FiLiA

Dr. Linda Blade is a Sport Performance Professional with a PhD in Kinesiology from Simon Fraser University, in Canada. She is a track and field coach and the current President of Athletics Alberta (Alberta Association for Track & Field, Cross-Country and Road Running).

Dr. Linda Blade has worked for 25 years as a Sport Performance Professional coach in Edmonton teaching fundamental biomotor skills to athletes in over 15 sports (from beginner to elite). Since 2014, Linda has served as President of the Board for Athletics Alberta, where she has a duty to contend with proposals to insert ‘gender identity’ into Canadian sport policy. Linda insists that the struggle to preserve women’s sports for biological females is, “the hill I am prepared to die on”.

It appears that Linda’s entire life experience has prepared her for this role: playing street soccer as a small child and then becoming the Bolivian champion in Track & Field as a 15-year-old. She secured a NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) Title IX scholarship and winning “All American” honours while at University of Maryland; later becoming Canadian Champion and competing internationally with Team Canada in heptathlon. She obtained a PhD in Kinesiology with a specialty in studying physical anthropology and sexual dimorphism in growing children.

Listeners will find that Dr. Blade is an informed and passionate advocate for women’s sports. Her perspective is unique and inspirational. She joins Raquel Rosario Sánchez in discussion.

You can sign the petition asking the International Olympics Committee to Save Women’s Sports.

You can read more about Linda’s work here

And follow Linda on Twitter @coachblade

Sharron Davies MBE, is a professional Olympian swimmer from England. She learned to swim at six years old, to train by eight and began obtaining public recognition in international competitions by eleven years old. Aged thirteen, she represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games of 1976. The height of her sporting career came in the year 1980, when she won the silver medal at the Olympic Games held in Moscow, losing to the German Petra Schneider. Years later, when the scandal about how East Germany used to enhance their athlete’s performances through illegal drugs broke out, Schneider admitted that her victory was illegitimate. Therefore, Sharron Davies is recognized by the sports community worldwide as the rightful winner of the gold medal. For this podcast, she join’s FiLiA’s Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez in a conversation about the importance of women’s sport, fair play and sex-based athletic categories.

You can read more about her work here.

Or follow her on social media: @sharrond62

We’ve reached a small milestone in our team: 100 episodes of the FiLiA podcast. To celebrate this very special episode, I spoke with a few of the amazing women who bring life and magic to FiLiA - Lisa-Marie, Julian, Sally, Kruti and Raquel. Their reflections, insights and discussion can be heard here, covering the three charitable aims of FiLiA: building sisterhood and solidarity, amplifying the voices of women and defending women’s human rights. The team discuss highlights and challenges of the journey this brilliant feminist charity has been on so far, the importance of organising an annual gathering for women to speak together and where FiLiA plans to go. Women joined the discussion from the Welsh Hills, London, Portsmouth and the Dominican Republic (so we hope listeners will forgive us if the audio isn’t perfect) to share FiLiA memories, feminist insights, favourite quotes, and ways to support our work (for example by signing up to the Friends of FiLiA scheme or donating a solidarity ticket to enable more women to come to the conference).

I’ve had the honour of being podcast coordinator for a little while (from when we had just over a dozen podcasts until now). Alice, one of our interviewers, suggested that I write something for the occasion as well. I don’t know if she realised that I could easily fill several pages of thoughts about the beauty of hearing women’s voices and audio podcasting as a uniquely useful medium for feminist discussions (for many reasons, e.g. no need to worry about visual appearances & busy women can listen while they’re doing other things). Brevity has never been my strong suit, sorry, but I shall share some reflections here.

My first podcast recording session was with Sheila Jeffreys and Heather Brunskell-Evans. I was stressed, trying to work out how to capture this online discussion and troubleshoot our connectivity issues. What I’ll remember is sitting in my room once recording was underway, pinching myself that these two amazing feminists were speaking to each other and I was allowed to listen to their conversation and share it with others. But also wondering, “how the hell did I get the privilege of being involved in this?”

I volunteered as podcast coordinator because two other women I respect, who share my first name, kindly nudged me toward the opportunity on the FiLiA website. I’d applied for the role rather sheepishly, with little relevant experience, but was greeted with warmth, met a wonderful team of hard-working women and am still on a crash-course in “proper” feminism I shall treasure for life. I’ve had a more valuable education in creating and listening to these podcasts than any university course in “Gender Studies” could hope to offer.

I learned that from the start, FiLiA’s ethos for these podcasts is that women themselves will have as much control over their own participation and words as possible - to try to create a woman-centred space. Our podcasts are perhaps slightly peculiar in that they don’t follow a set format, really. We have no time-limits or fixed type of discussion. Our production process embraces the do-it-yourself style, which means we’ll vary in audio quality, but the benefit of this approach is that simple, free audio recording and editing processes are an equaliser – so in theory any woman with an internet connection could get involved with podcasting if she wanted to. We all learn together, from each other.

Our guests are phenomenal women, from all over the world, involved in all sorts of work & areas of expertise, a mix of maybe more familiar and newer feminist voices. We have a roster of talented volunteer interviewers and editors, who all have their own ways of approaching the podcasts, working together. I have far

Angelika Chaffey discusses You My Sister, new charity set up to support survivors of the sex trade - whose work is heavily informed by exited women. You My Sister’s first project was to create a unique mental health recovery programme specifically tailored for women who have exited any branch of the porn/sex trade. This has been created and will be delivered with survivors and is a hugely powerful form of peer-led guided recovery. It is run online so, in theory, women from anywhere in the world could take part! The course takes women through their journey, from understanding why they entered the sex industry, how the industry works to keep women trapped within it through to exiting and moving on. The emphasis is on understanding in a supportive setting with others with similar experiences and on ending self blame, self hatred and shame and instead for women to learn to like themselves, forge positive relationships, rediscover what they enjoy. Angelika joins FiLiA’s Gemma Aitchison in discussion about her work and this course, which will begin 9th October 2020.

Links:

You My Sister Website

Find out more about the course, email to enrol: [email protected]

Find You My Sister on Twitter and Facebook

Get in touch: [email protected]