It is an annoying cliché that a gathering of feminists is inevitably an argument, and I’m not going to argue with that, I’m going to tell you why it’s both inevitable and perfectly okay.
Women in general
A gathering of women is more likely to be noisy and argumentative than a gathering of men or a mixed sex gathering simply because, in all female company, it’s safer to take risks. Women are more likely to express themselves freely and, whilst you may think the result sometimes sounds terrifying, they are probably (usually) enjoying themselves and making friends.
Feminists in particular
A gathering of feminists is almost certainly going to have a lot of axes to grind because of the very nature of feminism. If you go to a political meeting that’s billed as socialist or environmentalist for example, you know already that you’re going to meet people with whom you probably agree on the big, key issues. By contrast, feminism is by and for women as a sex-class. All we have in common is our biology, and an awareness that we’re being treated in a specific way because of our biology, and a belief that we need to discuss it, and do something about it.
Obviously, a conservative woman and a socialist woman are going to have very different ideas about how we go about it. Similarly, rich or poor women, young or old women, women from different religions or cultures, will have very different ideas, but are liable to turn up in the same feminist meetings wanting to discuss sexism, or reproductive rights, or health or financial or environmental issues in relation to women.
But for all their differences, they are still women, and more likely to express themselves and risk an argument in all female company (see paragraph above about women in general). So yes, big gatherings of women are often arguments – I don’t mind that, and nor should you – it’s better than sitting in your own little clique, not taking any risks and not learning to understand difference.
‘Wounded women’
That’s the term a friend of mine uses to describe women’s rights activists. They are so very often survivors of male violence and/or of childhood abuse or misfortune. Those dreadful experiences are often the “wake up calls” that lead women to realise that women and girls are not being well-served by our society, and that action is necessary. It is also a well-known fact that people with trauma in their backgrounds are more likely to react emotionally and to be angered, alarmed or otherwise “triggered” by conflict situations. Especially noisy ones.
Nevertheless, the best of our feminist warriors keep on coming, even when they have to run the gamut of misogynist yobs to get to the meetings where they’re going to find themselves in passionate arguments. Even when the opposition are behaving so badly that no-one who expects a quiet life would go near them. It can all make one feel a bit volatile and shouty.
The sweary bit
There have been some real humdingers lately. The clash over sex-based rights has been a particular bastard, mostly because Stonewall et al set the trend of framing the tussle over equalities law that ensued as “women v trans people” and stupidly, infuriatingly, a lot of politicians and media commentators continue to frame it that way.
I don’t see it that way for the simple reason that ever since I’ve been on that campaign, I’ve met plenty of women who take the line “transwomen are women” and are more than willing to scrub out sex-based rights and shout down feminists “for the sake of trans people”, whilst I have had trans people who are socialist and/or feminist allies standing at my shoulder arguing for the retention of sex-based rights because they recognise equality law as important for all of us but – once the media paints a certain picture, it’s hellishly difficult to stop people arguing in those terms.
That argument goes on, and will go on, until enough people realise that sex and gender are two different things and that our current equality act is an attempt to address both, which we should be able to build on in ways that are good for both women as a sex-class and for trans people.
The next sweary bit
There is a Women’s Equality Party. I’ve never had any dealings with it because I’m a socialist and a feminist, and the Women’s Equality Party does not seem to me to be either – weird, eh? There wouldn’t half be some arguments if people like me got involved in an organisation like that. Oh, and a woman who has proudly announced that she’s neither a socialist nor a feminist has just launched a new party for women with a particular focus on the sex-based rights issue.
Oh f***, that means I’ll be arguing with myself as well as everyone else at the next election. What do you do when faced with a choice between a right-wing (ish) woman with the stamina to stand up for women’s rights in an election opposing a self-identified socialist male who doesn’t? I say self-identified because there are so many men who think they can be socialists without understanding the nature or significance of women’s rights. I don’t think a politician has the right to call themself a socialist unless they truly understand the forces of sex, race and class as axes of oppression. The problem is all those politicians who think they do, but really don’t.
