FiLiA: Recent Episodes

FiLiA

FiLiA is a UK-based feminist charity, platforming and connecting women through our annual conference, blog posts, and podcasts. Listen to women sharing stories, wisdom, experience, feminism, sisterhood and solidarity. Find us at: www.filia.org.uk

The opinions expressed here represent the views of each woman. FiLiA does not necessarily endorse or support every woman's opinion, but we uphold women's rights to freedom of belief, thought and expression.

'I asked her: do you hate men? She said: ’This thing about hating men is really more about standing up to male dominance WITHOUT apology.

Meet Andrea Dworkin!

In this episode, Roberta Pyzel discusses her documentary DWORKIN: a close-up portrait of the brilliant, compassionate, and courageous feminist icon. Dworkin’s lifelong commitment to elevating the voices of women who suffer under the brutal domination of patriarchy infuses the film with passionate intensity. She continues to inspire us all to fight—and to fight hard—for a different world.

Roberta Pyzel https://www.jaxsplace.com/

Nanette Natal http://www.benyomusic.com/

'It's important to say that even today we know that children are in the court systems and their voices are not being heard in a way that is respected.
If you can't name something, you can't heal from it.'

In this episode Sally Jackson from FiLiA talks to Jeanne Sarson, Co founder Non-State Torture and Linda McDonald Co founder of Non-State Torture .

Linda and Jeanne have pioneered the work on non state torture, defining it, understanding it and most importantly helping Women to heal from it. Find out more about their work, what's missing from the - Global Torture Index and what you will gain from their session at FiLiA2025.

"What it has meant to me is that I haven't seen my children for over 10 years."

In this episode, Anita Gera explains the work of Hague Explained, a registered non-profit organisation that provides customised workshops to help internationally mobile families understand the legal and emotional risks of relocating children across borders.

Anita also shares the deeply personal trauma she experienced—an ordeal that ultimately led her to co-found the organisation. Her story highlights the urgent need for awareness around international child abduction and the 1980 Hague Convention.

Website: https://hague-explained.org/
Email: info@hague-explained.org
LinkedIn: Hague Explained on LinkedIn
Twitter: @HagueExplained

“I don't ever want to make the mothers have to be the ones to gatekeep for who comes in. I'm going to do that for them.”La Leche League is a charity that was set up to offer mother-to-mother breastfeeding support and to protect the natural course of breastfeeding and the mother-baby dyad.

Ruth, Rej, and Loreto all had their accreditation as LLL breastfeeding counsellors removed by LLL International for “breaches of the LLL Code of Conduct” and “actions that led to the public discrediting of LLL.” This occurred after they made a public statement and spoke to journalists as trustees about the conflict that had been exposed between the policy of supporting male lactation and the LLLGB charitable objects and beneficiaries, which do not include males.

In this episode the former LLLGB trustees and breastfeeding counsellors have a conversation with Julie Bindel about how gender ideology has captured the world’s oldest breastfeeding organisation to the point that it has abandoned its mission. You might think that something as essentially female as breastfeeding would be safeguarded for women ‒ think again!

We are increasingly hearing about cases of strangulation of women, both in relationships and, thanks to porn culture, increasingly in our sex lives. In this episode, Sally Jackson, FiLiA Trustee; Bernie Ryan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Institute for Addressing Strangulation (IFAS); and Marianne McGowan, Survivor Liaison and Research Worker for IFAS, discuss the dangers, who it affects, and what we can do to raise awareness of the realities of the danger it presents.

Please note this podcast episode references a conference event with a date that has since passed. We apologise for any confusion this may cause and encourage listeners to check for updated information on upcoming events at IFAS Tackling Strangulation - Working Together to Save Lives.

"I don't feel that loneliness anymore. I feel part of something."

After attending FiLiA in Portsmouth, one woman returned to her workplace determined to set up a women’s group. Two years later, the group has grown in size and confidence. In this interview, Kiri Tunks discusses with the women how they set up the group, what they do in their meetings, and how it has transformed their relationships and lives.

Episode Note: When there is a large group in the room, issues with sound quality are inevitable. We’re sure you’ll agree that it’s far more important to share these women’s voices. Thank you for your understanding.

Does prison work for Women? What alternatives are being tried and how successful are they - what do we even mean by 'success'?

"The short answer to How many Women are in prison, is far too many! The biggest challenges are funding and investment"

In this episode FiLiA trustee Sally Jackson, Dr April Smith, a criminologist and psychologist, and Rhona Hotchkiss, ex-governor of Cornton Vale Women's prison, discuss the issues for Women caught up in the criminal justice system designed for men.

