Chapter 7
One shift in RTN which was not disputed but which was controversial was the increasing inclusion of men on contemporary marches. On the question of whether men should be involved in RTN, there was far greater support amongst all the activists for women-only or women-led RTN marches, rather than fully mixed marches involving men. A women-led march is usually where men will march at the rear, or join the march later on in the route and stay in one section. This preference oddly appears to run counter to the practical make up of many marches today of course, with most being mixed. Although the majority expressed a preference for women-only or women-led RTN though, several activists did voice objection to women-only marches or discomfort with any borders at all being set around who could attend, and these views do represent those held by large sections of the movement today. In this chapter, I shall explore the reasons behind these often strongly held views and the competing arguments for and against men’s inclusion on RTN.
When defending women-only RTN, a subtle point was made about inclusion and exclusion. This argument was summarised perfectly by one activist I spoke to in the North of England. Eve, a radical feminist, worked as a university lecturer and for the previous few years had helped to organise the RTN in her city. We met in a convenient café in the city centre, which actually turned out to be on the route of the RTN march, as Eve showed me. After updating me on the success of their most recent march and the positive local response, Eve moved on to explain this point about inclusion and exclusion.
well, if it’s mixed then you’re not including everyone. You’re always excluding someone, and you’re choosing to exclude women who are survivors and who don’t want to march next to men, and you are making a decision to exclude them. So it’s not like you can include everyone, you’re always making a choice to exclude someone.
(Eve)
Eve said that a choice therefore always has to be made, because any act of inclusion will necessarily exclude. Several RTN organisers who I interviewed felt that it was impossible to include everyone anyway and that someone would always feel excluded. They felt that given this unavoidable situation, women should always be prioritised over men. In fact, the prioritisation of women was often seen as an aim of RTN in itself. Out of the many hours of discussions I had with activists on this issue, I was able to identify three main arguments in favour of mixed marches and six key arguments against. These were the arguments that arose most often in defence or rejection of the involvement of men on RTN marches.
Arguments for male inclusion
1. Violence against women should be of concern to men. It is a ‘men’s issue’ so men should be welcome at RTN to demonstrate their opposition to male violence against women and children and to show solidarity with women. Violence against women was seen as a men’s issue for two reasons: firstly, because men can be affected by sexual violence and intimate partner abuse themselves, including rape. Secondly, men are also affected by male violence against women through their loved ones becoming victimised or through the fear of this happening.
2. Violence against women and children will never end unless men are actively encouraged to be part of ending it, through attending events such as RTN.
3. In order to build the broadest possible support for RTN, men should not be excluded, but can be included in a minimal way, for example by being at the rear of a women-led march, which was seen as a tactical compromise.
Arguments against male inclusion
1. RTN is about male violence against women. This type of violence does not affect men as victims directly, so the march should be women-only to keep this emphasis and specificity clear.
2. Women marchers gain more sense of empowerment, release of anger, jubilation and solidarity in a women-only march and this should be one aim of RTN.
3. RTN is a feminist march and feminist events should always be organised, led, attended and directed by women.
4. One objective of RTN is highlighting women’s fears or anxieties regards their safety when alone in public space at night. Having men on the march provides male security, ‘chaperones’, ‘escorts’ or ‘protection’ and therefore defeats the object of the march.
5. If men are included, there is the potential that perpetrators of violence against women, including sexual violence, may attend. This would potentially threaten the safety of marchers and breach the spirit of the event.
6. Men’s support for RTN should be welcomed, but men should express their support by being ‘back office staff ’, helping at a crèche/rally/parallel vigil or in other behind the scenes roles. This was seen as preferable to men taking visible leadership roles, being ‘glory stewards’ or ‘peacocks’.
In the next section, I will explore these arguments in more depth, considering the merits of each and discovering just why activists on both sides are so passionate about this issue.
Why should men be included on Reclaim the Night marches?
The first of the most common arguments raised in favour of male inclusion maintained that male violence against women is a men’s issue too and that RTN needs all the allies it can get. In addition, many activists rightly drew attention to the sad fact that men are more affected by street violence for example, and are actually more at risk than women are when out in their town and city centres at night. Men are also not immune to rape and sexual assault, with figures from the 2010 Stern Review in the UK for example finding that around 8 per cent of reported rapes concern a male victim.
As well as being the potential victims of rape and sexual violence, activists in favour of male inclusion also pointed out that men can be affected by male violence against women by proxy. This can happen through their loved ones being affected; men too feel the pain and loss of male violence, they also are alert to the threat of this violence through the fear that their female loved ones may be victimised. This point was actually raised by the only male activist I spoke to in my research. I had not met John before and he had at that point only attended one RTN march in his home city in the South West of England. He had volunteered to take part in my research because he identified as a feminist and was committed to RTN for many reasons, including the future of his two young daughters, one of whom he had taken along on the march with him.
it doesn’t just affect women does it, you know. I have to worry about my wife going out, you know, in the same way; so of course it affects me. So I would sort of, I feel strongly I should be able to march on that subject. It would seem, if not, then that would be sexist.
(John)
Several other activists made the same point on behalf of men, suggesting that excluding men would be sexist and therefore anti-feminist.
Like John, many women felt strongly that most men are just as passionately opposed to male violence against women and children as women are. One activist called Bonnie, who was in her late thirties, defended this view. Bonnie argued for male inclusion, but, like many others, only within a women-led march. This was a fairly common stance and it appeared as some sort of acceptable middle ground to many activists who clearly felt uncomfortable excluding anyone from RTN, but who also felt on some level that the march should be an opportunity for, or statement about women’s leadership.
Men have mothers, sisters, daughters and granddaughters and they shouldn’t be stopped from participating. I do believe that the marches should be women-led through.
(Bonnie)
Illustrating some of the differences between schools of feminism, explored in Chapter 3, Dolores, a 63-year-old socialist feminist, had no problem reconciling men’s involvement with women’s leadership and did not see this as any sort of compromise or middle ground. Dolores had been involved in feminism for decades and shared many great stories with me about the National Women’s Liberation Conferences she had attended and various demonstrations she had been on. She was actually living in Oxford at the time of the famous Ruskin Conference, the influential and pivotal conference I mentioned earlier in Chapter 2, but she had not attended due to having two very young children. She made up for it later by taking her children along with her to political conferences when they were a bit older.
Dolores was still involved in equalities work in the public sector and is one of the many truly principled people who can be found in feminism; she is still living her politics and she benefitted from being active at a time when that congruence mattered. I met Dolores at her home to interview her, and we left her husband working quietly while we sat in the sun on her balcony amongst the plants. Dolores argued that male involvement was actually crucial to her socialist feminist politics, but that this would ‘obviously’ have to go alongside female leadership.
as a socialist feminist I think it’s really important to work with male allies, we’ve always worked with male allies. I mean, I don’t have a problem if some women want to have a women-only thing, but I personally, I prefer mixed, but women-led. You know, women at the front obviously, I think that’s only right.
