concentrate on the politics- unite around what we can, in united front campaigns, and be totally sharp on the political disagreements. The only AWL members I've spoke to recently have been scrupulously polite as it happens and on some issues- immigration, fighting trade union bureacracy- we can agree.

However, on Palestine, Iraq, imperialism they have terrible reactionary positions and they should be opposed- with scrupulous politeness, sharp politics and a refusal to be dragged into the kind of rudeness that many of the AWL certainly indulge in.

 

[treelover]

For rudeness, arrogance and a unwillingness to listen to others no one can beat the SWP

 

[Das Uberdog]

And for pig-headed, bloody-minded and sectarian tirades no-one's got a patch on you either, treelover .

 

[urbanrevolt]

Certainly rudeness isn't confined to one group- we're very nice in permanent revolution, though

 

[mk12]

we're very nice in permanent revolution, though

Put that on your leaflets In all seriousness, it is a good trait for a group. Although the majority of the rank and file SWPers I met were just nice people too. I've yet to come across an SPer who is anything like leading SWPers.

 

[cockneyrebel]

I've yet to come across an SPer who is anything like leading SWPers.

I agree with this, but leading SWPers, as well as leading AWLers are the worst I've come across on the left (actually a couple of leading people in Workers Power were as bad).

Having said that I have heard some negative things about the way Militant used to operate and at the last CNWP conference the SP weren't the greatest in that respect. There was quite a bit of heckling/mocking in terms of speakers from the floor that they didn't agree with. Although at least they let other view points speak, unlike at Marxism.

 

[nino_savatte]

For rudeness, arrogance and a unwillingness to listen to others no one can beat the SWP

So says the People's Poet, who is unable to see his own dogmatism.

 

[butchersapron]

Nino will you stop stalking treelover please.

 

[nino_savatte]

I'm not "stalking" him...and that's rich coming from you; you spent quite a bit of time following me around the boards - did you not? In fact, I could accuse you of doing the same to me right now.

Oh and who died and made you moderator?

 

[Kenny Vermouth]

Who's the best stalker?

 

[Nigel]

This thread is in the wrong place - it should really be in the 'announcements' forum.

There were around 100 people at last years event - which clashed with two others.
Although 220 are claimed to have attended, it was cerainly not 220 women throughout the day, since AWL's event clashed with both the Anarchist Bookfair, and the Women Against Fundamentalisms event, which incidently was full of Islamic feminists discussing Islamic womens' issues. Present at the WAF event was the late, great, Arab feminist Mai Ghoussoub (ex-fourth internationalist, raised as a Christian in Lebanon), plus Islamic, Jewish, Black feminists - there's an excellent report over at Permanent Revolution: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=882

Is no one just a human being these days?

With regards to sexual politics can anyone enlighten us on the Sado-Masochist relationships they have with other Leftist Groups, especially SWP.

Seriously though, although I have, and by the sounds of it many other people here do as well have differences with the AWL(understatement), for instance the conflict in the Middle East and their relationship to Searchlies, this dynamic is incredibly positive, moving away from the victim culture by the likes of Andrea Dworkin and co. that many have inherited through the worst bougeious elements of 2nd & 3rd Wave Feminism.
Hope it is a success.