Just a few years ago, women would fight for other women whatever their background or politics. Today, many loudly dismiss the struggles of those who are not like them. But the solidarity is still there, if you look hard enough, argues Natasha Walter, author of 'Feminism for a World on Fire'.
A Movement in Crisis
In June 2015, hundreds of women—refugees, campaigners, lawyers, MPs, actors, writers—gathered outside Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre in Bedford to demand freedom for the women held inside. They heard women inside singing, and saw graffiti reading 'Set her free' and 'Shut it down.' Walter, who founded Women for Refugee Women, recalls that day as hopeful, driven by faith in solidarity among women.
That faith was proved in practice for years. Women turned up for other women at events and demonstrations, volunteering, campaigning, marching, and supporting. Marchu Belete, a former colleague at Women for Refugee Women and now director of Migration Exchange, says, 'Back then, women were so open, enthusiastic and creative about campaigning with migrant women. We didn’t realise how incredible that time was. It was amazing.'
This confidence was part of a worldwide phenomenon in the 2010s, when women built new connections globally—protesting abortion rights in Ireland, the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, digital sex crimes in South Korea, and sexual violence and femicide in India, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Turkey, and elsewhere.
Divisions and Dismissals
Now, women’s movements are rife with division. Divisions have always existed—between suffragists and suffragettes, colonisers and colonised, working-class and middle-class women, those against and in favour of pornography. But recently, they have become bitterly depleting. A Black woman in her 60s who co-founded an organisation for migrant female survivors of violence told Walter, 'We’ve lost our way. There used to be a vision that brought women together. It wasn’t just about personal advancement or separate communities. I don’t know if that still exists.'
Walter is shocked by how women who call themselves feminists casually dismiss struggles of women unlike themselves, from all sides of polarised debates. She asks: If you are on the left, why empathise with Ann Widdecombe facing her attacker? If on the right, why care about women fleeing oppression? Can you open your heart to Palestinian and Israeli women targeted by armed men? Can you take seriously girls abused by grooming gangs and women beaten by men protesting outside asylum hotels?
Social media is blamed for widening divisions, rewarding anger and intransigence with attention, clicks, and followers. Debates around transgender women in feminism became particularly wounding due to the outrage spiral online. Once women spar in that polarised world, coming together for even the most important goals becomes harder.
Grassroots Alliances
Despite online divisions, offline women are building alliances 'brick by brick,' says Walter. Jessie Brinton, founder of Mothership, brings women together for in-person 'kitchen table conversations.' She notes, 'We’ve lost the village. Women are lonely. That’s what we’ve heard over and over again. We need to rebuild the spaces in which women find each other.' In Wigan, Brinton has been inspired by women’s community work filling gaps left by lack of public services: 'Women who are on the frontline of crises have so much knowledge to share.'
Gill Wright at Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan agrees that frontline work women do to support one another is the most important feminist work now. Co-founded after steering a mutual aid group through the pandemic, it is women-led and empowers women facing poverty, homelessness, and poor health. With projects including special educational needs play days, arts, gardening, and mental health peer support, Wright sees people becoming connected again: 'We aren’t putting our energy into changing the system. We are focusing our energy on building alternatives.'
Such local organising often leads to political interventions. Cullagh Warnock, involved in women’s organising in north-east England for decades, helped establish One Million Women and Girls after the North East Mayoral Combined Authority was set up in 2024. The network connects women to local politicians through face-to-face hustings. Key concerns are practical: 'Women’s safety comes up all the time—on public transport, on the streets. And jobs—politicians talk about green jobs, but they are so often male-dominated. Women are asking about how this transition is going to work for women.' Predictions suggest future green jobs may skew three to one in favour of men. Warnock believes focusing on practical issues helps move beyond online rhetoric: 'What works for women works for everyone.'
Countering the Far Right
This work has new urgency due to the rise of the far right, which capitalises on women’s insecurity. Elaine Crory at the Women’s Resource and Development Agency in Belfast sees the far right as the 'single biggest issue making things worse for women. It is distracting people from fighting the patriarchy and making the situation less safe for women.' She points to the need for in-person conversations to counter online radicalisation, though it is slow and hard. She is heartened by women leading organising against the far right. During recent 'racist pogroms' in Belfast, 'communities came together quickly, led by women—migrant women and white women—everyone doing what they could. Women were organising, cooking meals, giving lifts, taking a child to school, literally turning up to houses on fire and getting families to safety. And even now that the immediate need for food and shelter has died down, we are ready. If and when it sparks again, women will organise.'
Belete believes grassroots connections are the most important work and hold the key to a better future: 'Feminists need to be in communities, we need to be on the ground pushing back. The way to defeat the far right is through the women’s movement.'
Walter cautions against false optimism. This is a time of undeniable crisis for women, with rights under threat from authoritarians and misogynists. As resources become scarcer due to climate emergency, rising inequality, and conflict, threats multiply. One response is to lean into division, focus on the individual or nation, build walls. The other is to insist that care and connection can be stronger than hate and heat, working day by day to weave connections—and women are doing that everywhere.
