Woman's Place UK

Violence against women and sex discrimination still exist. Women need reserved places, separate spaces and distinct services.

A Woman’s Place is Defending Women’s Spaces

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24th November 2022

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WPUK Mythbusters – A response to the IRR and others

There have been several articles and comments published recently, including one by the Institute...

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The Political Erasure of Sex

We are delighted to be supporting this important new work by Jane Clare Jones....

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Our manifesto

Woman’s Place UK is a group of women from a range of backgrounds who are united by our belief that women’s hard-won rights must be defended.

Women face entrenched and endemic structural inequality. This is reflected, for example, in the high levels of sexual harassment and violence against women and girls, the 'gender' pay gap, and discrimination at work.

This is why sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010. We believe it must be defended.

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An evening with Julie Bindel in conversation with Karen Ingala Smith to launch her book, 'Defending Women's Spaces'. Order your copy of Defending Women’s Spaces here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Defending-Womens-Spaces-Karen-Ingala/dp/1509554440 Karen Ingala Smith is CEO of nia, a women’s sector NGO. She has 30 years experience of providing specialist services to women. She is also the co-founder and director of the Femicide Census and Counting Dead Women (recording and commemorating all UK women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect/perpetrator). She is a Director of Woman’s Place UK. Julie Bindel is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and researcher. She has been active in the global campaign to end violence towards women and children since 1979, co-founded Justice for Women in 1990 and the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize in 1998. She writes regularly for The Observer, Spectator, Telegraph and Unherd, is the author of over 30 book chapters and reports. Her previous books include Straight Expectations (shortlisted for the Polari Prize), The Pimping of Prostitution and Feminism for Women. The book: Defending Women's Spaces by Karen Ingala Smith Who counts as a woman? This question lies at the heart of many public debates about sex and gender today. While we increasingly recognise the desire of some to eliminate the sex binary in law, a particular boiling point emerges through conflicting demands over women’s spaces. Which should govern access to these – sex or gender identity? In this trenchant critique of inclusivity politics, she argues that we cannot ignore the wealth of evidence which shows that people of the female sex have a unique set of needs which are often not met by mixed-sex spaces. Drawing on her 30 years of experience in researching and recording men’s violence against women and girls, she outlines how certain spaces, including refuges, benefit from remaining single sex – and what they stand to lose. Written with sensitivity and respect for all concerned, this book nevertheless dismantles the idea that we have reached a post-sex utopia.
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 https://katherinemacosta.substack.com/p/blinded-by-the-right-feminist-advocacy 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.
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. 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. The event was Chaired by 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.