Existence and Essence

There's been something bothering me about the YUSU FemSoc furore which I've been finding it hard to put my finger on. It's mostly blown over now, but my troubled mind still mulls. I think, now, I have a rough idea of what has been niggling so.

A lot of the arguments have centered around questions of what the Women's Committee and Feminist Society are each for. This is based on the principle that if their purposes are too similar, there is no need for the second body to officially exist.

The main defences to these points have been:
1) The purposes are very different and
2) The principle that if they are similar the second shouldn't exist is a) bad and/or b) not even in the rules

Neither of these rebuttals quite capture the anger I felt about YUSUs argumentation. For me, the more telling point is the deeper question, which is about who decides. I was angry because YUSU had presumed to decide both what WomCom's and what FemSoc's purposes were. Apparently without even thinking about it particularly, it had defined them however it pleased: in particular defined them in such a way as to prevent the latter from being ratified. It was a power-grab, and a particularly nasty one. The power that YUSU was saying it had, was attempting to exercise, was a power over the identity of these groups.

Now I personally don't care that much about ratification per se. Financially there are some benefits, but it also involves a lot of hard work and many societies and groups have thrived sans ratification, like Wholly Folk, CU and early days SCOOP, to name but a few. What I do care about is having a union that helps people get on with the things they want to do, instead of getting in their way. And a union which presumes to dictate what the essence of a group or an individual is, that is a union I can't agree with.