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Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
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15 Jun, 4 tweets, 1 min read
The national women’s rights and anti-men’s violence NGOs lost a lot of their feminist principles, drives and credibility when they started appointing dial-a-CEOs: smooth operators with ‘transferable skills’ and a say-the-right-thing-and-win-friends-in-high-places modus operandi,
This so-called ‘professionalisation’ hasn’t worked well for women’s rights.
Thank goodness for grass-roots feminist activism.
I’m not saying that making links with those with power and influence isn’t important, nor even a professional approach per se, just that when that is foregrounded, something of the core is lost.
And don’t get me started on the classism tied up in what is deemed professional.

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More from @K_IngalaSmith

Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
16 Jun
I don’t want to see women berated for their first steps into contested ground but feminism isn’t a spectator sport. If you want in, you put yourself in. If you sit on the board of a national ‘feminist’ NGO, you surely can’t sit it out and wait for the storm to pass.
If you’re taking the first steps into battles other feminists have been fighting for years, you don’t assume yours is the nuanced, informed or most valid position.

You remember that no advance in women’s rights has happened without a fight from women.
Surely you recognise that no advance is women’s rights has been achieved by women being nice.

We haven’t yet achieved the liberation of women from patriarchal subordination. We are still fighting.

Surely you know that if you’ve opted in?
Read 5 tweets
Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
15 Jun
Thinking about Daria Pionko, a 21-year-old woman who was murdered in December 2015, 2 1/2 years in to Leeds' failed prostitution experiment.
We can't really say that the managed zone caused her death, a man did that, but prostitution gives murderous men easy access to women.
This is a good piece by @sarahditum newstatesman.com/politics/femin…
It's taken Leeds City Council more than 5 years to close down the managed zone since Daria's murder.
It hurts to think how many women have been harmed in Holbeck since then.
Early in 2017 (or late in 2016?!) @nia_endingVAWG opened a new specialist refuge, specialising in supporting women who'd been subjected to sexual exploitation, particularly prostitution.
We named it Daria House, in Daria’s memory we say prostitution can never be safe for women.
Read 5 tweets
Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
15 Jun
Crying.
Thank goodness.
And like @bindelj sais, shame on you for taking so long Leeds City Council @LeedsCC_News

Than you to the women of Leeds and West Yorkshire in particular who have campaigned long and hard for this day.
I think it's highly disingenuous to claim/imply that a reduction of women in prostitution on the streets is a reflection of the success of the scheme. I think many cities will report the same due to COVID, and that certainly doesn't mean that prostitution isn't happening.
And this ... "But since its introduction, the scheme has been subject to complaints about soliciting on streets beyond the bounds of the scheme and reports of men making unwelcome approaches to women not involved in street sex work when they are on residential streets."
Read 4 tweets
Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
8 Jun
Truth, lies and Storytelling
Radio Four’s Today programme this morning (8 June 2021) contained such a blatant piece of misinformation imparted by Benjamin Cohen, CEO of Pink News, that I felt compelled to transcribe it kareningalasmith.com/2021/06/08/tru…
I overheard a discussion on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning (8 June 2021) that contained such a blatant piece of misinformation imparted by Benjamin Cohen, CEO of Pink News, that I felt compelled to transcribe it.
Justin Webb: Just on the point about abolishing legal provisions for single sex spaces, do you not accept that it is perfectly acceptable for women to campaign for those single sex spaces and to say that those who have changes sex should not be in them?
Read 19 tweets
Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
11 Mar
If I were to compile a list of ‘women don’t’ advice based on the femicide census:
- women, don’t have male partners
- women, don’t leave male partners
- women, don’t go on dates with men
- women, don’t talk to men at bus stops
- women, don’t have sons
-women, don’t have grandsons
- women, don’t give a glass of water to someone claiming thirst
- women, don’t let the gas-man, or someone claiming to want to check your meter in
- women, don’t take a taxi
- women, don’t help other women in danger
- women, don’t support your daughter who has an abusive partner
- Women, don’t say no to his advances
- women, don’t have male friends
- women, don’t have male flatmates
- women, don’t go into hospital
- women, don’t retire into a retirement home
- women, don’t take a younger lover
- women, don’t take an older lover
- women, don’t get sick
Read 8 tweets
Karen Ingala Smith Profile picture
23 Feb
1) Running refuges on the basis of gender-identity rather than sex, risks making them hostile environments for women experiencing trauma after men's violence.
Trauma informed spaces for women who have been subjected to men's violence must be single sex spaces.
2) There's a paucity of research on rates of violence of males 'who have transitioned' or 'who identify as having transitioned'.
The scant evidence available suggests male transitioners retain male pattern violent offending -there's no research on males who simply self identify.
If you want to hear what survivors have to say, you could start here fovas.wordpress.com
Or this newstatesman.com/politics/2015/…
Read 10 tweets

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