(Dolores)
It was therefore seen as counterproductive to exclude male allies for this cause and also to miss out on a great boost or even doubling of the numbers on RTN marches.
Activists also argued that men who are opposed to male violence against women could usefully challenge public assumptions that this is only a women’s issue. They could also potentially be positive role models for men and boys.
Good to get men and boys involved, as many are opposed to violence against women and can influence other men’s behaviour and attitudes.
(Fiona)
Fiona was in her late forties and she emphasised that she was not aligned with any one school or type of feminism. Another activist, who also identified as just a feminist, Lucy, also supported male involvement, and was also positive about the example this could set for other men, through bystanders watching the RTN march or perhaps through seeing the event covered in the media. Twenty-four-year-old Lucy also felt that men being involved could change the perception of feminism more broadly, giving a positive impression of this political stance.
I think I do quite like it when men are there as well, ’cos in a way that challenges people’s perceptions too about what feminism is and who feminists are. But I think probably having it part and part is the best compromise.
(Lucy)
Here again the caveat of female leadership is emphasised. Lucy even uses the word ‘compromise’, suggesting that she feels some sympathy with male inclusion but also with the idea of women’s visible leadership and is trying to reconcile these two preferences.
What was not commonly voiced, and this was surprising, was the argument that men are victims of violence too and therefore this should be a justification for them attending RTN. Many of the activists I spoke to, both those in favour of male inclusion and those against, described frequently being accused of not being aware of, or not caring about, violence against men. Regularly, activists would say that whenever they tried to raise awareness about RTN, recruit marchers or promote the march to their peers, colleagues and friends, they would inevitably be asked why they were focussing on violence against women, when men are affected by violence too. This is an example of a zero-sum approach, a naïve and simplistic assumption that one cannot be for one cause alongside another or many, or that rights for one group must come at the expense of another. Shelley was an RTN organiser from the South West of England and was frustrated with these assumptions. Shelley was 30 years old and identified her ethnicity as Dual Heritage. She helped to organise a mixed, women-led RTN in her city.
straight away people are like, well men get beaten up too you know and we’re like, yeah, we know that and we’re not denying that and go and organise something about it if you want, but today we’re talking about women. But people just don’t want to talk about that you know. And even collecting money for stopping violence against women, people will say they don’t donate ’cos what about the men. But if you were collecting for polar bears, people wouldn’t go, well, what about grizzly bears!
(Shelley)
Yet only three activists explicitly used this argument themselves in favour of male inclusion; that is, the argument that violence can affect anybody regardless of sex or gender identity. For example, Brooke and Carrie both made this point; they were in their late twenties and early thirties. Brooke identified as a Marxist and a feminist, and Carrie as a leftie.
I think a modern attitude towards gender nowadays means that we shouldn’t stress too much about the gender identity of those who identify as feminists, but should allow anyone who can follow the requirements of a female-led environment and remain sensitive to privilege, should be allowed to come. In London sexual violence and street violence is by no means limited to biological or self-identifying women, and so a march against it needs to be flexible about everyone who may want to come. However, in general, feminism needs to be women-led to achieve its political aims.
(Brooke)
Where I come from 1 in 8 victims of rape are male. I feel unable to commit myself to a campaign which excludes that group.
(Carrie)
As I mentioned earlier, the arguments that men should be included often rested on a strong belief that feminism should not exclude anyone and that to do so would be counter-feminist and even patriarchal. This was argued by Amelia, who felt that the sex segregation on the RTN in her city was just divisive. She was in her early twenties and she identified as a feminist and also as a leftie.
I don’t like that the main march is women-only. I believe men can (and should be) feminists too and that dividing by gender is part of the problem of patriarchy. That said, I do understand that some women may feel more comfortable at women-only events. It’s a tricky one!
(Amelia)
Although Amelia was uncomfortable with excluding men, like so many other activists I spoke to she also expressed a slight anxiety or unease about women not being able to attend a women-only space. Often when activists mentioned these ‘some women’ who may be uncomfortable, they meant survivors of male violence or separatist feminists who consciously sought out women-only space. There was usually less sympathy for the latter though, and sometimes it almost felt that the former was a form of pathologisation; hinting that the only valid reason a woman could have for opposing male involvement was if she personally was a survivor of male violence and felt ‘uncomfortable’ around men. The problem with this view, often unquestioned, is that it delegitimises or hides political discomfort or opposition. Many women, including, but not only survivors, have political reasons for preferring and promoting women-only space and this does not by default mean that they have past experiences of abuse or that they have some sort of personal problem or fear of being around men. It was clear though, that for many activists, especially RTN organisers, they felt pushed to come up with a defence of women-led or women-only protests and found that citing the presence of survivors was a way to avoid the most harsh critiques and opposition.
As Amelia said, all RTN organisers found issues of exclusion and inclusion tricky. For many, it was seen as tactical to include men because this would create a broader and stronger movement. This stance formed the basis of the second key argument used to promote mixed RTN marches. This was the argument that it is logical that a movement against violence against women should include the group overrepresented as perpetrators – men – because this is the group that needs to change. Benjamina for example, a feminist in her late twenties, explained this stance.
I feel that the movement against violence against women also needs men to agree not to commit the violence, and to support our cause. We need to show people that this movement is for everyone. Unless everyone supports it, it won’t work.
(Benjamina)
Caz, a leftie in her early thirties, also took this position. She argued that it was simply strategic to include men and she also pointed out the educational purpose as others did, suggesting that men could educate other men and help society to evolve away from sexist assumptions which attach masculinity to violence.
I understand and appreciate why the marches are sometimes women-only. I however feel that this means that men feel unable to support a march and that it reinforces the view that ‘all men are violent’. Personally, I feel that we need to involve everyone if society is to change. I also feel that this march needs to be women-led; I am very firm on this.
(Caz)
As can be seen in the selection of quotes above, even these activists who provided spirited and passionate arguments for men’s involvement in RTN still felt that the protest should be women-led. The conceivable or imaginable forms of male involvement were therefore limited, and conditional upon the men present respecting women’s leadership and direction. In fact, this collaboration between women and men was also seen as another opportunity for education and a chance to present a positive example of gender relations publically.
The third and final argument made in favour of male inclusion was mainly a tactical one. Not tactical in the way outlined above, through being an opportunity to educate the public or play a public relations role for feminism for example, but tactical in that it is simply a way to keep everyone happy. As with so many things however, this is of course impossible. Just like Eve said in earlier quotations, some group is always going to feel excluded or unrepresented, and whatever decision is made about the form of the march, there will always be critique. In efforts to minimise this though and to involve as many potential allies as possible, several activist organisers saw men’s involvement as a pragmatic compromise between a women-only RTN or a completely mixed RTN.
