FiLiA

"When they arrested me, I thought it was because I was protesting with other teachers, and students. But later, I realized that they targeted me and other women because I am a lesbian."

We are paying tribute to Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, who has passed away, by sharing her talk at FiLiA 2019 on her experiences of pain through torture and imprisonment in Dictatorial Chile.

"Very little of feminist scholarship on the body addresses torture of women, and still less, torture of lesbians.  The deafening silence in fiction written about this topic has finally been broken with Susan Hawthorne’s novel Dark Matters but that pioneering work needs to be replicated a thousand times by other writers.

I will be retelling my experiences of bodily pain in torture and imprisonment during the 80s in dictatorial Chile and reflect on how these experiences not only transformed my silence under torture  into an act of resistance and stubbornness but also reaffirmed my belief in speaking out and let the world know that Lesbians experience discrimination and torture worldwide every day, yet in feminist conferences and meetings, this is swept under the carpet of women’s issues, and once more Lesbians are invisible."

You can also listen again to the full  Violence Against Lesbians Panel recording and our separate discussion with Consuelo.

"Creating this women only space, we're creating a journey for women to be honouring each other, celebrating each other, and that's something that women haven't had much time with."

Sally Jackson leads a discussion between Natalie Collins, creator of the Own My Life Course, Catherine Mc Quarrie from Border Women's Aid, and Danielle, survivor and facilitator, explaining the principles of the Own My Life course and why recovery spaces for domestic abuse survivors need to be feminist and women only. 

They talk about the importance of feminist consciousness-raising as a path to healing - oh and vulva tea towels!

We are delighted to interview Ivorian artist, social commentator and author Laetitia Ky on the FiLiA Podcast. She is a political artist known for her hair sculptures, which she uses to raise awareness about the structural inequality and oppression of women and girls. She is a one-of-a-kind artist, activist and creative voice based in the Ivory Coast. Laetitia taught herself how to use dreads and wire to challenge the way afro hair is portrayed culturally in patriarchy and how it can be used as a tool of feminist solidarity. 

Her unique sculptures, created using her afro hair and just wires (without specialised products), are mediated through photography and videos, and celebrate the artist's roots around themes that are often delicate and uncomfortable. She is the author of “Love and Justice: A Journey of Empowerment, Activism, and Embracing Black Beauty” and exhibits her work, to critical acclaim, around the world.

Laetitia Ky speaks with FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez about her use of hair as a professional art medium, the political messages behind her art, the oftentimes oppressive way girls and women are treated in patriarchal society and the differences, in her view, between Global North versus Global South feminism.

You can follow Laetitia Ky’s groundbreaking work on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. You can purchase her work through her gallery and find her book “Love and Justice: A Journey of Empowerment, Activism, and Embracing Black Beauty” in all excellent libraries.

Buy Laetitia's book from the FiLiA Book Shop.

Austrian Parliamentarian Faika El-Nagashi joins FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez to discuss the intersectional nature of her multi-faceted work as a feminist politician, her defence of lesbian rights and her background as a campaigner for social justice. 

Faika El-Nagashi is a long-time feminist & lesbian human rights advocate. She is a political scientist by vocation, political activist by passion and politician by profession. Her expertise is on women’s and human rights, women’s migration, development cooperation, integration and diversity politics, intersectionality and LGBT rights. On 24 November 2015, she became a Green Party councillor in Vienna and a member of the Vienna Provincial Parliament. She has served as Member of the National Council of Austria since 2019.

Aside from being a Member of Parliament in Austria, Faika El-Nagashi is the Spokeswoman for Integration and Diversity Politics of the Austrian Green Party. She is a political scientist and longstanding human rights advocate who has been active in civil society organisations on the national and transnational level for more than 25. 

Faika sits on the Advisory Board of the Lesbian Project, which was launched in March 2023. The Lesbian Project: “is a new initiative that highlights and champions the experiences, insights and sensibilities of lesbians in all their diversity. Led by Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock, The Lesbian Project intends to give voice and influence to women whose stories are too often overlooked. The Lesbian Project works to build a knowledge base about lesbian lives, promote sensible and evidence-based policy, and contribute to building lesbian community in the UK and internationally. A not-for-profit organisation, The Lesbian Project is non-partisan.”

Her book (in Austrian) “Für alle, die hier sind” (2022), is titled ‘For Everyone Who is Here’ about a manifesto of solidarity about feminist principles, intersectionality and the politics of belonging can be purchased here. You can follow Faika El-Nagashi on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also learn more about her work on her Youtube channel. 

Lisa-Marie Taylor and Yagmur Uygarkizi interview authors Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald about their best-selling book, Women Unsilenced Our Refusal To Let Torturer-Traffickers Win.

