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 in the press

Tavistock Place

9th November 2023

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An open letter to Edinburgh University

We welcome Professor Peter Mathieson's recent statement in response to the concerning events that...

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An open letter to Edinburgh University

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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A Woman’s Place UK (WPUK) was pleased to host A Woman's Place is in the Press, where we were joined by a panel of expert journalists who clearly advocate for the sex-based rights of women. Each embody the spirit of resistance, representing the interests of women at a time when many seek to silence feminist voices. Hear about the obstacles they have overcome, the obstacles still in our path and how can we make sure women's interests are represented in the press. Their accounts of standing firm and making women’s concerns heard had particular resonance as we enter a general election year. WPUK has been hosting sold-out public meetings at venues around the country since 2017. In that time, we have seen policymakers begin to realise the importance of preserving sex-based rights. This evening will be an occasion for reflecting on, and celebrating, the role that female journalists have played in leading the fightback against a sustained attack on women’s rights. Sonia Sodha is chief leader writer and columnist at the Observer. She also makes documentaries on economic and social issues for Radio 4 and appears regularly on the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 as a political commentator. Prior to her career in journalism, Sonia spent ten years working in policy and politics, initially for the think tanks IPPR and Demos, where she led programmes of work on education and social policy, then as a senior policy adviser to Ed Miliband when he was leader of the Labour party, and then in a series of strategic roles for charities including Which?, the Dartington Social Research Unit and Generation Change. She is a trustee of the Trust for London (and chairs one of its two grant-making committees) and the Indigo Trust. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/self-certified-trans-women-all-women-shortlists-labour https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/06/the-observer-view-on-the-high-courts-ruling-on-puberty-blocking-drugs-for-children https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/labour-pledges-to-fight-transphobia-stifle-debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09yjmph https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67144375
With regret, the last video cuts out just before the close of Helen Lewis' fantastic talk. Please take away her last sentences: "But journalists have to stand apart from activists. Not doing so was what got us into this mess in the first place." A Woman’s Place UK (WPUK) was pleased to host A Woman's Place is in the Press, where we were joined by a panel of expert journalists who clearly advocate for the sex-based rights of women. Each embody the spirit of resistance, representing the interests of women at a time when many seek to silence feminist voices. Hear about the obstacles they have overcome, the obstacles still in our path and how can we make sure women's interests are represented in the press. Their accounts of standing firm and making women’s concerns heard had particular resonance as we enter a general election year. WPUK has been hosting sold-out public meetings at venues around the country since 2017. In that time, we have seen policymakers begin to realise the importance of preserving sex-based rights. This evening will be an occasion for reflecting on, and celebrating, the role that female journalists have played in leading the fightback against a sustained attack on women’s rights. Helen Lewis is a staff writer at the Atlantic, host of the BBC’s The New Gurus, and a regular on the Private Eye podcast, Page 94. Her first book is Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights and her newsletter is at https://helenlewis.substack.com/. A longer version of this talk can be found on Helen's substack here https://helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-gender-debate-from-the-gaslighting https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/introducing-trans-issues-week https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been-terf https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/when-i-was-raped-it-was-female-only-spaces-helped-me-recover https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/09/battle-over-gender-what-makes-you-man-or-woman-anyway https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-battle-over-gender-has-turned-bloody-2wpkmnqhh https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/i-am-neither-trans-nor-a-woman-can-i-write-about-the-issues-they-face https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-that-gender-is-a-spectrum-is-a-new-gender-prison
With regret, the opening of Susanna Rustin's talk was not captured - here is what she said "I’m really grateful to Woman’s Place UK for putting this event on and asking me to be part of it. I think I first spoke to Judith about WPUK doing a press event two years ago, I’m sure I’m not the only person who did so but by that time I was familiar with the WPUK format - a woman’s place is in the law, a woman’s place is on the podium, and so on - and I thought when are they going to do a woman’s place is in the papers? So it’s really great to be here doing that. I’ve been asked to pick up the story where Helen [Lewis] leaves off, and I wanted to start by saying - or admitting - that while it was going on, I was more or less completely oblivious to everything she and Julie [Bindel] have just described. Which seems quite strange now, I certainly didn’t think of myself as uninterested in sexual politics or women’s rights at that time. I was looking back at what I was writing in those years, I was a general feature writer, and I wrote about caesarians, on lack of women in local govt..." A Woman’s Place UK (WPUK) was pleased to host A Woman's Place is in the Press, where we were joined by a panel of expert journalists who clearly advocate for the sex-based rights of women. Each embody the spirit of resistance, representing the interests of women at a time when many seek to silence feminist voices. Hear about the obstacles they have overcome, the obstacles still in our path and how can we make sure women's interests are represented in the press. Their accounts of standing firm and making women’s concerns heard had particular resonance as we enter a general election year. WPUK has been hosting sold-out public meetings at venues around the country since 2017. In that time, we have seen policymakers begin to realise the importance of preserving sex-based rights. This evening will be an occasion for reflecting on, and celebrating, the role that female journalists have played in leading the fightback against a sustained attack on women’s rights. Susanna Rustin is a leader writer at the Guardian, where she writes mostly on social affairs and the environment. She has also worked as an editor on the opinion and books desks. Her book about the history of British feminism will be published next year. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/self-certified-trans-women-all-women-shortlists-labour https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/06/29/transgender-identities-a-series-of-invited-essays https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-women-who-discuss-gender-getting-bomb-threats/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/10/the-gender-recognition-act-is-controversial-can-a-path-to-common-ground-be-found https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/the-guardian-view-on-the-gender-recognition-act-where-rights-collide https://www.newstatesman.com/encounter/2023/02/hannah-barnes-inside-collapse-tavistock-gender-clinic-lgbtq-transgender-nhs https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/26/we-need-to-talk-about-miscarriage-and-the-language-we-use-really-matters https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSNej9zV5T4