One RTN activist in the North of England, Christabel, made this point. She was 37 and identified politically as a radical feminist. She was part of an organising collective in her city. Their march was split into two halves, with men joining at a later point on the route and staying at the rear.
I think probably we have a compromise, you know, a balance. We have men join us towards the end of the march; this was the compromise we came up with.
(Christabel)
Compromise did not always work though, as Charlotte pointed out. Charlotte was also an RTN organiser in the same city, 34 and also a radical feminist.
we’ve tried this compromise and we’ve upset everyone. We’ve upset the men who feel like a token and women who feel it should be women-only, and so, well, the group we don’t want to upset is women, you know.
(Charlotte)
However, even those activists who saw male involvement as a tactical move, or a compromise necessary in a climate of hostility to women-only events, still hoped that as a side effect, men’s involvement could aid the building of a broad-based, large and successful protest with higher numbers than women-only marches may attract or enable. For those opposed to men’s involvement though, the pursuit of such a broad base and higher numbers was at the expense of the very principles and aims of RTN, and was seen as entirely counterproductive. The numbers on the march were considered far less important than protecting the principle of women-only space. I shall now turn then to look at the six key arguments raised against male inclusion and in favour of women-only RTN.
Why should Reclaim the Night be women-only?
One common argument made in favour of women-only marches, and perhaps the most obvious one, is that the march is about violence against women and, as men are not women and so not victim to violence against women, they should not attend. Charlie, in her early thirties, made this point, also highlighting that as men are not affected, they also do not carry with them the fears and anxieties that women do about using public space at night for example.
men have not, and don’t, experience the unspoken sanctions that women do.
(Charlie)
This stance relied on activists identifying one aim of RTN being awareness raising about male violence against women specifically, and it not being about public safety in general. For those who saw this awareness raising and focus on women as victims as key, it was precisely the women-only element which was tactical. They argued that the women-only element of RTN is its unique selling point, it is what makes this march stand out from other political protests and therefore it would be impractical to miss out on this interesting feature. As Sheila said of mixed marches:
and it just makes it look like an ordinary march, like all the others.
(Sheila)
Sheila was 65 and identified as a radical lesbian feminist and a socialist. Sheila had been involved in feminism for decades and was still active in feminism as well as in socialist groups against government cutbacks and anti-war organisations. She was retired and therefore had the freedom to spend her time tackling the capitalist patriarchal status quo and enriched the groups she was in with her feminist theory and activist experience.
Several activists felt that by keeping RTN women-only, a clear focus is maintained on male violence against women and thus the message to bystanders is clear and unmistakable. Eight activists actually used the word ‘diluted’ when they critiqued mixed marches. Debbie for example, an anarcho-feminist in her late thirties, argued that:
I feel that ‘open-gender’ or mixed marches dilute the message and un-gender the very gendered phenomenon of sexual violence against women.
(Debbie)
For those in favour of a women-only RTN, the aim of the march was to highlight women’s demand to live free from the threat and reality of male violence. To have men on the march detracted from this, and sent ‘mixed messages’ to the bystanders watching or those hearing about a local march through the media. Rosa also emphasised this, another anarcho-feminist from the North of England; she had experiences of both mixed and women-only RTN. I met Rosa in a veggie café near to where I was staying with a friend in the city. After arriving late due to getting the wrong bus, we were able to chat about Rosa’s experiences of different RTN marches and the different approaches that had been taken in her city. Rosa worked as a therapist in a women’s centre, and was very committed to women’s empowerment through actively doing politics and because of this, she preferred to be involved in do-it-yourself or DIY activism, where, like during the Second Wave, people very much do it for themselves, and organise their own events independently from the state and from mainstream organisations and funding.
I’ve been on both women and mixed. I’ve noticed differences. Like I said, I think that on mixed marches there’s mixed messages, the messages are diluted. Reclaim the night, well, who’s reclaiming the night from who? I guess when you’re raising awareness of violence against women by men, which is the majority of sexual violence and domestic abuse anyway, for men to join it, I think it confuses the issue to the public.
(Rosa)
Al Garthwaite had similar views. While she understood that men are also affected by violence, she felt that when men are physically assaulted or mugged for example, they do not face the same victim-blaming culture that women do when they are sexually harassed, assaulted or even raped and that this is an important distinction between women and men’s experiences.
Men are also subject to violence, but are not blamed or disbelieved if they get attacked.
(Al Garthwaite)
John recounted that he personally had been in such positions where he feared physical violence from other men when out in public space, but added that generally he did not carry fears about being raped or sexually assaulted.
I read things talking about that [sexual violence by men against men], but I don’t think I have any perception of it really. Nobody talks about that particularly. No, I’ve never felt at risk of sexual violence, no. But yeah, physical violence, from other men, yeah, sure.
(John)
John mentions in this extract above that he has no perception of sexual violence against men being a real threat to him, that he does not think about it or talk about it and that he does not feel at risk of it. This of course means that he will understand his personal safety in a different way to how women understand their own personal safety. Like Charlie, Al and John, Rosa felt that men use public space, especially at night, without the same fears and anxieties about sexual violence. She felt that men actually tended to dominate public spaces at night and therefore already ‘owned’ the night, so had no need to reclaim it from anyone.
what I thought was really nice about the London march, when there was some men along the route with banners saying that they supported it. And to me, that is males supporting RTN marches. They don’t have to take it over, they’re standing there for all to see and they agree with us as well, but they’re not pretending to reclaim the night; ’cos, like, who are they reclaiming it from? Themselves, you know.
(Rosa)
As well as the argument that male violence against women does not affect men directly or cause them to curb their liberty in the use of public space, the second common defence of women-only RTN was that the march should be a site of, and opportunity for women’s empowerment. Empowerment was not just an intended outcome for the women on each RTN, but also for women bystanders to the marches. Christabel questioned whether this empowerment could even occur at all within a mixed march.
It is empowering with women, and, would that empowerment be there otherwise?
(Christabel)
Supporters of women-only RTN believed strongly that RTN is a place for women to release their righteous anger, frustration and passion in a safe environment, alongside other like-minded women. This links back to the points raised earlier about the supposed decline of anger on the RTN marches, and the belief of younger activists that this radicalism needs a protected space in which to be maintained and fanned. Many felt that such an environment was rare. Buffy, a feminist in her late twenties, stated that:
It is extremely empowering to be in a large crowd of women and also highly unusual. It is more relaxed.
(Buffy)
It was also suggested that many women often feel unable, as individuals on their own, to publically express their anger and resentment towards sexual harassment, everyday sexism or threats and acts of violence. This is because they fear reprisals if they challenge those men who perpetrate these acts against them, as Vivienne recounted.
