Raquel Rosario Sánchez from FiLiA in conversation with Imogen.

Raquel: Thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Raquel Rosario Sánchez, and I am the spokeswoman for FiLiA. Today we are speaking with Imogen from the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network at the University of Cambridge. They are a network of feminist students and Cambridge residents who meet throughout the academic term to discuss feminism from a radical materialist and gender-critical perspective.

They hold discussion groups every two weeks, which are open to all women, student or not. The Cambridge Radical Feminist Network believe rational and well-reasoned debate is central to genuine feminist analysis and activism and ultimately to liberation as well. They exist to provide a space on campus where lively discussion can take place.

Imogen how are you? 

Imogen: I'm really good. Thank you so much for having me on. 

Raquel: I want to begin by going back to the origins, how did this group come about? 

Imogen: Originally there were sort of two twinned origins. The first part was myself and various other women were campaigning together on the Gender Recognition Act proposals back in August 2018.

So most of them, except for me, were not students. They were just women who lived around Cambridgeshire and we met up to campaign on this issue on the streets of Cambridge. And then when the campaign wound down, at that point, we'd got to know each other and we realised that we really liked talking to each other and spending time together, we thought we'd try to make it a more regular thing.

So that was sort of one aspect of it. The other aspect was the Women's Place UK meeting in Cambridge.  I think it was actually the first formal meeting they ever had that allowed a lot of women in Cambridge including some students to meet each other for the first time, talk to each other about issues related to gender and find out they had common cause and myself and another undergraduate student at the time, we both decided that sort of discussion was missing in Cambridge University itself. So we wanted to start something within the university and have a sort of formal voice on campus as well. So both the student side and the, the non-student side joined forces, I guess you could say, in forming the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network.

Now we have a group which is open to women around Cambridge who just network together and talk to each other. Yeah. And can rely on each other to have free and open debates about these sorts of issues. 

Raquel: So walk us through one of your meetings, obviously this is pre coronavirus, right?

So walk us through one of your meetings where you're just discussing, not one of the events I'm going to touch on the point of the events that you host later on, but just a regular meeting. 

Imogen: Yes, it's changed quite a lot, obviously over the past few months, but certainly when we first started, the general idea was we would have on, say the Monday before the meeting, I, or somebody else would issue a reading list on a certain topic, for example, prostitution or something like that.

And we would have a range of sort of materials that people could read or not, depending on how busy they are. Then the following Sunday, we would have a meeting at a local pub in Cambridge and we would just get one big table, push a bunch of tables together and go around the room and talk about it.

Talk about what our thoughts were on the reading or anything else that we'd seen on the news and or our lives, our own personal experiences and how that's informed our opinions. We just basically had a, not very structured, informal, open discussion between all the women who wanted to attend.

Obviously, since COVID had happened, we haven't really been able to do that. So our last sort of proper discussion group like that was back in March. Since then we have had a couple of zoom meetings, especially since the new academic year start up and we've had a bunch of new members join.

It's been sort of a lot more online based, but it's still sort of relatively informal. Essentially the focus is networking and communicating with other women and just sort of being open about what we're thinking and thinking and feeling.

Raquel: I love that you meet in a pub. At Women Talk Back, we meet at a multi face chaplaincy, which feels very cosy. Like you get tea and everyone brings like snacks. So it's a very cosy environment, but I love the idea of meeting in a pub and just like having a glass of beer. 

Imogen: I mean, not everyone drinks to be fair, it's quite a good pub. They do also sell tea and coffee if people don't want to drink. but it's an easy place to get to because there's parking out the back and it's accessible, quite lucky to have it actually. 

Raquel: Yes. And some of the topics that you discuss are sex and social constructivism, beauty and misogyny, the politics of fat and energy and activism, fear and violence and competition and success.

And you have also have public events with speakers, such as philosophers such as Dr Jane Clare Jones and some other events about academic discourse. So tell us about those events. How was the process of organising them and how did they actually go?

Imogen: The process of organising them was fairly straightforward actually.

So I think we always had an ambition that we would have regular events, but because everyone's so busy, it became sort of quite a long process. I'd never actually organised a proper formal event before doing this. I didn't realise that even just organising the conference rooms and stuff was difficult.

We did our first event with Jane Clare Jones in the local friends meeting house, the Quakers meeting house in Cambridge, that was actually really good. I know that the Quakers have said some controversial things about gender critical feminism recently, but they were actually pretty cool about taking our booking and they were super helpful on the day. I have nothing but love for the Friends Meeting House in Cambridge actually. 

But the second event we had, the panel event, that was the first one we held on university properties. So we had to rent a room out in one of the lecture complexes in the middle of Cambridge.

