The rise and rise of the UK Feminista

Bucking the trend for August's silly-season, I've been pleasantly surprised to see some refreshingly even-handed reporting in the UK national press. At the weekend, the campaign organisation UK Feminista held an activist training weekend for aspiring feminist activists. Unexpectedly, in all the reporting I saw, there was none of the usual stereotyping and lazy criticism we've come to expect since the mid-1980s.

It isn't my first brush with UK Feminista. At the Compass conference I attended earlier in the summer, I was exceptionally impressed with how founder Kat Banyard portrayed the issues confronting feminists as a fiercely contemporary challenge to both women and men. She spoke passionately to current concerns about equality, employment, public services and tackling a culture of disrespect.

For many years, feminism has felt like a closed shop to many men who espouse feminist ideals. I know that for me, my concern around gender equity has been more readily channeled through my activism for LGBT equality, an area that is sometimes not immune to peddling sexist viewpoints. Yet I feel that UK Feminista have a good chance of broader-based success because they see men as crucial partners in making change happen. Their approach is more media-savvy, using social-media networks to get their message over and being very careful in choosing potent current issues that matter to everyone. Women, especially those starting out in the job market, are feeling the bite of the recession with reduced opportunities. The ladders of state support are being disproportionately kicked away from them. Interrogating fairness and inequality is high on everyone's agenda - from female low pay, to those living in deprived communities scarred by the recent riots, through to the lost of trust in political, business and media elites. Under such circumstances, sexism is an even less tolerable distraction.

And we need to challenge it now. An impact analysis by the Fawcett Society has shown that the Government's austerity cuts are hitting women hardest. Home Secretary Theresa May warned colleagues of this behind the scenes, although she was ignored. We shouldn't be surprised. Political parties are still dominated by wealthy men. With only modest improvements at the last General Election, women are still pitifully represented in the Conservatives and Liberal Democrat ranks.

There is an issue here for the Greens too. We have made great strides, with our Leader (also our first MP) being a woman, as well as our leading GLA Member Jenny Jones and MEP Jean Lambert. They represent a respected and inspiring "front bench" of female Green politicians, but I'm anxious that nobody repairs the glass ceiling they have shattered before the next generation of female leaders comes forward. I do wonder whether their prominence can lead ordinary members of the Green Party to uncritically assume that we've cracked the gender representation issue and side-stepped the pitfalls others have fallen into. That is something that we need to guard against.

We should constantly interrogate the way our party functions and how it encourages and facilitates engagement from women activists. I think the time is upon us to have a serious party-wide conversation about how we not only increase representation in our number of female politicians, but how we transform our political outlook as a party to embed these gains into the DNA of our party. The growing success of UK Feminista is a stark reminder that women-focussed policies are crucial to solving the complex problems facing this country and aren't something tacked on to political policy as an "added extra".

Whilst we have that debate, I'll also be keeping an eye out to see if UK Feminista start up a group in Brighton, because when society faces hard times and difficult choices, female equality will (as always) be the battleground on which it is fought.

Why building the Good Society offers much more to Greens than the Big Society

Over the weekend, I travelled up to London with some fellow Green activists and attended the annual Compass conference "Building the Good Society". Because Compass has traditionally been a Labour thinktank and only just voted to allow in members of other parties this year, it was a fascinating political environment to explore. Whilst there was a notable contingent of other Greens present, I did have some misgivings about entering the lion's den!

I shouldn't have worried. Whilst there was a lingering sense of uncertainty amongst the crowd about who was or wasn't a Labour party member, it felt like an engaging space to be part of. Listening to the speakers and the reception they received from participants, I was encouraged to see such a consensus around a raft of crucial issues facing the UK - rising inequality, tax evasion, sexism, political disengagement and climate change that chimed with my own core green values and priorities. It became clear that the aim of the "good society" is about more than changing the environment around us, but about changing ourselves.

I thought it would be interesting to share some of my personal highlights:

• Two speakers from UK Uncut told the story of how their campaign grew. It was disheartening to hear how they felt politicians had failed to reflect their views, but their ambition, use of new technologies to mobilise people, as well as their use of humour and creativity in their campaigns left me inspired and re-energised. As they argued, if they can affect change in tax evasion policy with few human resources and no money, what could (or should) political parties be achieving?
  



• Kat Banyard from UK Feminista gave a blistering account of how feminist activism is forcing itself back on the agenda. She argued that the economic effects of the coalition cuts agenda are hitting women especially hard and that the lack of female representation amongst the political elite is reflected in the gender blindness inherent in governmental policy making. She also attacked the international sex industry, illustrating how they have been adept in co-opting feminist arguments around female sexual autonomy, making it harder for feminists to marshall their arguments against the pornification of sexuality. Girls are being taught not to view their sexuality as something to explore for themselves, but as a performance for others. She ended by challenging men to take roles in tackling sexism - because solutions won't happen unless men own their part in changing the status quo. Although I've always considered myself a feminist, I felt it was a stark call to question my own compacency. This was probably my highlight of the day and I'll be following their work more closely as a result..
  



• Whilst unable to attend himself, Ed Miliband provided a video message, which whilst greeted with some groans and laughter, did show that away from the media scrutiny, he is a thoughtful politician. He threw down a gauntlet to Labour, which I would like the Green Party to consider too: build a political party truly accountable to it's members - but ensure that the members remain equally accountable to their local communities. It's a model of action that I would like us to consider more thoroughly over the next few years.
  



• One discussion during the day that resonated particularly with the direction I have stressed in my bid to become the next GPEX Equalities & Co-ordinator was when Labour MP Chuka Umunna challenged Caroline Lucas directly to reach low income families and those voters with families overseas (such as Nigeria) with a more compelling case why climate justice is so important. He is right that all parties have failed to make much traction on this issue outside the core middle class vote and something I would like us to actively pursue in the next couple of years.

Overall, I would recommend progressive activists and Green members consider joining Compass too. Feeling such solidarity with nearly a thousand people pulling in (generally) the same direction has left me more open to cross-party campaigning on some of our core issues. It was also telling that Caroline Lucas got the most enthusiastic reception from a predominately Labour crowd. It is a testament to the movement of our policies to the political mainstream and that even amongst our opponents, we are now seen as a serious proposition more than ever before.