Yoni Ki Baat

“To Love for the First Time” is about falling in love for the first time and learning how to accept and welcome love. But specifically, it's about the way her Asian background combined with the images of love she has seen on screen growing up impacted the way she navigated this relationship. https://womenslunchplace.org/donate

“I Speak in Apology” is the last word on a failed relationship that helped Naveen start to face a lot of trauma she’s pushed off since childhood. Her monologue seeks not to paint her as the innocent victim, but finally take a stand on actions she let slide. She states “I spent so much of that relationship apologizing for who I was and cultivating someone satiable that was worthy of love. I sacrificed my physical and mental wellbeing in order to be with someone who fell for this idea of me and was constantly at odds with who I really was. I apologized every single day and 9 times out of 10 I didn’t need to.” This piece is about rebuilding self and fighting old haunts. https://womenslunchplace.org/donate

Hello, I am Christina Bissereth and I am Bruna D’Amore Giampietro.  Welcome to our Director’s Note for Yoni Ki Baat!

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, students at Boston University had their 2020 Spring semester cut short. Consequently meaning that our onstage and in-person performance of Yoni-Ki-Baat was cancelled. Yoni-Ki Baat, or YKB, is a world-wide attempt to create a platform for women of color, queer women, and non-binary folks to share their intersectional experiences through original monologues. We were absolutely heartbroken over this cancellation as we have worked tirelessly for the success of this performance, spent countless hours organizing, and worked with each performer to ensure that this community has a voice.

This loss, however, is not only felt by us. 100% of our ticket sales were meant to be donated to our community partner, the Women's Lunch Place, a nonprofit in Boston that supports women who are facing homelessness by helping restore their dignity through providing them with hot meals, showers, shelter, and a supportive community. Now more than ever, organizations like the Women’s Lunch Place need to be supported and initiatives such as YKB need to be protected. Since YKB  provides marginalized communities with a platform to speak their truths without restrictions, the erasure of these stories would be the erasure of these womxn’s experiences. It is for that reason that we have come up with an alternative project to transform their performances onstage into an auditory experience, easily accessible for everyone. It is with immense pride that we present to you our Yoni-Ki-Baat podcast.

This YKB podcast is a collection of twelve episodes that shed light on experiences regarding intersectionality and its broad spectrum within the female identity. Each episode features a wide range of topics ranging from interacial relationships, hair politics, racial fetishchism, class struggles, sexuality, institutional racism, and much more. At Boston University, YKB has become a space for womxn to claim their defiance by speaking up about their oppression and to rebel against the stereotypes and misconceptions society has created about them.

As directors, we refuse to allow the silencing of womxn and ask that you listen to these powerful stories. We also invite you to donate to the Women’s Lunch Place to ensure that women in need receive their indispensable services in this time of crisis.

Together, we are able to take a step further into expanding feminist discourse and directly fighting for womxn’s rights. Donate here: https://womenslunchplace.org/donate