 It was surprisingly hard to find vacant room in Cambridge. I didn't realise how difficult it was going to be, but most of them as well are very, very expensive and we weren't sure how we were going to afford them. But luckily we did find something in the end. That was actually pretty straightforward.

So we are lucky in that we were able to be officially formally registered with the university as a student society, which meant we got a pretty hefty discount of renting the room. And yeah. Then we just put the tickets out to see who wanted to come. And a whole bunch of people did. The panel event in particular was a really great success, very well attended in the end. We were very happy with it. 

Raquel: What was the process of, you mentioned just briefly that you became official and we've had this conversation a couple of times in which you remind me we're not official society, but you're registered with the university. So could you explain the process of sort of becoming officialised in a sense? 

Imogen: The Cambridge University system is a little bit different to the systems in many other universities. In that it's not just about being officially registered with the student union, which I think is the case, for example Durham university, I'm not sure about Bristol. You can be formally registered with the university Senior Proctor as a registered student society. And that entitles you to certain things like, for example, discounts on room bookings as one example, but then there's also, you can be signed up to the student union's directory of societies, and that means you can advertise yourself on the student union's website and you can have a stall at the fresher’s fair. You can have a formal student union email address, things like. 

We are registered with the university. And for a long time, we were not registered with the student union, it's a bit of a long story we've talked about it before. We sort of one day we got an email saying that CSU had decided to de-list our society from the student directory on the basis that our society was in contravention of their mission statement and principles or something like that.

There was a massive kerfuffle trying to sort of appeal that. The view was taken by the university because ultimately we had to appeal to university that the student union was entitled to interpret its mission statement and its principles in essentially whatever way that want. So it was very difficult for us to even get them to provide substantial reasons for doing so, which they were not able to do.  

Raquel: In what way did they said that your group contravened their mission statement? 

Imogen: I mean they didn't really seem to argue it at all. I mean, that was sort of the main point of contention. We got an email one day, literally saying you have been delisted, only after I asked, can you please provide some written reasons why, they said, well you've, contravened our mission statement of principles. And I said, okay, but specifically what?  they never ended up being any more detailed than that. I guess they felt that they didn't have to.

We tried to get more detail on what specifically they were saying that we had done not, they did not feel concerned about providing us with that information. And clearly they didn't feel that they had to, and apparently the university agreed with them on that.

Raquel: Maybe they thought that if they said that to you, you'd just be like, oh, okay. And you just would just go away. 

Imogen: I don't know. I have no idea. I think partly it's that they knew that they didn't really have a good reason for it, if you know what I mean? That was certainly my impression. I think that they wanted to de-list us because they didn't like us politically. They didn't really care about thinking up a proper rational pretext for it. 

And that was actually to bring it back the current free speech debate. That was actually one of the reasons there was concern about the recent proposals to insert this concept of respect into the university statutes. 

Raquel: I want to get to that but first I want to clarify, what was the process inside of the university for you to have the society? So after they delisted the society, but you're still able to have your meetings, your meetings are for women. Did you have any more trouble trying to just get this set up and going at the University of Cambridge?

Imogen: Not particularly. When we very first started, we tried to send out emails to various sort of student mailing lists. Lists that go to all the students in English faculty. For example, I know that after we sent those out that various faculties, after they were approved, because the list administrator just thought, okay, it's a student, society's sending an email, I'll just forward it on. Various students complained that the very fact we were sending out these emails, which just said, you know, we have our meetings every week, do please come, that that was making them feel unsafe. And the list administrator had you know, had done them wrong by even allowing the email to go through. 

Raquel: What does it mean that it was making them feel unsafe? In what way? 

Imogen: I mean; I don't know, there's never any detail given to a statement like that. I suppose they would take the view that they believe that we are bigoted in some sense and therefore we shouldn't sort of be given any air time, I guess, period, even by just having the email in their inbox, you know, they didn't really want to be reminded of our existence I suppose. 

We put out flyers in various faculty buildings and I know there was students who would wait until we had put the flyers down and then immediately take the flyers and put them in the bin. And I remember one time I saw someone physically ripping them up. It was crazy. I think if someone's ripping up your flyers and you almost can't really even reason with someone like that. 

I think we kind of knew that was part of the territory when we started this group, there were going to be people who took that opinion. And that was sort of the main reason why we had started it in the first place. 

We wanted to make clear that debates around gender should be had and the culture whereby they are not permissible had to be sort of combated just by our presence in a way. We knew that was going to happen and we knew we were going to get pushed back, but that's what we signed up for. 

Raquel: I also think that, what an impact, because if you think about student societies and groups, there are dozens, if not hundreds at any given university. I think there are a couple of pro-life society at the University of Bristol or something like that. Like along those lines, which is fine, but somehow it's like, there is always one group of people. It's one little society that always has to like jump through all the hurdles. 

