THIS report on a two-day conference starts before the event itself, with cancelled trains, a feminist joke and an impromptu debate on women’s rights with three terrific teenagers.

More than 40 speakers were lined up for the Women’s Declaration International (WDI) event in central London. I’d set out early — just as well, with not a single train from our station.

Finally finding one heading for Waterloo, I sat with three young women. They asked where I was going. A women’s conference, I said — the trigger to talk about what was really on their minds.

One of their sisters, aged 10, had some very unwelcome images circulating in her friendship group. “Ah,” I said, “a feminist once told me that males sending dick picks is the human equivalent of a cat bringing you a dead bird as a ‘gift’.” The ensuing discussion covered their inadequate sex education, the misogyny of boys and men, and their challenges to the latter eliciting: “Oh, just shut up.” I advised them to look up the conference reports, and to read the Morning Star.

At the event, Seha Lee from South Korea, where radical feminism is increasingly active, explained the movement Escape the Corset.

“We are refusing any kind of beautifying process at all, and now high heels are considered old-fashioned. It’s simply not trendy. People wear exercising shoes instead, and trouser suits have become more acceptable for women. There are more nipple patches available in the market, which you use instead of wearing bras.

“It’s gradually influencing the general public, and also influencing the language people use. There is so much hatred against women that they were using the term “kimchi woman” to refer to Korean women in a really disrespectful way.

“Mainstream media like newspapers or news channels also used to use this term. But we coined the term ‘Korean male bug’. So, it’s referring to them as annoying insects and it got popularised without the term bug. So, we just refer to them as ‘K males,’ and because of this term now they are watching their language more.”

There was a major problem, she said, with illegally filmed videos made into porn, and women were getting organised to fight that battle.

Lee’s energy and optimism brought huge applause from the audience.

“Korean radical feminists are working hard and although we are only handful of people, we are advancing a lot, and we are actually influencing people around us and around the globe.” Lauren Levey, from the WDI USA’s Lesbian Caucus, spoke on “Why are lesbians hated?

“To live a female-centred life is to defy the patriarchal nature of the world we live in and patriarchy can’t tolerate that.

“One way of looking at the Trump election victory is that it represents in part a win for the ideology of all men’s unabashed dominance over all women. At least one Trump Republican has intimated that lesbians will be restigmatised under their plan for cultural reorganisation.

“While a few Republicans appear to recognise that women themselves should own a right to single-sex bathrooms and single-sex sports that supersedes men’s demands for access to them, other Republicans, most notably Trump himself, focus on men’s protection of women and girls.

“The benefit to men of performing the duty of protecting their women is the continued dominance of the male sex class in both private and public spaces.” On the second day of the conference, one young woman said: “As life is very hard for lesbians in China, I must remain anonymous. I might be the first person from China to attend a conference like this!

“To be honest, I, along with many other radical feminists in China, don’t really know where the feminist movement in our country is headed. Some of us are already exhausted, and all of us feel lost.” Very recently, she said, an online forum came to light, “It’s called Mask Park, with over 100,000 users. Itís people sharing hidden camera videos and photos, most of them taken by Chinese men of the victims. The men include their fathers, sons, brothers, boyfriends. The case went viral.

“But the government hasn’t said a single word. I already know how this ends. No-one will be held accountable. This will just fade away like nothing happened.

“We are so tired, tired of seeing all these horrific cases and feeling like nothing changed.”

Recent media coverage of Mask Park has focused on a whistleblower, known as Momo, who revealed that the activity has also given rise to a shadow market selling hidden camera devices disguised as everyday objects, such as scented diffusers and water bottles, with the cameras used in locations including ultrasound clinics, public toilets, underground stations, and shopping malls.

The anonymous speaker said: “China is a male-dominated society. In some parts of China, for every 100 women, there are 130 men.” It was a struggle, she said, to run any feminist accounts on Chinese social media platforms, but she and others had set up one “for some important writings and stories from Western lesbian feminists and to create a space for Chinese theoretical feminists to talk, to connect.

“We are now planning to spread radical feminist voices to more platforms in China, even if that is facing censorship, or even being surrounded by the police. We’ll keep going.

“I know many of you were part of the second wave of feminism, where women tried to build women-only spaces, completely different, completely independent from men. That idea still inspires Chinese feminists.”

Annaïg Birdy, UK, from the “Not All Gays” campaign, spoke about independent research they had conducted.

“Earlier this year we produced a report on the impact of the lack of safeguarding on dating apps, that is impacting predominantly lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth as opposed to their heterosexual peers, because they feel more isolated and maybe don’t know other lesbians, gays or bisexuals offline.

“So they turn to online spaces for teenagers trying to find someone to date or whatever, in the innocence that is teenage romance.” Recent moves to stop children from accessing porn, with age verification measures, were amazing, she said, but dating apps were vulnerable.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual youths have actually been groomed by adults online through these dating sites.”

According to their international report, of 46 respondents, 33 accessed dating apps as minors, with 91 per cent engaging with adults and 24 per cent meeting them in person for sexual contact.

The report says: “Weak age verification measures, social isolation, and fear of coming out contribute to minors using these platforms, leaving them vulnerable to grooming, blackmail, and exploitation.”

There was a strong theme of safeguarding throughout the event, including Tanya Carter of Safe Schools Alliance who said: “We are in favour of personal social and health education and relationship and sex education. We view it as a really important part of safeguarding.

“However, many, if not most, materials currently available in UK schools can harm not help children.

“It is incredibly concerning not only how many in government but also campaigners, many of whom have self-identified themselves as feminists, have been unable to take on board the message that education is important.

“But it must be for the benefit of the children that it is delivered to and must not be used as a vehicle for political indoctrination or even worse, be used to groom children to lower their boundaries, thus leaving them more susceptible to abuse.

“We see no hope for improvement without the government acknowledging the scale of safeguarding and ordering a far-reaching public inquiry.

“The situation in schools is dismal particularly for girls. So, what can you do? Speak out. Don’t accept this.

“We only have rights and child protection frameworks because women before us spoke out. They did not accept it and nor should you. Women in the Victorian age, with no rights of their own, spoke out against child prostitution, otherwise known as child abuse and rape, and they got the age of consent raised.

“Do not entertain accusations that you are a prude, racist, or transphobic, or a homophobe. You are not and nobody actually believes that. They just want you to shut up.”

Indeed — and I suspect the teenagers from my train journey won’t be shutting up, either. Good for them; good for all of us.

https://www.youtube.com/@WomensDeclaration