When I was younger, like most other women I received a lot of sexual harassment in the streets. So going on the march, there was meaning for me being there. You know, often you can’t respond angrily or in any way in case, ’cos of what men might do. So, like other women, it was about putting all those experiences in and getting all the anger out about them safely, that had happened all over the year.
(Vivienne)
As well as being a safe space to release anger like this, a women-only RTN was also seen as a space for solidarity to be built between women. The march was seen as a rare chance to experience this group solidarity, as Epstein, a radical feminist and separatist in her early forties, maintained.
Women are uniquely oppressed as women. It’s important that we develop solidarity amongst ourselves to stand up to oppression. It’s not possible to do that with men on the marches.
(Epstein)
Like Epstein, Vivienne also felt that solidarity was built particularly in women-only spaces and she suggested that women would not be able to be, as she put it, radical, if men were around. She thought that women would temper themselves or reign in their anger if male allies were marching alongside them.
Women can’t be as radical when men are around. I went with a heterosexual friend of mine and she was with me on men not being there. And she was saying, you know, you can’t help it. The dynamics if you have men there are going to change, and make women less radical.
(Vivienne)
As well as releasing anger, creating solidarity and allowing women to be radical, several activists made a complex point about identity and protest. Mary for example highlighted that most protest marches are about an issue that is, in some ways, outside one’s own direct personal experience or identity. A march for animal rights is about a cause, a march about global warming is a cause, but the people marching are not animals affected by vivisection. They may also be lucky enough not to feel particularly affected by global warming personally, depending on their location of course and their resources. RTN on the other hand is also a protest march for a cause, but the cause is women, and the marchers are women, who are the victims and targets of male violence against women. RTN is therefore a protest march that is intrinsically linked to the marcher’s own identity, in a very direct way. Mary saw this conjoining triad of protestor, identity and cause resulting in empowerment. She also believed that it sent a vital and powerful image of women’s solidarity to bystanders and the public.
I just kind of think that there’s a place for men, but not on my RTN march thank you very much. You’ve kind of missed the point haven’t you? I mean, I think there’s a difference between it being an empowering and liberating activity with a personal meaning for the women on the march to be in that space, which is powerful. And then, the: I want to support your cause thing. Which is the traditional understanding of a demo.
(Mary)
The third point made in defence of women-only RTN applied to all feminist events in general. This was the assertion that feminist events should always be led by women because feminism is a movement for the liberation of women. The activists who held this view advocated that political self-organisation should be a right for all oppressed groups, including women. Chantelle, a radical feminist in her early thirties, explained:
A movement needs to be led by the oppressed group. [male] Supporters need to recognise this, and if they feel strongly about fighting violence against women they could find out if there is any support they can offer, rather than demand a place on the march.
(Chantelle)
Removing the element of women’s leadership was therefore seen to depoliticise RTN and also turn it away from being an explicitly feminist event. This was not just seen as damaging for RTN potentially, but for feminism as a whole. Eve insisted that RTN should maintain a commitment to women’s leadership and women’s space. Eve was an organiser in her city. She recounted many long discussions in her organising committee about whether and how men should be involved on RTN. She was frustrated with the shift towards mixed feminist events that she saw happening across the board in feminism, not just in RTN. She thought this shift had put pressure on RTN marches to follow suit and made them vulnerable to hostility if they did not.
RTN becomes about a night out, and it’s for everyone, but I think if we did make it for women-only, I think that would change it. It would mean more, or become more serious again. I think we’re in an age now when that depoliticisation is part of the wider movement, and it’s been used to nullify feminism.
(Eve)
Cher made a similar point. She was in her early thirties and also a radical feminist. Cher asserted that women’s leadership and space is a key component of feminism, because it stands as a visible exception to what she felt is a very male-dominated culture. In this way, feminist events being led by women for women are a rare example of what women can do and what they can achieve together.
I would prefer women-only. This is mainly on political principle. Our entire culture has so strong a habit of valuing messages more when they come from men, and of attributing the capacity for political thought, will and action mainly to men, that I honestly think that the best thing supportive men can do in this case is to enable the women in their lives to attend RTN without those men being there.
(Cher)
Another reason why activists felt men should stay at home rather than attend RTN formed the fourth key argument in favour of women-only marches. This argument was to do with perceptions of women’s safety and women’s restricted use of public space, particularly at night. It moves on from the issues raised by marchers such as John about how men’s sense of personal safety is generally different to that of women’s. Activists felt that if men were present on an RTN they could be seen as chaperones or protectors for women marchers and thus undermine the point that the march is about women on their own reclaiming the night to feel safe in spaces they usually do not. If the point of the march is to raise awareness that often women do not feel safe on their own, without a man to accompany them, then logically it was seen as counterproductive to include men. It will be recalled of course that RTN first started amidst a manhunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, partly because of anger against sexist police advice that women should not go out at night or that they should have a man to accompany them if they did. Activists stated that it ‘defeated the purpose’ to include men on the march. This argument was made by Sheila, and also by Bryony, a younger radical feminist in her late twenties.
It would be absurd to reclaim the night with male chaperones.
(Bryony)
The whole point of the marches is women taking back their space, and demonstrating that they have a right to walk around un-accosted by men, so they lose their purpose if men are involved. Men marching sort of reinforces that women need men to walk with them on the streets to keep them safe.
(Sheila)
The founder of the original RTN London, Sandra McNeill, agreed. She also worried that if men marched on RTN, then they may be perceived by bystanders as being there to protect the women, or accompany the women, even if marchers certainly did not feel this themselves. Sandra argued that many women often just do feel safer out at night if they are with a man they know, and if that is the case, then surely RTN should be a chance to protest that very point by going out alone for once, without a chaperone, without protection.
It’s nonsense to have men on them, when you have men on International Women’s Day marches and every other place; but not on RTN. Reclaim the right to walk along with my boyfriend, so what?
(Sandra McNeill)
Fallon was a 32-year-old RTN organiser from the South of England and was one of the few activists who I already knew before I interviewed her for my research. She and I have been on many protests together since she first attended a feminist meeting I organised. We became friends and allies when at only her second meeting she offered to arrange a fundraiser for the group with another friend who also came along. Many people begin with such ideas when they first get involved in activism but often do not have time to follow through on all of them, and so initially, I did not actually expect the promised fundraiser to materialise. I was reprimanded for my cynicism when the event was a huge success and that was just the beginning of Fallon’s commitment to feminism. While other members came and went, Fallon became a key organiser of RTN in her city. Her words echo and emphasise Sandra’s points by confirming that she does indeed feel safer when out in her city at night if she is with her boyfriend or her brother. But for Fallon, RTN was therefore a chance to do things differently, to be out at night just with other women and feel safe.