And then there’s Palestine
Everything I’ve said so far seems to home in and burn white hot on the topic of Israel / Palestine. Women on the left – really on the left, not just women who think they’re on the left because they aren’t Tories – have been active in organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign for years because socialist internationalists recognise Israel as a settler-colonialist state – that is, a racist state. Women who are feminist and socialist have been painfully aware for years that the lethal combination of racism, militarism and colonialism that is Israel is seriously threatening to both Israeli and Palestinian women – but it’s been asterisky difficult to say so in, for example, the Labour Party, because just as Stonewall successfully presented women’s rights campaigners to the world as anti-trans, so the Israel lobby have been presenting #FreePalestine campaigners to the world as anti-Semitic.
It didn’t start on October 7th
Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and property goes back 75 years but since October 7th, and Israel’s relentless campaign of destruction in Gaza that followed, Israel / Palestine has been the biggest – and for many, the most emotive, issue in the world.
Which is why I’m writing this article reminding myself, and asking you and everyone, to cut our women’s groups some slack over this issue. Like most socialists, I’ve been battering away at all our politicians and public figures to come out in support of Palestine and, in a quieter, more diplomatic way, asking our women’s groups to prepare to do the same but – remember where this article started?
Why is Israel / Palestine such a huge issue?
Well, I can tell it from my perspective. If yours comes from another angle, I expect you could draw up a parallel version of the next few paragraphs…
Women who are not really on the left, particularly British Jewish women, know that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, and believe that appalling things were done. They know that over 1000 Israelis have been killed, with thousands more injured since – but they don’t know that many of them were killed by Israel, nor do they take into account that the October 7th attack was a break-out attempt by a long-besieged, illegally occupied country. They know that 129 Israelis are still captive in Gaza, but not that thousands of Palestinians have been illegally detained in Israel for years.
They don’t know that it is Gazan civilians, mostly women and children, that are dying – tens of thousands of them – nor do they know that journalists, medics and aid workers are being systematically targeted and killed. They don’t know that most of the population of Gaza are now corralled in Rafah, as was planned from the start, so that they can be either removed or killed in one fell swoop. They don’t know that it is the USA that is doing this – through their funding and their maintenance of Israel for their own ends, nor that the urgency to speak up is specifically to stop that fish-in-a-barrel carnage that is about to happen in Rafah.
Most Israeli women don’t see those things, either. They see Israel bravely fighting the ‘Iron Sword War’, defending them from a terrifying incursion by mysteriously furious Palestinian terrorists. Of course they are alarmed that we see defending Palestine as one of the most urgent and important things in the world today. They don’t look beyond media narratives, so they just get more and more scared and angry.
As a result, they don’t see that women on the left believe the current stand for Palestine is vital to the entire global struggle in a world on the brink of destruction. Instead, they see anti-Semitism everywhere, whilst socialists, who have finally got beyond fearing accusations of anti-Semitism, shout ever louder, feeling the need for all the organisations that care about us to stand up and shout with us, to shout against the racism, oppression and militarism of Israel, that are the tools and symbols of the global destructive force that is going to kill Gaza, and all of us sooner or later, if it is not stopped by a concerted fight-back now.
And in the face of all that…
Feminism is for all women. That includes right-wing Israelist women and international socialist women, for anti-racist women and Zionist women, and for the many, many women who have not yet learned enough politics to see what those labels mean, and how they are inevitably in opposition to each other. Feminism is for all women, because they are female; and for the last few months, feminist groups have been enduring endless vicious challenges and attacks because they must speak up for Israel say some, for Palestine say others, and unless you’re willing to lose half your people in an almighty schism, it takes quite a while to bring all your women into a place of knowledge and courage where they are willing and able to recognise the problems of, and speak up for, the women of Israel and the women of Palestine – and call for an end to colonialism and militarism for all our sakes but, that is what feminist groups need to do. To fail in this task is to fail feminism.
It’s not easy, is it? There will probably be quite a lot of loud arguments. Sisters who led feminist groups in the 1970s remember how this issue tore groups apart before, and can see the danger of it happening to our now growing movement. They see lots of groups splintering, and lots of pain. They hear lots of demands to enter the fray, but not so much thinking about a Feminist perspective and way forward.
(That is the end of this article but the conversations generated whilst writing it go on, and quite a few of them are arguments. Sigh. For me, it has to be defend sex-based rights and socialism, and an unwavering stand against racism, militarism and colonialism wherever they appear.)
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Dear Reader,
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Cheers,
Kay
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Kay Green 