This episode welcomes Jeanette Westbrook and Elizabeth Gordon, who both survived family and non-family-based non-State torture (NST) crimes, and join authors Jeanne and Linda to explain the vitalness of insisting on having the language of non-State torture (NST) declared as torture crimes and not assault crimes.

They insist that women not be pathologized for surviving such atrocities. The interview is published in connection with June 26, the UN International Day to Support Survivors of Torture - which must include the NST of women and girls globally.

The episode was recorded in 2022, and, at times in the recording, there were technical challenges as the women chatted from an office in Canada, a cafe in France and a service station in England!
 
Song credits:
We Can Hear Your Voices Now
Lyrics, Music and Sung by Jeanette Westbrook. Produced, Engineered and Recorded by Andrew Westbrook

Unsilenced (Acoustic), by Ryan & Cribb 
by Bob Ryan and Peter Cribb

Buy the book/audio book on amazon.

Feminist author Victoria Smith discusses her first book, ‘Hags’, about the demonisation of middle-aged women with FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez. Smith discusses the experiences which raised her awareness to the way middle-aged women are invisibilised and dismissed under patriarchy around the world, as well her understanding of the tropes designed to further vilify this cohort of women. A thoughtful thinker and compassionate writer, this book represents an enraging call to action for everyone, to revindicate our past and create a better future for all women, throughout middle-age and beyond.

Victoria Smith is a writer and creator of the Glosswitch newsletter. She has been a regular contributor to the New Statesman and the Independent, focussing on women’s issues, parenting and mental health. She has also written for Mumsnet, featured on panels at their Blogfest, and has made appearances on Woman’s Hour to discuss female body image. Her newsletter The OK Karen, focused on midlife women’s experiences of feminism, was launched in 2020, and she is particularly interested in how experiences of power and misogyny change as we age.

Originally from Cumbria, she now lives in Cheltenham with her family. She is working towards achieving full venerable crone status before she hits fifty.

You can follow Victoria Smith's commentary on Twitter and read her regular insights on women’s rights at The Critic. You can purchase Hags from most bookstores, and you can easily find it at our FiLiA Feminist Library.

"We all understand what unwanted sex is; another word for that is rape. We all understand that, but when there's money involved, people suddenly don't seem to make that connection of what unwanted sex is bad for you. But if you're getting paid for it, then suddenly it's okay."

When Mia Doring was in the sex trade, she convinced herself it was just a job. She described her former state of mind in her book: "I was seduced by temporarily feeling valued and further groomed by the culture surrounding it ; the constant messaging that my value lay in my sexual appeal to men. I called the punters ‘clients’ and charged for my time. There was no problem. I needed it to be okay. Why shouldn’t men pay me for sex? Why shouldn’t I sell it? It’ s my body. I can do what I want, as long as I don’ t tell anyone. And I’ m proud of myself for being tough enough to do this".

After she exited prostitution, her perspective changed. Many prostitution survivors undergo this change of mind, but it wasn't enough for Mia Doring, as she knew that the sex trade kept harming women. A year ago, she published her book, which tells the truth about the sex industry. Now she is fighting to shut down the largest prostitution site in her home country of Ireland.

This petition calls on the Justice Department of the Irish Government, Helen McEntee and Interim Justice Minister Simon Harris, to implement a plan for legislation which would block any website advertising sex for sale, specifically Escort Ireland.

#escortwebsite #prostituion #MiaDoring #AnyGirl #EscortIreland

Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born campaigner and writer living in the UK. Since the Islamic regime of Iran’s killing of Mahsa Amini on 16 September 2022 for ‘improper veiling,’ Maryam has been speaking on and organising protests in solidarity with the women’s revolution in Iran. FiLiA have joined Maryam launching the Hair4Freedom campaign and are continuing this relationship with our next solidarity action #Dance4Freedom on 29 April 2023 which is discussed in this episode.

Jalna Hanmer is a feminist of 70 years. She was responsible for bringing women's studies to UK academia and was a founder of the National Women's Aid Federation. Jalna talks with Julie Bindel about her life's work and the forthcoming exhibition at FiLiA 2023 on the renowned Brighton 1996 ‘International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship’. The podcast was previously published on Julie Bindel's Substack. 

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We speak with documentary filmmaker Jenny Wat who is a member of our Hague Mothers team.

Through her film 'Home with my Children' (watch the trailer here), Jenny is trying to raise awareness of the Hague Convention among mothers and safeguard mothers and children in abusive relationships.

We discuss the reason for the creation of the Hague Abduction Convention in 1980, how it fails to adapt to the 21st Century, and most importantly, how the system fails to protect children – which is supposed to be the very core of the Convention.

Expat mothers, whose child/ren and themselves are suffering from domestic abuse, are fighting against the legal system and the Convention at their habitual residence in order to return to their homeland with their child/ren (or reunite with them).

Contact [email protected] if you can help Jenny - with funding ideas, industry contacts, or professional advice.