London Feminist Network

The London Feminist Network (LFN) is a women-only feminist networking and campaigning organisation that is based in London, UK. LFN was formed in 2004 to unite London-based feminist groups and individuals in action! We currently have more than 1,700 members.

Photos © Aliya Mirza, Charlotte Barnes, Anna Fisher

We work closely with other groups in London and elswhere in the UK, supporting various feminist campaigns in order that we can broaden our movement and work together for women’s rights and against patriarchy in all its forms.

We aim to meet monthly to share news, listen to guest speakers, plan campaigns and demonstrations, network and support each other. We are a new and vibrant group, there is plenty of opportunity to get involved in direct campaigning and organising work – join us and make a difference!

Photos © Amy O’Leary, Charlotte Barnes, Maria Mursell

We keep in touch by using a Yahoo group and on online forum and have a monthly meeting and a variety of other activities and events. Membership is free. We actively welcome women from all backgrounds and seek to fully reflect the diversity of our city.

We have organised pickets against porn cinemas, regular feminars (feminist seminars!), and a series of annual conferences called Feminism in London, we have taken our huge purple and white banner on demonstrations against the Cuts, the war on Iraq, against racism and for peace.

Rightmost photo © Charlotte Barnes

The London Feminist Network organises the annual Reclaim The Night march, which is held in central London every November to mark the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In 2010, about 2,000 women participated.

We are members of:

• End Violence Against Women Coalition
• Children are Unbeatable Alliance
• Single Parent Action Network (SPAN)
• The Coalition of Resistance

We have signed the:

• Charter of rights of women asylum seekers
• Women in Prison‘s manifesto to reduce the number of women needlessly imprisoned

We worked with, and fully supported, Object‘s tireless “Stripping the Illustion” campaign to get lap dancing clubs to be licensed in the same way as sex shops and sex cinemas, to reflect their status as part of the commercial sex industry. The photo below shows Object campaigners (many of whom are LFN members) at 10 Downing street, where they handed in petitions with 8,500 signatures in support of their campaign. They were accompanied by a woman formerly in lap dancing and MPs Lynda Waltho, Fiona Mactaggart, Roberta Blackman-Woods and Celia Barlow.

Here is an excerpt from a personal testimony from a woman who used to work as a lap dancer:

The club intentionally chooses the girls working to ensure a range of choice for the men. Men would come in and ask the manager did she have any black girls and I would be wheeled over like a prize cow…… I began to frequently have arguments with customers, they would touch me and grab me and one even bit me during a dance, I did not feel safe….. Often if a person has asked about my experience as a dancer I have responded with a socially desirable answer. This explanation has in no way conveyed the extremity of emotion and mental distress I have experienced as a dancer and in no way conveys the sexual degradation and humiliation I have experienced and observed during my short dancing career.”