A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #349 - Antipatriarchy, VSS: Unitary work as a feminist strategy (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

If fighting against gender-based and sexual violence (SGBV) within our 
organizations appears to be a necessity, doing so within an 
inter-organizational framework at the national level allows for even 
greater policy development, feedback, but also new means deployed. Focus 
on a unitary work which opens up numerous perspectives. ---- In 2021, 
the confederal leadership of the CGT mandates the monitoring unit 
against sexist and sexual violence (CVSS) to establish a link with 
existing counterpart units in left-wing parties and unions. A unitary 
inter-organizational framework was then created to fight against sexist 
and sexual violence, bringing together union organizations (CGT, 
Solidaires, CFDT, FSU, Student Union, Peasant Confederation), 
politicians (LFI, Ensemble!, EELV, NPA) , UCL, PCF, Left Party, 
Generations, the Ecosocialist Left) and associations (Attac, Amnesty 
International).

Despite their anti-patriarchal commitments, our organizations are far 
from being spared from violence against women and gender minorities. The 
inter-orga aims to improve or create our reporting procedures and VSS 
management cells. Our objective is to encourage the freedom of victims 
to speak and to welcome them as best as possible through solid and 
respectful procedures. Promoting feminist training and the prevention of 
SGBV internally is essential for any organization with emancipatory 
social ambitions. The inter-orga also invites external speakers who are 
experts on the subject so that the delegates can continue to train and 
enrich their thoughts.

Fight against the homelessness of attackers
At the same time, it is a question of identifying, anticipating and 
thwarting the strategies of the attackers so that impunity ends. 
Currently, the inter-orga is working on the development of a common 
reporting protocol to combat the homelessness of attackers, planned for 
November 2024. This reflection intends to politically formalize the 
intentions expressed in the first forum of the inter-orga. org of 
2021[1]. The movement of attackers from one organization to another when 
they undergo exclusion or sidelining measures is a known phenomenon. The 
protocol plans to pull the rug out from under them. At the same time, it 
would make it possible to thwart threats of defamation complaints or 
even public insults since we would not have to communicate their 
identity in public to inform the participants in the inter-orga.

This framework allows UCL to detail the operation of its exclusion 
procedure in the event of sexual assault. It is also about disseminating 
its philosophy, namely the importance of the internal feminist balance 
of power. We argue that this tool must be the immediate practical 
translation of our principles: the self-organization of women, 
non-mixing and the fight against relationships of domination. At the 
same time, and because our tools always need to be improved, UCL is 
enriched by the reflections and practices of feminists from other 
organizations.

A feminist class intervention
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, we regularly see testimonies, 
columns and appeals signed by public figures emerge. Certain 
celebrities, like Adèle Haenel, have become standards of free speech. If 
this entirely positive dynamic reveals a real turning point in the place 
given to victims' voices in the public space, the inter-orga against VSS 
allows intervention on a different model. It reflects the feminist 
aspirations of the activist base, without having them embodied by 
individuals. It is a promising space for a combative and collective 
feminism that strengthens the unity of our class.

We clearly see that the issue of VSS is closely linked to media coverage 
when left-wing organizations have to deal with cases of attackers who 
are also public figures, in charge of high political or union positions 
and benefiting from a privileged social status such as Adrien Quatennens 
or Julien Bayou. These cases carry their additional complexity for the 
comrades who manage them, with increased pressure to hand the matter 
over to institutional justice rather than the organizations taking it 
upon themselves. So that aggressors, even powerful ones, never go 
unpunished, feminist solidarity is the key.

Billie (UCL Grenoble)

At UCL, a living procedure

Since the creation of UCL, the internal SGBV case management procedure 
has aimed to create a feminist balance of power. For this reason, the 
words of the victim are not called into question: the role of the 
mandated is not to establish the truth of the facts but to collect the 
words of the victim[2]and to enable the organization to make a decision 
that will ensure its safety and that of all women and gender minorities 
in the organization. To date, to facilitate speech, the procedure is 
carried out entirely in a single-sex group (of people experiencing 
misogyny and transmisogyny). It is implemented when a person alerts the 
organization of a case of SGBV. The attacker is then immediately 
suspended from the organization. The Federal Secretariat then mandates a 
commission to carry out the procedure. These people are responsible, 
initially, for making contact with the victim and affirming the support 
of the organization in the steps they wish to take. The delegates 
collect his testimony.

Secondly, the agents contact the accused person in order to obtain their 
version of the facts, and above all to ask them what they have put in 
place since they were reported to the organization. These two interviews 
allow the delegates to write a report which contains a summary of the 
facts, proposals from the delegates on the decision to be taken as well 
as a political analysis of the facts when possible. This report is 
submitted to a vote by the Federal Coordination[3]so that the entire 
organization can make a decision, which can range from temporary 
exclusion to permanent exclusion of the accused person.

Since the Angers congress in 2023, cases of VSS in non-heterosexual 
settings have been managed by local groups and no longer by the federal 
procedure. Indeed, it was built to oppose the fundamental asymmetry of 
power between men and women under patriarchy. However, in cases of SGBV 
in a non-heterosexual context, this analytical framework is powerless 
and the procedure malfunctions. The objective of this decision is to 
give the UCL antipatriarchy commission time to equip itself with the 
theoretical and practical tools in order to think about the specific 
relationships of domination that play out in this type of framework.

To validate

[1]"Inter-orgas Tribune "Together against sexist and sexual violence in 
our organizations!"»

[2]"Victim" is not an essentialized position, but the state of a person 
at a given moment.

[3]Body which meets every three months, within which the representatives 
of each local group discuss a set of texts previously debated locally 
and then vote.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?VSS-Le-travail-unitaire-comme-strategie-feministe
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