I don’t feel I can go home late and not feel threatened, and not worry about it. And I think that is the time [on RTN] when you’re out and it’s dark and it’s rainy, but you feel a hundred per cent safe. I do feel safer walking down the street with my brother or my boyfriend. I feel safer with men, and that annoys me. And I think that night is one night you don’t have to have that, you know, you’ve closed the streets and you’re all women.
(Fallon)
The effect of women’s fears of crime on their use of public space has actually been long and well studied in the areas of geography, criminology and urban studies for example. There is much professional research looking at women’s tactics for avoiding and managing the fear and risk of male violence, such as sexual harassment or assault in public. This literature suggests that women are affected by what is called ‘spatial segregation’. This is just a fancy academic term to refer to an observable tendency for women to limit, segregate or manage their participation in public space based on a fear of crime, in particular male violence. A tendency I am sure we can all recognise, and likely may have experienced and felt ourselves. Scholars studying this have pointed out that in many cases, women interviewed in research about such avoidance practices may not even be aware of them, as they have just incorporated certain strategies into their lives from an early age and they have become normal. ‘While relatively few women spontaneously say they are afraid to go out alone, study of their actual practices and the content of their discourse enables us to qualify this assessment’ (Condon et al., 2007:110).
RTN organiser Shelley, who was 30 years old and who lived in the South West, spoke about just this kind of avoidance practice and spatial segregation, though she did not use this precise academic term. Like many of the other younger women, she noted that she took care over identifying her routes around her city at night. She picked better lit ways home, she avoided bridges and underpasses, she would not walk over parks, she texted friends her estimated time of arrival, she would not walk on the pavement where it is often in shadow and hidden by parked cars but would walk down the middle of the road under the street lights, she walked with her keys in her hand or would pretend to be on the phone. Some women said they carried rape alarms or pepper spray, and yet these are young women who have benefitted from changes in the urban landscape, who have grown up amongst a lively night-time economy and leisure industry which is essentially open to all and which women are certainly more present and visible in than they perhaps ever were.
My boyfriend doesn’t really get it. We were walking home once and there was this group of lads and he said: would you be scared now walking here if I wasn’t with you? And I said: I wouldn’t be walking here if you weren’t with me. Because, like, it’s a quiet road, I’d be on the main road, walking down the middle of the road.
(Shelley)
Analysis of the media coverage of male violence against women brings up another spatial link, the idea that women are affected by what is called in the textbooks and policy documents ‘spatial provocation’ (Walby et al., 1983:89). This phrase refers to the tendency for the media to over report male violence against women when it occurs in public space, often focussing on the location, time of day or more often night and the clothing of the alleged victim, as well as alcohol consumption for example. The point here is that the location and details of the space itself become the focus of the reporting, rather than the male perpetrator. This promotes a sense that women themselves provoke crimes against them by being in those spaces at certain times, particularly after dark. As Joanna Bourke highlights in her extensive history of rape, this focus misses the point that the space itself is not the cause of the violence. ‘It is also to encourage the illusion that sexual danger loiters in social spaces, like some agentless germ that a woman can “catch”. The rapist is not a “social virus”. He is human’ (2007:6). As I said, issues of spatial provocation and segregation did indeed emerge in my research with young contemporary activists like Fallon and Shelley, with many recounting their own fears when out in the streets on their own, particularly at night, and their strategies for managing the risk they perceived. In all cases, the activists felt that they were made to carry the burden of this risk management, and that if something did happen to them, they would be the ones to be blamed for being in the ‘wrong’ space at the ‘wrong’ time. This was the culture of victim-blaming which the activists raised and named throughout my research. Catherine for example, another younger feminist in her early thirties, explained that like Fallon, she too felt at risk when going out at night, and she felt that the social messages she received told her it was dangerous for her to do so and that she should limit her activities. Like her sisters before her in Leeds in the 1970s, she said she still felt under a sexed curfew in the modern city.
I feel very much under a siege, a curfew, when I am told I must not go out alone or in the dark. It’s like everything is my fault because I’m alive.
(Catherine)
In fact, these fears were often cited as motivators for attending RTN marches, which many saw as a ‘trespass’ into male space. Public space was often felt by default to be sexed; it was seen as male. Dolores made this point when she emphasised her motivations for marching on RTN.
The point of it is, that we live in a society where it’s not possible for women to use the streets with as much freedom as men. Men behave as if the streets are their terrain. And I just like the title, you know, reclaim, reclaim. Let us women take back the streets, it’s not their bloody streets to do what they feel like.
(Dolores)
Even the most hardened of activists, like Dolores, pretty much left this spatial assumption unquestioned, they spoke of the urban night-time landscape as male and as in need of ‘takeback’ or ‘incursion’, ‘storming’ or ‘reclaiming’; interestingly using quite territorial and militaristic terms.
The fifth argument made for women-only RTN was the concern that perpetrators of male violence may attend if the marches were mixed. This could threaten marchers in terms of their safety and anonymity. For example, the leaflet for the Dorchester RTN in 2011 stated:
Due to the nature of this event it is women-only – no disrespect to men, but we do have people attending who are fleeing domestic violence and who wish to remain anonymous.
(Dorchester RTN)
Epstein also highlighted this risk
allowing men in means that statistically there is a possibility that some of those men will have committed sexual offences against women.
(Epstein)
Relating back to the point I noted earlier about worries over inclusion and exclusion, many activists were aware that including men on RTN would exclude some women and potentially make some women marchers feel unsafe, particularly women who may have experienced sexual violence or intimate partner abuse. It was felt that RTN should be a place for those women.
women attending RTN may well have been sexually, physically, emotionally attacked by men. Marching on RTN is exposing enough, without having to deal with extra interactions from men at the same time. RTN should be a protected space for women, I really think that the pro-feminist man’s best symbolic action at an RTN march is to get off the streets!
(Cher)
Two survivors of male violence, Bethan and Buffy, who were both in their twenties, did state that they would prefer RTN to be women-only. This was partly because they thought they could feel more comfortable and safe, but also more empowered when marching in solidarity with other women and this was a motivation that many activists gave for attending RTN.
Marches are busy and people bump up against each other. I was abducted from a busy shopping centre when I was gang raped – people jostling me can be triggering if I’m aware that men are around, whereas it isn’t the same in a women-only march.
(Bethan)
A women-only space preserves the message of Reclaim the Night, that women are reclaiming the right to walk safely at night. It also provides a safe space for survivors, such as myself, who do not feel comfortable with large groups of men.
(Buffy)
It was not only survivors of male violence who stated that they would feel safer on a women-only RTN though. Billie was in her late twenties and identified politically as a radical feminist.
I do not like marches that have men attending. It makes me feel unsafe and seems to defeat the object of women and girls Reclaiming the Night!
