Thread by @DrJessTaylor

I’ve now spoken at 6 feminist events that have been protested. To get in, me and other women have to walk through groups yelling at us, accusing us of all sorts of horrid shit.

And then you get inside and it’s hundreds of loving, compassionate, supportive, educated women.

I often wonder what would happen if those young women yelling TERF and BIGOT and NAZI at us came and sat in on our workshops. Yesterday I spoke at @Womans_Place_UK about the way society encourages us to hold women and girls responsible for being raped.

Last autumn (and every year) I attend @FiLiA_charity and it’s always protested. But why? We were inside listening to refugee and asylum seeking women talk about missing their families. We were inside listening to women talk about surviving FGM.

Again, people tweeted that we were nasty, heartless, disgusting bigots but I gave a speech to hundreds of women about the way the media blames women and girls for abuse - what part of this would these protesters disagree with?

Yesterday, a group of misguided people who clearly do care about their cause, yelled & screamed at normal women who were attending a conference on women’s liberation. So they don’t agree with women’s liberation? They don’t agree we have the right to assembly? The right to speak?

I hope one day, that those young women who chose to spend their Saturday morning screaming at other women for attending a conference on women’s liberation filled with women from children to elderly, many ethnicities, religions, classes etc - see that their feminism is backwards

When I go to our radfem events @FiLiA_charity or @Womans_Place_UK or @RadFemCollectiv - I know I’m surrounded by women who have made a difference in the world. Women I look up to, women much older than me who paved the way for me & even for those young women yelling at them

See, those young women screaming ‘BIGOT’ at veteran feminists wouldn’t even have the words or the platforms or the ideas to do so without the second wave feminists they think they hate. Every thing we do as women and as feminists now, exists because of feminists before us

It’s such a weird thing to experience. You walk through angry, screaming protestors to get inside to hear women sing about being oppressed in Africa, to hear women perform poetry about domestic violence, to discuss misogyny and violence and sexism and racism with incredible women

You hug your friends you don’t get to see much and you talk to authors and activists you admire. You buy books. You look at feminist art work. You network with inspiring and powerful women who have a mind, ideas, causes and passion. You take stupid pics with your best mates.

And then inevitably, you end up drinking and eating food with all your friends, talking about the state of play and getting support and love.

What kind of ‘feminist’ protests events like this?

Imagine your ideology being that warped, individualistic and misogynistic...