I've been reading this document that was redacted by the Cambridge University student union women's campaign. And it's called ‘How to spot terf ideology’

Could you give us some context for this document? And is it related to the creation of the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network? 

Imogen: It's hard to sort of say exactly whether it was related, but it turned up very shortly after we came on the scene. And I think certainly the perception was that it was because we had turned up and our flyers had started to emerge and then suddenly the SU decided that they had to warn the student body, how to spot these supposedly reasonable but in fact, troublesome and immoral women by issuing this guide.

The very idea of needing to sort of spot an ideology, which is sort of lurking beneath apparently reasonable statements is sort of inherently slightly disturbing. And surely people can decide what's reasonable and not for themselves, but you know, they released it very proudly.

It's still up on the women's forum website to this day. And it basically says things to the effect of if a woman refers to sex-based oppression or the concept of being biologically female, then that is an oppressive ideology, which is inherently bigoted and has to be spotted and rooted put and actively combated. It uses terms like dog whistles and stuff like that. How is the term female or biologically female, a dog whistle? Well, according to the Cambridge society, either Cambridge union, student union, it is, and it was quite stunning actually, when it first turned up. That sort of reflects the, the mind-set of a lot of people in the student union right now. And that that's a shame. 

I like to think most people didn't take it seriously. But I think that the issue was just the atmosphere that it created. And I know that when we first started, there were some undergraduates who had come to our meetings and they were worried about being seen, they didn't want anyone to know that they were attending because they were afraid of anyone finding out. 

It's things like this, a guide for spotting terfs. It's just such an intentionally chilling document trying to make people feel afraid about even raising questions, you know? it's sad that it was produced by anyone at this university. 

Raquel: It's a sort of a position taken by the Cambridge University student union.  

Imogen: The women's campaign specifically, it's crazy to think that the mentioning of biological or women or sex-based oppression is considered to be a dog whistle by a women's campaign, that's insane, but there you are. 

Raquel: Well, sex-based oppression is a part of UK law. Sex-based rights and the recognition of biological sex is a part of the UK law. The UK people recognise sex-based discrimination. There's something about it that is very, and obviously in the Equality Act 2010, there is the single sex protections for single sex spaces and services.

There's something about it that is very upside down in the sense that you have a women's campaign advocating or trying to sort of influence a very young population of women, particularly about how not to stand for their rights, if you think about student politics, you go to any student free speech society, and you're going to have men probably who's going to be making the case about how surrogacy is so great, renting the wombs of women in poor countries so that wealthy people can have a baby that is genetically theirs, making that case and fine make the case.

Or you can have people, men usually talking about how empowering prostitution is, but there's no manual on how to spot whatever you call that type of patriarchal ideology. But somehow there is a guide on how to spot women who defend their own sex-based right. As they are already enshrined in UK law. It's amazing. 

Imogen: Yeah, it is amazing. I mean, it's sort of like what you were saying before about how the pro-life groups do not get in the same amount of stick. I mean, it's the same thing in Cambridge, there is a pro-life society, it's listed on the society's directory as well, and I believe always has been and rightly so, I have no issue with student societies taking positions I disagree with, but I do think it's interesting that nobody in the women's campaign apparently takes the view that societies like that should be considered in contravention of the student union's mission statement and principles.

And yet we do. So that's one of those the ironic and sad things. 

Raquel: So you're the women's campaign and this is what you're doing. Where is your ‘how to spot patriarchal ideology’ 8-page document because there's different ideologies. Let's talk about all of them, but it's like singling out the women who are standing up for their sex-based rights. Those are the ones who are attributed as harmful and dangerous and the ones that have to be contained. 

Imogen: The reason why I think that they need to have a booklet like that is because I do feel like that deep down they know how persuasive to ‘normal people’ gender critical analysis is. I think they understand that it seems instinctively sensible to most people, unlike their political beliefs that they've had to twist themselves into knots trying to rationalise, I do, I genuinely think that they understand deep down that that's the position that they found themselves in and that's why they need to guide for it.

You know, they need to stop people from even asking the questions. I mean, and the fact that they would regard something like mentioning sex-based oppression is a dog whistle. I mean, it's because they know that once you even acknowledge something like sex based oppression, it's a slippery slope towards beliefs that they consider to be unacceptable, that women as a sex class are oppressed. They can't admit that and therefore they have to stop people from even asking the questions.