(Billie)
Meanwhile, Faith recounted not just a sense of threat, but a case of actual violence on a mixed RTN by men watching the march or targeting it. Unfortunately, this does happen occasionally as I mentioned earlier in this book, and it has affected a few marches. Faith was in her late forties, she described herself politically as a feministic dyke, though she did not elaborate further on exactly what she meant by that political label; it was just one of the several creative political titles that activists used to describe themselves. Incidences of violence and aggression, although rare, when they occur, often only further instil the view that RTN should be women-only, that men are a potential risk and that the march should be a protected and safe space for women.
I don’t like the stupid bastard blokes that run into us marchers and grab at women. Police are never to be seen at those points. Happened every time I’ve marched.
(Faith)
Another marcher, Lucy, spoke of how male bystanders, even if they were not physically violent, often treated the march precisely as if it was some sort of incursion into their male territory; adding weight to the activist’s own perceptions of RTN as a takeover of male space. Lucy recounted a group of young men reacting angrily to seeing the march go by. I have also witnessed this myself, I have actually heard men shouting at women marchers ‘these are our streets’ and ‘get off our streets’. Perhaps the activists were right then to use such militaristic and territorial terms to explain the purpose of RTN.
Another year we had a group of lads on a night out, purposely walking through us on the march, like it was – no, we’re men, we can reclaim this space, we can go wherever we want to and walk through the middle of your march. And, like, this one man asked my friend where the nearest brothel was.
(Lucy)
Marchers were not just passive however; several had humorous accounts of dealing with aggressive male bystanders.
And there was one bit, we were going past this pub, and these blokes came out and started shouting various shite, and one of the marchers sort of whopped him over the head with a placard. And then one of the policewomen arrested him for threatening behaviour, to great cheers from the crowd.
(Mary)
In a possible suggestion that the urban landscape is not always on the side of men, sometimes marchers did not need to intervene themselves, and street furniture interrupted aggressive heckling and threats from male bystanders.
Some guy started heckling the drummers at the front of the march, and then he walked into a lamppost.
(Kira)
Returning to a more serious note, as well as a real and justified concern for the safety of women marchers, including survivors, there was also a suggestion from some activists that men should not be allowed on RTN because men may be more likely than women are to be aggressive, either with bystanders or with the police. This was seen to be another potential risk, making the march unsafe for women as well as other men. When activists voiced this concern, they often used arguments similar to eco-feminist theories and to scholarship on the Women’s Peace Movement for example. These arguments rested on a contention that women have been socialised to be homemakers, carers and society builders, and that through that socialisation, they are more likely to be pacifist than men are, as men have generally not been socialised in the same way. Cait, who described herself as a fun feminist, was in her late thirties, and she touched on this issue. But she added that because of such socialisation, men may actually be more at risk than women, ergo it would not be a good idea for them to be on an RTN march. She particularly thought that men might be targeted by aggressive bystanders for example.
It’s about making women safe. Men on the march may be more aggressive and start fights with people who disagree on the street, or be more likely to be punched by those people.
(Cait)
The final argument made in favour of women-only RTN highlighted that male support was always welcome, just in ways other than actually being on the march itself. All the activists unanimously welcomed male support in what they called back office roles, or supportive behind the scenes tasks.
There are lots of things men can do to oppose violence against women and children and joining an RTN march doesn’t have to be one of them. They can serve the refreshments at the rally, I’m not against that.
(Al Garthwaite)
Fallon had recruited her brother to help with the women-only RTN march in her city in the South of England. He helped at the after-march rally, setting up stalls, collecting placards and arranging the stage and sound system for speakers at the mixed rally which was open to all. In many cities and towns, small groups of male volunteers often take on such tasks. Fallon emphasised that her brother enjoyed his support role, and indeed found it empowering. He enjoyed his part in making the march happen.
men can come to the rally and they can do their own bit, I like that. I remember my brother saying it’s amazing hearing the noise of you lot all coming down the street and it’s like, there was something scary for him about this group of men waiting for this onslaught of noisy women! But he always says it’s an amazing sound to hear all these women. You know, and I think it’s important men experience that. It makes it feel like it’s possible you know, that women can go out and we can be threatening, and we can be in control.
(Fallon)
Here Fallon highlights the benefits to men of supporting a women-only event, but also the benefits for women of being on such an event on their own, as women. For her, to be in such large numbers of women on a successful political demonstration, with men waiting for them in a purely supportive role, made her believe that change could be possible. It gave her hope that it could be possible for women to take political leadership and be powerful and in control alongside men as equals.
As mentioned at the start of this section, it was suggested by some activists that those men who do seek out leadership roles in RTN may not be doing so for the best or most honourable reasons, whether intentionally or not. Some activists felt those men may be volunteering just to boost their own ego, or to be seen by others to be right-on and doing the right thing. This was what Sheila called ‘peacock’ behaviour, showing off to aggrandise themselves in the eyes of others.
I get really irritated with men supporting women, ’cos I think they’d support women by not being there. I think they’re there to be peacocks really, to say: look at me supporting women.
(Sheila)
One RTN organiser, Eve, recounted actually having her leadership challenged by a male volunteer stewarding an RTN, what she referred to as the phenomenon of the ‘glory steward’.
I was talking to one male steward and asking him to move down a road, ’cos I was in charge, and I’d done it before and I was a chief steward. And I asked him to move and he was just looking at me and saying, erm, no, what, why? And I just thought, ’cos I’m a chief steward and I’m telling you to, that’s why. But I just thought, well, why are they here? They’re here just sort of showing how great they are, they’re here as glory stewards.
(Eve)
Just as there were lots of competing and often conflicted and overlapping views about the pros and cons of involving men on RTN, there were also many different explanations put forward to explain the general shift towards mixed events within feminism. For some it was seen as an overdue and progressive move, a sign that feminism had moved on from a past seen as backward and retrograde. For others it was a symptom of declining radicalism in the movement and increasing institutionalisation affecting all social movements. The growth of what is called queer theory and queer activism from the 1990s in particular was also partly seen to have influenced this shift, as was the popularity of certain versions of self-defined third wave feminism.
What about teh menz? Contextualising the decline of women-only marches
Given the high occurrence of mixed RTN marches, for the sorts of reasons the activists outlined in the previous section, it was interesting that the majority of activists I spoke to were in favour of women-only marches or at least women-led marches. Many of the activists I interviewed were also organisers of marches; they thus had some control over the demographic of RTN. Yet even those organisers who expressed a personal preference for women-only space often organised a mixed RTN; why was this? Their argument for doing so mainly appeared to be pragmatic, reflecting a concern to attract the broadest numbers possible. High attendance was of course seen as a sign of a successful march, but there was also a concern to avoid exclusion of any group at all. There was a general distaste for excluding men. For some the exclusion of men was just a form of sexism, as bad as sexism against women, for others it was exclusion generally, of any group, that was the problem and both were seen as antithetical to feminism.
