Woman's Place UK hosted a panel 'Betrayal by the left, dangers from the right and the need for an autonomous Women’s Liberation Movement' as part of FiLiA conference in 2022.

Women’s Place UK hosted this session asking how women’s liberationists can chart our own course when powerful forces seek to dictate the narrative? How can we distinguish feminist interests in defending our autonomy from the paternalist framing of right-wing conservatives? The mistreatment of women on the left who oppose the sex trade and pornography, or who support sex-based rights, represents a massive betrayal. It is a betrayal that leaves women’s liberation acutely vulnerable to exploitation from the right. We are seeing the far and religious right attempt to set the agenda by blaming feminism for opening the pandora’s box of gender, simultaneously ignoring and co-opting feminist voices and distorting our arguments and undermining our politics. This is nothing new, it mirrors right-wing efforts to appropriate the voices of ex-Muslims and campaigners against religious fundamentalism, who also have legitimate grievances against sections of the left. We should learn from that experience. This is a vital meeting addressing concerns of women new to organising, as well as long-standing feminists, on women's liberation as an autonomous project for social transformation in the context of the left betrayal and the dangers posed by the right.

Chair: Dani Ahrens, a community activist, textile artist and occasional blogger, based in Brighton. In the 1980s and early 1990s, she was involved in the campaign against Section 28 and was one of the founding organisers of Brighton Pride. She is a lesbian mother with two (now adult) children. She is currently active in the areas of migrant solidarity, welfare rights, sustainable transport and local services for women and girls, and is a member of the editorial board of the feminist journal The Radical Notion. She helps to organise Sisters Salon, a monthly women-only discussion group in Brighton.

Ali Ceesay is a Feminist activist & community organiser. She is part of the Woman’s Place UK events team, the RISE UP! campaign, Brighton Women’s Liberation Collective & Sisters Salon.

Philipa Harvey is a primary teacher, trade union activist and socialist. She has been active in the labour movement for more than thirty years including as a member of both the National Union of Teachers and National Education Union Executive and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Council. She has been Chair of the TUC Women’s Committee and is a Past-President of the NUT (now NEU). She has a long history of challenging sexism and sexual harassment in schools, the NUT/NEU and the wider trade union movement through the creation of resources, schemes of work, training materials, policies, the organising of conferences and events and political organizing. She is a founding member of Woman’s Place UK.

Katherine M Acosta is a lifelong feminist, a sociologist, film-maker and writer. Divided We Fall is her documentary about the 2011 Wisconsin Uprising, a weeks-long protest to save collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. She was co-chair of the steering committee for Women’s Human Rights Campaign USA (now Women’s Declaration International USA) during its early formation. She blogs on Substack as ShesRightYouKnow and has written there about her decision to resign from the WHRC board [ Ссылка ]

Pragna Patel was a founding member of Southall Black Sisters, founded in 1979, from which she recently retired as Director. A secularist campaigner, Patel also co-founded Women Against Fundamentalism. She is on the editorial collective of Feminist Dissent.

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