Raquel: It’s also very much a bubble, you know, because it is working from the position of ‘we’ whoever crafted this document, held x belief. And that belief is very marginal. You know, the idea that sex, biological sex does not exist. It's not something that is believed by the vast majority of people simply because, you know, we all take a shower and we all see our sex bodies. And every time a woman has a baby, you can see the sex of the baby in the vast majority of instances, girls go through puberty, women go through menopause, men go through andro-pause. Our bodies exist. They are material. You have to make like this gymnastics mentally to sort of justify going against what you instinctively know.

Imogen: Yeah. I was saying this to someone else pretty recently. I think that a lot of these sort of liberal documents and statements and whatever, not just the guided to terf ideology, but also things like movements to limit free speech on the basis of disrespecting identities or whatever. I feel like it's rhetorical almost. 

 The person who's putting it forward, trying to convince other people that they care about this issue so much and so much more than the people around them, that they are willing to sacrifice things like free speech and freedom of thought it demonstrates their own commitment to it and I almost don't think that they believe that they will convert the man on the street or the woman on the street.

I think it's about signalling to the other people who are a part of their cultural tribe, the other people in their social groups, other students, for example, about how much they care and how much further ahead on caring about this issue they are than anyone else.

Raquel: Yes. final question on this document. I read it at the time when it was released and I've read it just now. And it seems very pointed towards the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network. There's a lot of overlap when you look at the materials about the group and this sort of document on how to spot terf ideology, it seems very pointed at your group. So my question to you is, something that I found really interesting is, they describe gender critical as ‘Terfs also call themselves as ‘biological women’ or ‘adult human females’ and frequently highlight biological and anatomical signifiers, such as XX denoting chromosomes and parts of reproductive anatomy’.

So we're at a point in history in which we're beginning to understand how women's bodies are different than men's bodies and how the scientific establishment has harmed women by ignoring the differences in our bodies and how so many treatments and diseases and illnesses reflect differently in our bodies as female than the bodies of men who are treated as the universal.

So it's like the fact that you can sort of like brush aside something that has vast ramifications for women, for healthcare issues. I just find it so bizarre. But my question to you is: how do you feel, or how did you feel when you read this? Because it seems like this is about you?

Imogen: It's hard to remember how I felt. I know that there was a period of time, I've gone through sort of waves. When we first started, I was quite nervous about it, I guess, certainly because I'm not going to be a PhD student forever. Eventually I'm going to have to go out and find a job. And I think I was quite worried that someone was going to be more specific about the members of our group, perhaps by name or, or whatever, being these awful, such awful, terrible people that they would write an entire book on about how awful we are.

Regardless of how ridiculous, I think it is, it's still not a nice thing to have out there to have someone say that about you or even think that about you.

 But I think it reinforced the reasons why we started the group in the first place, in that the whole reason why we started the group was because we wanted to make clear that groups like the Cambridge student union women's campaign were not representative or in a position where they could genuinely speak for all women in the university so much less feminists in the university.

 The fact that they were putting this out there, sort of just reinforced how right we were, I think to start the group and that it's important for there to be a voice out there making clear that the sort of insane guides and booklets like this and if you think this is insane as we do, there is a group out there for you as well.

I feel like fear is sort of self-reinforcing. If you don't see anyone speaking up against this stuff and if you are not someone who is very brave yourself, you might think, well, I don't want to be the first one to do it. Therefore, I'm not going to do it at all.

 Whereas I think if you have the first person to come out and say, okay, I think this is ridiculous as well. You're not alone in that. Then I think it's contagious, it makes other people come out and say, okay, yeah, you're right. We can call this out as being as ridiculous as we think it is. So I think it just sort of reinforced our decision to start the group, I guess. 

And personally, I felt angry. I hate sort of reading things where you read stuff and even just as you read it, you are sort of thinking to yourself, oh, this is ridiculous.

And then you come across the next phase. You're like, oh my God. Oh my God, how can they have even written this with a straight face. My main sort of emotion was: I was baffled by it. And I think on some level I'm embarrassed for the people who wrote it.

I mean, I think that in 10 years and 20 years, are they really going to look back on this and think, yeah, I did a good thing there? I mean, I find it hard to believe, but who knows, maybe they will. 

I think it's difficult because I'm a PhD student. I'm not an undergraduate. So I'm not sort of experiencing the same level of social pressure as I know a lot of undergraduate women, certainly the rad fems are. I know there are some undergraduate women who have got a lot of grief from the people around them. I've been immune from that generally speaking, my fellow PhD students are fairly sympathetic to my point of view.

I wonder if maybe that's a generational thing. I mean, I'm still in my twenties, but I feel like things have changed so much in the last five years, even. So for me it wasn't really so much of a social threat, but I know that other younger women definitely would've read that and just felt a little bit afraid and I'm really sad for that. And, and I'm angry about that as well, that sucks, but I think we are doing our bit to try and give them a space where they can speak freely about these issues. 