It should be noted that although my focus here in this book is on RTN, this shift towards male involvement in RTN is not unique. It has happened across the whole Feminist Movement in the UK and several of the largest feminist activist organisations are mixed. For example, Object, who secured changes in the licensing of lap-dancing clubs and also reforms in the law on prostitution, are a mixed organisation. The dynamic campaign group No More Page 3, lobbying for the voluntary removal of glamour model photographs of topless women in the popular daily British newspaper The Sun, are also a mixed organisation. The umbrella group UK Feminista is also mixed and is directed by a mixed management board of women and men, as well as having employed male staff.
Whether feminist groups are mixed or women-only is influenced by individual beliefs about the aims of feminism and the appropriate means to achieve them. Activists both for and against male inclusion both justified their stance by referencing what they saw as the correct aims and methods of feminism. For those who believed that one aim of feminism was to empower and politicise women, women-only space was seen as a tactical way to achieve that. Meanwhile, those influenced by post-structuralism and queer theory often saw women-only space as divisive, and this was usually because they found the category of ‘woman’ problematic generally, due to the theoretical debates I discussed earlier in Chapter 5. Therefore, those activists did not want to separate out allies for equality on what they saw as essentialist biological grounds, unfairly splitting people up into ‘women’ and ‘men’ and saying one type of person can join a march, but another type of person cannot.
Many of the activists more favourable to women-only space made a link between a move towards third wave feminism as they saw it and a shift towards mixed RTN marches open to all. In line with many of the definitions in literature on the subject, several activists emphasised that third wave feminism is more inclusive and more aware of intersectionality, with the result that self-defined third wave feminist events will be mixed and open to all. As mentioned when I introduced the activists earlier though, many of the activists I spoke to did not identify with the term at all, yet third wave is a term frequently attached to the feminism of younger women. This association with younger women has only added to well-worn generational explanations for divides within feminism. But, as many of the activists I talked with made clear, the differences within contemporary feminism are political and not generational. In relation to third wave, these political differences are usually around pornography and prostitution, but also men’s involvement in feminism, with third wave feminism being seen as favourable to both.
Perhaps partly because of the popularity of this sort of standpoint, many activists recounted experiencing hostility from their peers when they tried to organise women-only events. This hostility often had the result of further discouraging them from organising women-only events and thus they saw this as a sort of vicious circle. As already outlined in the earlier sections, this hostility took the form of accusing activists of not caring about men, or being sexist against men. Activists found that there was little understanding amongst their peers of any need to prioritise women at all. To do so was viewed negatively as patronising to women, as reducing women’s ‘choices’, ‘agency’ and turning them into ‘victims’. Instead, a gender-blind inclusion was aggrandised above all else and seen as the most progressive stance, as Charlotte explained.
I say I go to my feminist book group, and it’s a women-only book group, and friends will say: ‘oh I thought it was a feminist book group’. And I’ll say: ‘well yes it is, and this one’s women-only and if you want to organise a mixed one then why don’t you go and do it. I just started this one up on my own’. Well, my friend used to work on an anti-vivisection stall and she said nobody ever came up to her and said: ‘what about the dolphins’.
(Charlotte)
For many of the activists I met, these arguments and accusations were all-consuming. As a result, some found it easier to just deflect this flack and avoid it happening in the first place by including men on limited terms, such as at the rear of a march.
Activists also told me that, perhaps ironically given the modern neo-liberal focus on choice, that they felt they really had no choice about the demographic of RTN. They felt that feminism as a social movement was in a weakened state, weathered by the elements of third wave or post-feminism which they identified. Of course, the backlash against feminism was also mentioned here, a kickback from the patriarchal status quo against any claim to equality which appears to hold a potential to succeed. Susan Faludi has written about this in her 1992 book, Backlash, which uses examples from America and the UK. This backlash has been seen whenever feminism goes through a resurgence; it is in the premature claims that feminism is dead for example, and it is in the media focus on limited examples of feminism and feminists – usually educated, White and heterosexual young women for example. The backlash is also clear in the fierce sexual objectification of women which often follows feminist wins or high points. For example, today it is the rise and rise of the pornography and prostitution industries that we have witnessed growing since the 1990s in particular; it is also the narrow and degrading images of women which we see in advertising and culture. Other elements of the backlash include the perpetual mockery of feminism alongside wilful misrepresentation, especially this focus on individualism and ‘choice’. This is an attempt to reduce the potency of feminism not by ignoring it, but by acknowledging it and dismissing it at the same time as no longer needed in our supposed liberated times. The feminist scholar Angela McRobbie has written about this process of disavowal in her excellent book The Aftermath of Feminism (2009).
In this hostile environment then, many activists told me that while they personally may have all kinds of views about the importance of women-only space, they felt that they just could not afford to put people off feminism any more than they already were put off. Unfortunately, they regularly found that women-only events were one of the things that put people off feminism, albeit for problematic misogynistic, homophobic and unfounded reasons, which the activists of course acknowledged. Linked to this, while the great majority of activists supported the idea of intersectionality, an approach focussed on inclusion, they also thought that this had sometimes been mistakenly taken to mean that women could not self-organise and that to do so was sexist against men or anti-intersectional.
One for all, and all for women-only
As a radical feminist committed to the promotion and maintenance of women-only space, I obviously find the arguments outlined against male inclusion to be more convincing. I agree that the best way men can support RTN is to get off the streets and allow women to take up space for themselves. Men do indeed experience street violence and harassment, in fact, they are more vulnerable to it; but RTN is not about random street violence and harassment or men’s macho or drunken aggression towards other men. RTN is about male violence against women, and men are not affected directly by that. Men also do not experience blame and stigma in the same way when they are assaulted or attacked, as Al Garthwaite pointed out. Nobody would ask a young man how tight his jeans were when he was mugged or if he had been drinking when another man bottled him in the face. As the activists highlighted themselves, if the message of RTN is to be kept clear, then this cannot be done more powerfully than through the feature of it being women-only. How many political demonstrations do you see going through your town or city centre that are made up just of women? Not many, I expect. This is what makes RTN stand out. It showcases the whole point of the march and, if nothing else, it grabs attention and that is so important for a protest aimed at awareness raising.
I know some women who say that they personally do not like women-only space because they feel that women-only space is not safe. Many find it intimidating and alienating. This is perhaps because it is so unusual and unfamiliar and so many lies are spread about it. But our job as feminists is surely not to pander to myths about women-only space, but actively to challenge them by proving them wrong. So many women have been taught that all women are ‘bitches’, that women are the worst bosses, that women compete with other women, are ‘their own worst enemies’ and are the harshest judges of each other. It is no wonder that so many women are reticent about women-only space. But we need to remember that these messages are meant to represent all women. This is what patriarchy says all women are, because in labelling women as this way or that way in propaganda and gossip, all women are labelled, including you.
