WPUK Statement in solidarity with Australian women
Women are not responsible for the actions of men or those who want to use the concerns women have for their own political ends. However, the presence of neo-Nazis at women’s rights events is a wake-up call to the need for explicit differentiation between women organising in defence of our rights and those far-right actors who seek to exploit this organising. As a political campaign we believe we have a responsibility to reaffirm our position.
WPUK Statement in solidarity with Australian women
This statement is in response to reports from Australia of members of the far-right National Socialist Network attending a Let Women Speak event in Melbourne today.
Statement
We stand in solidarity with women’s right to speak about the issues that affect them without the threat of violence. We also stand in solidarity with Australian left-wing feminists who have asked for clear differentiation to be made between women’s fight for sex-based rights and the organised far-right.
We believe in the right of everyone to live their lives free from discrimination and harassment. This is a position we have made clear since we were founded in 2017 and continue to hold. Understanding that sex is a material reality, with particular social significance due to sexism and implications for public policy, is neither ‘right wing’ nor discriminatory, still less Nazism. Failure to understand this is highly dangerous. This failure not only alienates women who quite reasonably support sex-based rights but also risks trivialising actual far-right organising.
Woman’s Place UK are opposed to the presence of the far-right at women’s rights events, from the UK’s Hearts of Oak to the Australian National Socialist Network. Their political projects undermine democracy.
The far right has always wished to destroy the political interests of women, ethnic minorities and workers of both sexes, lesbians, gays and gender non-conforming people however they identify. Explicit opposition to the far right has historically been a consensus across the political spectrum: from far left to centre right. Woman’s Place UK, as a diverse group of explicitly anti-racist feminists on the left, is alarmed at any breakdown of this consensus. The politics of the far right will not be tolerated at Woman’s Place UK events or in any part of our campaign.
Women are not responsible for the actions of men or those who want to use the concerns women have for their own political ends. However, the presence of neo-Nazis at women’s rights events is a wake-up call to the need for explicit differentiation between women organising in defence of our rights and those far-right actors who seek to exploit this organising. As a political campaign we believe we have a responsibility to reaffirm our position.
We believe that it is important to share a range of viewpoints on women’s rights and advancement from different perspectives. WPUK does not necessarily agree or endorse all the views that we share.