The women's movement is deeply divided, but grassroots alliances are quietly growing across Britain, offering a path to reunification. In 2015, hundreds of women gathered outside Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre to demand freedom for detained women, a moment that seemed to embody feminist solidarity. Today, many feminists dismiss the struggles of women unlike themselves, yet local organising continues to build connections.
From solidarity to division
Natasha Walter, founder of Women for Refugee Women, recalls the optimism of the 2010s when women protested for abortion rights in Ireland, the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, and against digital sex crimes in South Korea. Divisions have always existed, but recently they have become bitterly depleting. A Black woman in her 60s who co-founded an organisation for migrant female survivors of violence said: "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."
Social media amplifies anger, rewarding intransigence with attention and followers, making it harder for women to campaign together. Debates around transgender women in feminism became particularly wounding due to this outrage spiral.
Grassroots rebuilding
Offline, women are building alliances. Jessie Brinton, founder of Mothership, brings women together for in-person "kitchen table conversations". She says: "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." Gill Wright at Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan co-founded the organisation after steering a mutual aid group through the pandemic. It is women-led and seeks to empower women facing poverty, homelessness, and poor health. "We aren't putting our energy into changing the system," she says. "We are focusing our energy on building alternatives."
Cullagh Warnock, involved in women's organising in the north-east for decades, helped establish One Million Women and Girls after the North East Mayoral Combined Authority was created in 2024. The network connects women to local politicians through face-to-face hustings. Warnock says women's concerns are practical: "Women's safety comes up all the time – women's safety on public transport, on the streets. And jobs – politicians talk about green jobs, but they are so often male-dominated." Predictions suggest future green jobs may skew three to one in favour of men. "What works for women works for everyone," she adds.
Countering the far right
The rise of the far right has added urgency. Elaine Crory at the Women's Resource and Development Agency in Belfast sees it 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." 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."
Marchu Belete, director of Migration Exchange, believes grassroots connections 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." Despite the crisis, women are weaving connections everywhere, insisting that care and connection can be stronger than hate and heat.
