LFN does not tolerate racism, homophobia or any other such prejudice and is concerned with uniting feminist women from ALL backgrounds who are working on women's rights and against patriarchy in ALL its forms.

The groups who are participate in Feminism in London reflect this ethos and all individuals who attend Feminism in London are expected to respect this ethos. The organisers reserve the right to remove anyone who engages in hate speech or disruptive behaviour.

Why “women and pro-feminist men”?

We say that the event is open to “women and pro-feminist men” because we think that some men might assume that a feminist event is just for women and we want to make it clear that in fact they are welcome as well. However, we say "pro-feminist men" because we welcome men who are already interested in, and open to feminism, rather than men who need convincing. We do not mean to imply that men cannot be feminists (that is another debate that we don’t want to get into here) and if you are a man who considers yourself a feminist, then by definition you are in favour of feminism and therefore also a pro-feminist.

We are not attempting to define anyone simply according to their biological sex or assigned gender or to force people into artificial boxes and we recognise and rejoice that many people don’t conform to gender stereotypes. We welcome all feminist and pro-feminist people whatever their gender identification. In fact we want to work towards a world where there are no gender categories or stereotypes.

However, capitalist patriarchy is based on the division of people into categories based on their actual or perceived biological sex. All the major institutions that shape the culture and control society’s resources are controlled by men; women along with colonised men are excluded from real power, their contribution is systematically undervalued and their resources and labour exploited: women who do make it to high levels tend to be out-numbered and isolated, which makes it hard, if not impossible, for them to set or even change the agenda; women are paid less than men for work of the same value; women are objectified and trivialised by the media (consider the way the media refers to male tennis champions as heroes, but simply discusses women tennis champions’ knickers); women are raped and harassed everywhere, and beaten in the home, by men with more or less impunity.

In capitalist patriarchy children are trained relentlessly to conform to the gender stereotypes assigned to their biological sex – boys are trained in masculinity, which is the learned behaviour of dominance and girls are trained in femininity, which is the learned behaviour of submission – and heavy penalties are imposed on those who do not or will not conform.

We want to change all this! To do that requires not only political organising but also undoing habits of a lifetime, opening our eyes to what we have been trained to not see, to work against all the forces that pit women against each other. As women, we need our own spaces where we can explore our experiences as members of an oppressed and exploited group, to unlearn all that training in submission and deference, and discover our power to organise and resist. We believe that men also need to create their own spaces to explore how capitalist patriarchy’s exploitation of women also limits and stunts, and potentially also corrupts, their own lives and how they can best challenge and work against it.

This does not mean that we do not also want to work with all like-minded people for change. We do! However, history has shown that without a strong and effective women’s movement, women’s voices, issues and vision are continually pushed to the side.

The scope of the day

None of the topics covered in Feminism in London 2010 can be seen in isolation and they are all impacted by privilege and hierarchy as manifested in racism, ageism and other types of discrimination and cultural and structural disadvantage based, for example, on social class, disability, motherhood, sexual orientation and mental health. We understand that patriarchy and male privilege manifest themselves and are internalised in different ways in different cultures and how women experience them depends on many aspects of their identities and environment. At Feminism in London 2010 we are running a workshop specifically for women of colour/ black women (African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, indigenous and bi-racial women). The aim of this is to provide women of colour with a safe space for the discussion of racism and sexism and how patriarchy plays out in their own communities, without needing to censor themselves. However, we do not see racism as an issue that can be treated in isolation and are aware that racism along with other forms of discrimination and disadvantage run through all the issues that we will be discussing.

We are also aware that there are some glaring omissions in the topics that we focussing on at Feminism in London 2010. For example, we are not running sessions specifically on ageism and the problems facing older women, or on militarism and war and how they are devastating women’s lives in many countries, or on mental health, religious fundamentalism or environmental catastrophe. This does not mean that we do not recognise these as hugely important feminist issues. There is simply a limit to what we can cover in one day. Our decisions on what to focus on are based largely on the feedback forms from last year’s event and discussions with women in the London Feminist Network.

We believe that feminist analysis provides a powerful tool for understanding all types of oppression and that by raising awareness of feminism generally we are sowing powerful seeds of resistance to all types of oppression. It is our hope that the day will provide a good balance between information and analysis, inspiration, tools to empower us to resist and opportunities to network, build solidarity and enjoy each other.

Please let us know what you would like us to focus on next year by filling the feedback form at the end of the day or by emailing us at feminismlondon@yahoo.co.uk.

Data protection policy

For information about our data protection policy, please see our Data Protection Policy page.