Raquel: I think you should feel very powerful also. I mean, imagine the thought of someone, the group think came along and you exist and someone felt so threatened by the fact that a group of very nice young women are sitting in a pub talking about social constructivism and the oppression of women. And they felt so threatened by that, that they sat down and they wrote an eight-page document, which is nonsense, but it's still eight pages, you know, so I just think, wow, what an impact and think about how many students or just people go through those halls and go unnoticed. And here we are sort of saying no, those women, what they are discussing is dangerous. Why?

 Well, I'll tell you why it's dangerous. It's dangerous because it's upsetting to the status quo, but they don't see it that way. Hopefully they’ll get it, but they haven't made that connection. So I, sorry, you wanted to say something? 

Imogen: Well, I mean, I was going to say, I agree. I think that one of the things we also knew though, was that there was always going to be a limit to what they can do to us. Just as one example, one of the fellow women our affiliated with our network who goes by the name Maniac Magpie on Twitter. She was doing in person protests outside of King's College, every Saturday for a whole term, earlier this year. 

Raquel:  Oh, is that the woman with the sign?

Imogen:  Yes, exactly. 

Raquel: Oh my God. I love her. I’ve seen her sign. Oh my God. 

Imogen: She was incredibly brave to do that. I know that King's college, I think it was the women's rep or the LGBT rep. They held meetings to discuss, what are we going to do about that? And I know that the student union women's campaign as well, held a meeting about, how are we going to deal with the protestor outside of Kings and myself and another women sort of went to that meeting, undercover, I guess, just to see what they were going to do because we were a little bit worried that they were going to do something crazy, you know, or attack her or something like that. 

But they basically concluded, well, there's not much we can do. So I think that we knew at the time, like they can yell and scream about how awful we are, but at the end of the day, you know, as you say, they can't stop us meeting and they can't stop us from continuing to speak. So we kind of just have to ride it out. 

They can try and make it difficult for us, but eventually I think they're going to stop. And I feel like they've sort of stopped now.

Raquel: I have a couple of questions.

There's like two issues and they're relating to free speech at the University of Cambridge. So one is a policy that the University of Cambridge wanted to implement stating that free speech had to be respected as opposed to tolerated or something like that. And the other is relating to the study that came out in December, 2020 and how Cambridge ranked among those most restrictive universities in the UK.

So could we start with the free speech policy? So how does it affect the society and what is your position on it? 

Imogen: I mean the free speech policy I don't think it's going to really affect our society, certainly not anymore, but the initial proposed change to the policy was to say that free speech should be respected, but also speech should be respectful of diverse identities in the university.

 There was a very successful campaign led by a philosophy lecturer at Cambridge to amend that word’ respect’ to ‘tolerate’ the student union managed to use the vague words in their mission statement to remove our society from the society's directory. Our fear was that if you have in the university statutes themselves a word like ‘respect’ well, that could mean almost anything. And you can justify almost any incursion on the basis of perceived or actual disrespect. So, Arif Ahmed, who was the lecturer who led the campaign in favour of the amendments pointed out that that ‘tolerate’ is a much better word to use because of course if somebody has an opinion or an ‘identity’ that somebody doesn't agree with, then the only thing that they're obliged to do is allow them to have that viewpoint, obviously, but they're not obliged to respect it because there are plenty of views, which are not even remotely deserving of deserving of respect and also who decides what respect means. I think that's the other issue.

 So luckily because the amendment passed and it passed by a significant margin as well, the term ‘respect’ is not going to find its way into the free speech policy of the university, which is good and certainly good for the radical feminist network because it's especially women, including female academics, like Selena Todd, for example, in Oxford who have faced the brunt of a lot of student activism in particular to punish them for controversial feminist opinions.

We were thrilled to hear that that the amendment passed. 

Raquel: But if you think about it based on your experience, the ideas presented within this group are neither tolerated nor respected usually because it's like, you have to jump through hurdles to be able to have meetings. When you do have the meetings, people sort of defame or libel the contents of whatever it is that you're saying. It has to be noted that to carry on this kind of work you need a certain backbone because a lot of people would just think this is just the much trouble, you know? It's like, why would I sort of put myself out there when I'm just going to be receiving all of this stuff and all these pamphlets and people are having meetings because I'm standing with a sign outside of whatever, you know, it's like, there's a lot of people, probably the majority of people who would look at the context of how your meetings are taking place and would just say, you know what, I could just sit back and just like have a relaxing time. 

Imogen: There's a massive dose of hypocrisy in it. Absolutely. 