For anyone who believes that these messages are lies when applied to themselves, the task is to extend that same degree of doubt and scepticism to your perceptions of fellow women and have some feminist faith. If some women reading this do not feel that they are ‘bitchy’, competitive, manipulative or critically judgemental about other women, then perhaps other women are not either. I am not saying that working politically in women-only space is easy. Women are not saints or angels and they bring their own baggage to the committee table. Many women in feminism have been harmed by the very wrongs that we are struggling against, those brave resisters who have survived appalling violence often at the hands of those men who should have loved and protected them the most. In a way, all women are survivors of course, for all of us know what it is to grow up in a patriarchal world where being a woman equals second class. Women are taught by our culture to hate their bodies, told they are too fat, too thin, too hairy and otherwise not good enough for the male gaze. Yet women are also damned even when they do what they are told, when they do dress and act the way they are supposed to and follow the dictates of fashion, celebrity and the plethora of women’s so-called lifestyle magazines. Women are blamed for playing the game, even though they never wrote the rules; they are seen as too sexy, too much and made to carry men’s shame for turning them into sex objects in the first place. This takes its toll.
I have of course known women who have struggled in women-only spaces, this does happen. I know women who have found some other feminists hostile and judgemental. I am sure we have all experienced that; I know I have. But I have also known mixed feminist spaces where men have shared details of their porn addiction or recounted how they bravely managed to get over a phobia of female sexual partners with unshaved genitals. That is not safe; it does not make for a safe space. Women should not have to hear that. We do not need to know how men get over their fear, fascination and disgust of the female body. The important thing for us is that they get over it and traumatise as few women as possible in the process. Creating women-only space is often difficult, but nobody said saving the world was going to be easy. The efforts put into stopping women sharing political, cultural and domestic space together as women should alert us to the inherent potential power in that organising method. I believe that in a patriarchal society, the most dangerous and revolutionary thing women can do is remove, however temporarily, some of their energies from men, be that politically, culturally, socially, domestically or sexually. This will never be seen by the patriarchal status quo as anything other than a threat, because such a society depends on the support of women to prop it up. This perception of threat is therefore well founded.
While I promote and encourage women-only space, I am not saying that men should not support RTN or feminism generally. I know plenty of women who would like to bring their male partners, friends or family and march alongside them in solidarity on RTN for example. I understand that admirable aspiration. But RTN is not about excluding men; it is about including women. One point of the march, as argued throughout this chapter, is that it takes place specifically to protest the sad fact that so many women do not feel safe when out at night on their own or with female friends. They feel vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault or worse just because they are too often seen as fair game by men if they are not being chaperoned by another man, or if they have breached the spatial segregation that they are supposed to adhere to. This treatment harks back to ancient patriarchal stereotypes about women as men’s property and it is high time we broke those stereotypes down.
Due to these very stereotypes, women often do feel safer and less vulnerable to sexual harassment when they are with another man; so what is the political point of having men on RTN marches? The protest is meant to be an opportunity for women to experience the very opposite of that chaperoned fragile half-freedom. It is a chance to enjoy their town or city without a male protector, to get a sense of what it is like to feel powerful and to dominate space as a woman and with other women. After all, men reclaim the streets all the time, they dominate public spaces outside pubs and clubs, they swarm the streets following football matches for example and other sporting events. They enjoy public space together in groups of other men and they fill up those spaces with noise and bodily presence. RTN is a chance for women to do that, not in worship of a few men scoring goals in a field, but in pursuit of grander political goals in the whole of society.
While I do not want men on my RTN march, as I said, I do think men have a place in feminism, and I welcome support from pro-feminists. Male volunteers have always helped at the London RTN rally for example. On that night, women march through the centre of the city to the rally location at which they are greeted by men who gather up their placards and stack them safely for storage until next year. The men collect the highvisibility tabards worn by the stewards and fold and bag them so they can be reused on other protests, they distribute rubbish bags and dispose of any glass bottles before marchers enter the venue. I think there is something powerful and empowering in this process and in what it represents and symbolises. It is a rare occasion when women have been in the lead politically, women have organised, stewarded and led their own successful national political demonstration and men have aided them in supportive and behind the scenes roles. Men have taken a back seat, while women have led. How rarely this happens in political spaces, and yet how urgent it is if we are to truly work towards liberating ourselves and the rest of the world from our history of chains.
Men have a role in the WLM, but the clue is in the name. This is the WLM, and it should be led and directed by women and it should always prioritise women. There is plenty men can do to support women’s activism, without taking it over. If they want to walk their political talk then they can take the opportunity to prioritise women by allowing women to lead and direct their own movement. As for the argument that men can change other men’s behaviour, I agree; I wait patiently for the day when men picket lap-dancing clubs and brothels and stop other men from buying and exploiting women. There is much men can do in the struggle for women’s rights if they choose to do so; some of these are quite dramatic. Men can stop rape for example, by not raping women. They can bring the sex industry to its knees by removing their patriarchal pound from this brutal institution founded on the inequalities of sex, race and class.
But we women have not got time to persuade men to do this or to teach them about feminism in some time-consuming maternal way. Nor should women have to thank men when they do behave like decent human beings. Most men do not rape women or children, or abuse their partners or use women in prostitution. They do not deserve a medal for that. We do not need to waste our time thanking men, praising them or worrying about making our politics amenable to them. We have a hard enough job on our hands engaging women in feminism, in a context of backlash where women risk ridicule, exclusion and worse for identifying with a politics of their own. That is the engagement that should be the focus of feminism – the rest will follow.
Of course, in my discussions with RTN activists, men were not the only group over which there were concerns about inclusion or exclusion. Reflecting one of the big fault lines in feminism, several activists were concerned at the exclusion of transgender/transexual-identified people on RTN marches. Others felt that people involved in prostitution or those with a history in the ‘sex industry’ were also not actively welcomed on marches. These topics often took up just as much of my time with activists as did the conversation about whether or not men should be allowed. They continue to be debated online and offline and they incur into the work of activists organising RTN marches. These issues split RTN organising groups and individual activists. They cause dissenting groups to organise differing marches in the same year or in concurrent years. They cause some RTN marches to lose their funding, while others receive more support. They result in some RTN marches being boycotted, picketed and loudly protested. Given the importance of these feminist fault lines, I shall now move to focus firstly on the feminist differences around the issue of the ‘sex industry’ and secondly, to the inclusion of trans people, meaning transgender or transexual-identified individuals, on RTN marches and in the wider Feminist Movement.