Raquel: There’s an element of, yes, you can create whatever policy, but it's like in the climate that you create as a university and as the Cambridge student union, you know, as a student union, there are ways for you to prevent free speech that does not even have to be direct, 

Imogen:  Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because I think the university administration itself has actually been quite good about free speech. I mean, I know that there was a, quite a controversial conference even before we had our event which was by some sort of men's rights activist group and the Cambridge student’s union protested that because of some pretty horrible things that the organisers had said, but the university administrators took the view, well, free speech is important and we cannot shut down a group because of merely objectionable things that the organisers have said.

And I have to say, as much as I disagree with men's rights activists, I think that was the right approach to take and I thought that at the time and still think that now. Certainly the Cambridge student union itself has taken a very different approach as evidenced by the fact that they lobbied for that event not to go ahead and things like The Guide to Terf ideology, not wanting us to be in this society's directory, things like that.

They are intentionally creating an atmosphere in which certain views are not heard, are not considered to be acceptable or legitimate as a category, rather than substantive arguments that are being made. And certainly I think that they haven't expressed any real concern about substantive free speech.

A recent example of this sort of the thing which I found so baffling, was about the Liberal Democrats group at the university, that they had issued a statement calling for certain Labour councillors to resign because of statements that they'd made, gender critical statements that they'd made. A month later were asking that people sign a letter in favour of free speech. 

So I feel like so much of this is so socially driven and it's so incoherent. And I feel like there is cultural willingness amongst certain student groups to sacrifice principles like free speech because they sign post the person's own concern about social justice and I just feel like it's so short-sighted and it's so stupid as well.

It baffles me and frustrates me but I also think that the free speech debate and the outcome of it made clear that it also is driven by a loud minority of people who do not represent the genuine views of the majority of people. And I think and I'm hoping that it will represent a kind of turning of the tide in making people feel a little bit more confident about coming out and saying that crazy student union politicians are indeed crazy, you know, but we will see.

Raquel: Also, they're not politicians, they're just student union people who have no strategy or vision.

Imogen: Wanna-be politicians maybe. 

Raquel: Yeah, you need a strategy first.

You were referring to Kevin Price, he was a Labour councillor and he refused to vote on a motion that was saying trans women are women. He refused to support that. And as a result of that, students at the University of Cambridge ended up demanding that he was sacked from his position as supporter. 

Imogen: Yeah, some students. 

Raquel: How did, well not you obviously, but how did that develop? Because that was quite recent. It was in October. 

Imogen: The movement to have him be fired seems to have lost steam, thankfully. And I think that the reason for that is that it just came across as sort of instinctively distasteful for most people. The idea that somebody who had been working for the university for decades could be forced out because his opinions contravened the political views of a bunch of, by and large, very privileged students. I think that in itself just strikes most people as wrong. 

I think that's the reason why it didn't pick up steam. I think the other thing though that he did get a lot of calls, for him to resign or be fired, by students. But I think he also got a lot of support as well by staff members who I think rightly recognised that if he was to be fired that would be a pretty terrible precedent from a labour rights point of view. But also a lot of students, certainly people in the rad fems camp expressed strong support for him. And I think it sort of successfully communicated, at least I hope it did that the people who were calling for him to go, were not the great majority that they were portraying themselves to be.  

Raquel: There's something very visceral about that. The optics of attempting to or wanting to get rid of a porter because in his role as a Labour councillor, did not agree with one aspect of your dogma.

Imogen: It's so entitled. 

Raquel: Yes. And I look at that website for the Cambridge student union. And there's so many documents that they produce and there's so many words about, ‘we need the space to be safe’ and ‘we need it to be inclusive’ and they give you like trigger warnings or content warnings too, because we're going to discuss transphobia or whatever.

And I just think that it is such a bizarre way of understanding how marginalisation actually is and how it actually works. Because I think about like working class people or like, I'm from the Dominican Republic, and I think about the struggle of so many people in my country. It's like no one's given you a content warning when you're going to be screwed by the system in one way or another.

You know, we have this group of well, men, who worked in the fields cutting sugar canes, and they were working for the state and they work for however years, decades, and decades of their lives. And at the moment of retirement, the government is refusing to give them their pension. And every couple of months they're in the news again, because their complaints are not being heard. And we're talking about people who are living in abject, poverty, working class, people who really don't have any sort of this privilege and entitlements. And it's like, no one cares how they're feeling when they receive this news.  There's no sense of let's cuddle you because we're about to like tell you something that may be difficult to hear. It's like, there's no cuddling, there's no, sort of idea of, I need to treat you as if you're a small child, because you're so marginalised. It's like it's the contrary. The more marginalised that you are, the less people care about you and your feelings, your thoughts, your experiences, that is precisely the point of how people justify your own marginalisation.

So to see this sort of language of like, we're going to this extremely elitist institution, but we need to sort of be very careful about the words that you are exposed to because you are so fragile. I just find it so bizarre. And that all sort of becomes like the epitome of that sort of culture is in the case of Kevin Price.

Imogen: I agree. The hypocrisy of them is shown even just by their actions in this one case. I mean, even just to think about safety, they wanted this man, adult man, to lose his job in the middle of a pandemic where so many people are struggling to find work. Now, where was the concern for his safety?  where was the concern for him on a purely economic level? Where was the concern for what would happen to him and where was the concern for his feelings, how he might feel about being targeted in this way? I mean, especially because if you read the statement that he made, as a councillor, when he was resigning, it was very carefully crafted. He clearly had concerns and feelings and opinions for the people who disagreed with him.

It's this, this paradoxical performatism by people who want to show how empathetic and how lovely they are. And they will demonstrate that by the sheer brutality with wish they respond to those who dare disagree with them.

It's horrible, you know, it's really horrible. 

Raquel: It’s a veneer of sort of kindness and solidarity and the language of struggle, but beneath it, there's a very vicious, as you mentioned, there's a brutal element to it. That is about like, well, I have the power. Not only do I have the power, but I will show you that I have the power in X, Y, and Z ways. 

Imogen: I agree. And I think that's how a lot of the no platforming stuff is being driven exactly by that desire to wield power in a way that's very blunt and very easy and gives people that sort of emotional satisfaction of having done something, and forced somebody else to do something in your name.

I suspect it's a lot more emotionally satisfying than actually just sitting down and having a difficult conversation with someone who maybe you don't see eye to eye with and actually have to persuade them. It's a lot easier if you just treat people like, well, he's evil and he's good. I can do whatever I want to him because he's evil. 

It's such a black and white way of thinking about it, but I also have a feeling it's about this sense of power that they feel and the emotional satisfaction of seeing that power being successfully wielded against someone else.

Raquel: Yeah. And it's a power that cannot be reciprocated.  Someone who is working class, someone who does not have the privileges of someone who gets an elite education, you cannot fight back with the same weapons and tools.

It is very much the opposite of intersectionality.

Thank you for speaking about no platforming, because then the next point that I wanted to make is about the CIVITAS report about academic freedom in universities, in the UK. And they conducted research starting in January 2017 and ending in August 2020, they were looking at policies, controversies about free speech, censorship on campus, pressure groups that were trying to fund things or prevent things, the restrictive nature of the policies of free speech, and they ranked the University of Cambridge amongst the most restrictive universities. Do you know how that came about? 

 Imogen: I actually haven't had a look at the research, so I'm not sure I could comment in great detail on it.

But one thing I will say is I think that the University administration, by and large are sort of trying their best, but because so much of it is college based and student society based it's very susceptible to pressures by determined minorities of students who want to stop an event going ahead.

Unfortunately, I think that because it's also so driven by students, there's also the pre-emptive fear of maybe not wanting to invite people who are too controversial as well. I'm surprised to hear it's one of the worst, I mean, I'm hoping that it will change. I'm not sure. 

Raquel: Well, the administrators are fine, but then it's just like, everyone else does whatever they want but that's useless. That's useless it's like, if you in your mind -  oh, okay so I'm senior management and I'm a sensible person. -  Yeah. But if you are the boss and everyone's sort of running around being sort of these little dictators when it comes to free speech and it's like, what are you doing?

Imogen: Yeah. I mean, I remember back in, I think it was 2017. I had wanted to hold an academic debate within my faculty. And I emailed one of the faculty members and just sort of got his opinion on it and also my decision to invite certain individuals. And he told me, I remember, he warned me against hosting the event because he worried it would be too controversial. And he said, one time he was at a conference debating the transgender issue. And he said something like he was like lunged at or something because someone had perceived him to have spoken about it in a critical way. And therefore he was saying that it was a too controversial event to be held and I sort of was persuaded.

Raquel: Therefore, we give in to the people who wanted to punch me. 

Imogen: I agree. I remember thinking you're an academic. I know it's easy for me to say because it's probably very different, I'm sure it feels different if it's your job, versus if you're a PhD student, who's not going to stay in academia. 

I think a lot of people sort of see universities as being in theory, these places where the difficult questions get aired and these great debates are had. But in reality, I feel like that's less so the case nowadays, certainly on some issues and that's a shame and I think it is cultural.

Maybe that's the answer as to why Cambridge has ranked so low it's less about what the administration wishes were true and more about what the culture makes people feel they can do. 

I'm hoping that our plans in 2021, we're going to try and organise a series of events where we are explicitly platforming speakers who have previously been ‘no platformed’ within Cambridge and elsewhere.

And I'm hoping that's going to help to sort of maybe change the culture of university a little bit, and making people understand that you can invite controversial figures to speak, and it's not the end of the world. but we'll see. 

Raquel: But they know that, they know that you can invite controversial people because they obviously probably have like people who support surrogacy, people who support prostitution, people who support, I don't know, whatever heated or sensitive topics are the topics of the day. I bet they support it when it's a man.

But when it comes to issues that affect sex-based rights and women's oppression, then it's like, oh no, no, hold on. It's like there's controversy. Okay. 

So I wanted to ask you, so your speakers or organisers for the Cambridge radical feminists at the University of Cambridge, what would you say to a young woman who is a fresher, who is like just starting a bachelor's and she's interested in feminism, but like on a surface level, she would like to know more. And she goes to the Cambridge University student union, she goes there and she finds this document talking about how to spot ideology. And she thinks, well, I'm scared of these women, what would you say to her in order to sort of get her interested in coming along to one of your meetings? 

Imogen: One of the things that we've always said in our literature is that we are open to people who agree and also people who don't agree with us.

So you don't have to be a sort of card carrying radical feminist to come to our events. We've had people come along who did not agree with us. They had discussions with us during and after the event. And I think that the beauty of us having in the event, for example, in a pub where it's just sort of a casual discussion, is that you can see all of us as human beings, there's space to disagree, to debate. So I like to think that if young people care so much about safe spaces in many ways, I think we are pretty safe. I think we are a pretty safe space so, I think that we are fairly comfortable for newcomers, but maybe I would think maybe I would say that I maybe you'd have to get an objective perspective on that.

We've got quite a large number of undergraduates who have joined our network for the first time this year. And many of them came to feminism, especially radical feminism, through initially seeing these sort of horror stories about what these evil terfs were like and their horrible opinions and going to see for themselves, and reading up themselves about what they believe and what they say and seeing that they are not as bad as they're being made out to be.

So I kind of have faith that the tide will turn eventually, maybe I'm an optimist, but I still kind of feel like if we keep speaking and if everyone else keeps speaking as well, then the wisdom of our point of view will be evident. Maybe that's optimistic ….

Raquel: That's precisely what I wanted to ask you as a final question, you know, like we've just in 2020 remarkable because it's been such a bizarre and difficult year for so many people, but it seems like there's a change in the climate that is taking place. Like we just had the Keira Bell verdict which has really shed a light on the rights of children in this whole debate.

And next year we are going to have the appeal for Maya's case, there other cases that are going to be coming up, um, including some touching on bullying and harassment in academia and that's just the legal cases which are useful because they sort of shed light on what has been happening that has gone sort of below the radar.

But I wonder if not only as a member of the society for your PhD student in a very important field, are you feeling optimistic about sex based rights in the UK for 2021 and beyond? 

Imogen: Mm-hmm that's tough. I actually don't know. I honestly think it could go either way. I feel like there's such strong feeling on both sides that it's difficult sometimes to get a clear picture of where we are headed.

 I don't know. I am optimistic that in the long term, people will come to understand that sex-based rights are important. I hope that it does not come so far in the future that there is irreversible legislative change that's happened in the interim. I think we will have to wait and see.

 I don't really know whether I'm optimistic or not. I don't really know I have no idea Raquel, that's my answer. 

Raquel: We're going then into 2021 with uncertainty as opposed to going into 2020 and everyone saying like happy new year, and then it's like, what was this? 

Imogen: I's a very weird, it's going to be a very weird new year period, Christmas and new year periods but you know, it's interesting, interesting times. 

Raquel: Yeah. But it's going to be good for societies and organisations because I know a couple of organisations and we're just like ready to go, you know, to have more events, to have more things in person but there's like this hunger from women who want to meet.

Imogen: I agree. Well, actually women who don't want to meet as well. coincidentally Raquel, I was having a zoom chat with a woman from Oxford University, another PhD student who was going to start up a similar group in Oxford. 

That's the plan.  I definitely feel like it's taking off a little bit. I do think it's an example about how if you speak up it can be contagious. You know, I'm hoping I'm optimistic for them as well. And I really hope that works out.

 The other good thing about the feminist movement is that there are so many women who are willing to give support and give advice. And I'm hoping it's going to spread even further, who knows. 

Raquel: That's wonderful. That's the best news.

Okay. Well, congratulations to you. I mean, it is remarkable that you have kept going and that the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network is a presence. I hope people have gotten the message that you're not going to scare these women into not meeting and talking about their lives because that is important. So thank you so much for all the work that you do and the rest of the women in the group. And thank you very for speaking with us at FiLiA.

Imogen: Thanks so much.