FiLiA is a member of Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE)

In this podcast we find out more about WAVE's work. Sally Jackson interviews, Stephanie Futter Orel Executive Director WAVE, Branislava Aradjan Project and Youth ambassador Coordinator and Beverly Mtui, Communications Coordinator of WAVE

WAVE is a network of over 170 European women’s NGOs working towards prevention and protection of women and children from violence. "We build the capacity of our members, advocate for better legislation, conduct research and raise awareness on violence against women and girls. Celebrating 30 years of activism this year."

https://wave-network.org/toolkit-for-victim-friendly-judicial-practice-in-child-custody-contact-and-visitation-matters/

In this episode Luba Fein, FiLiA volunteer, Alyssa Ahrabare, Advocacy Manager for European Network of Migrant Women and Hema Sibi, advocacy coordinator for The Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution discuss a huge legal victory in France.

The European Court of Human Rights upholds France's right to ban the purchase of prostitution. France enforces a law that aims to abolish prostitution, while helping its victims exit. A group of individuals, supported by pro-prostitution organisations, appealed against this law to the ECHR. According to the appellants, this legislation radically damaged their right to dignity, private life, personal autonomy and sexual freedom.

The court ruled that the problems related to prostitution raise sensitive moral and ethical questions, which gave rise to different, sometimes contradictory opinions. That said, the French authorities were at their legitimate discretion in enacting the ban. Among other things, the judges stated they were aware of the multitude of problems identified with the phenomenon of prostitution (such as the violence of the sex buyers towards the people in prostitution). Still, they were not sure whether this was the result of the law or a phenomenon inherent to prostitution.

Sex trade survivors and feminists globally celebrate this vast achievement.

"It is not our job to question individual choices of women in prostitution. We must examine the system and the context in which women's choices take place" Anna Zobnina

In February 2024, Dunja Mijatović, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, published a statement entitled "Protecting the human rights of sex workers". It was a problematic statement that undermined the efforts of hundreds of feminist organisations and dozens of prostitution survivor organisations to eradicate the sex industry.

In this podcast, Luba Fein, a FiLiA volunteer, discusses this statement and its consequences for women in the sex trade and society in general with two prominent feminist activists: Alyssa Ahrabare and Anna Zobnina from the European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW)

https://www.migrantwomennetwork.org/
http:/twitter.com/ENoMW
https://www.facebook.com/migrantwomeneurope
https://nordicmodelnow.org/

Tragically Chloe felt her only escape from the coercive and controlling behaviour she was subjected to was to end her own life. Her Mum Sharon wants the perpetrator held to account for her death and so is campaigning for a change in the law so that he could be charged with manslaughter by coercive or controlling behaviour. Hear about how they have developed their grassroot campaign and how you can help.

Petition please sign and share:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/648948

Link to the report mentioned:
vkpp.org.uk/publications/publications-and-reports/

Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555467394371
https://x.com/shazmataz72

"I just hope that in capturing these stories that we've done something to archive working class, women's experience and that it'll be there if people wanna watch it or read it. We've done our bit and we can use the methods to look at any issue we want" - Paula Boulton

This podcast is about working class women and the theatre women make. It is a discussion between playwright and theatre director Paula Boulton (67) and three members of her Corby Women's Theatre Group. Betty MacPherson (78) Danijela Bastajic (47) Dannie Smith (39) Questioned by interviewer Jo Campbell they explore the issues raised in their most recent production Corby Women, Then and Now. Reflecting on the need to tell the hidden stories about working class women, how being part of this community project empowered them, and how the method can be used in the future.

The plays are available for others to use in the accompanying book, Women's Ways, Women's Plays.

Paula's book "Women's Ways, Women's Plays is available at all major bookstores
or direct from Paula's bookshop https://www.facebook.com/lunarlinkpublishingcollective/

You can view Paula's plays on her YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@paulaboultonsplays3877

https://shouttheatre.org/

https://www.facebook.com/CorbyWomensTheatreGroup

Raquel Rosario Sanchez and Sarah Ditum discuss the tropes and stereotypes about women in the public eye and how they reflect on the wider struggles women face in society. Ditum's clever analysis dissects how patriarchy operates to ensure that women, including those who are extremely privileged, are used as examples to venerate and later on to destroy in order to appease a misogynist system.

Buy Sarah Ditum's Toxic from the FiLiA Book Shop

This interview took place on January 25th 2024 and permission was given to share this week.

"We don't want to live in this violence, in this conflict anymore. We want to end it. And as Yael always said, we shouldn't, you know, keep managing the conflict. We should resolve it. And this is why we are raising our voice and we want the international support for this [and we are raising] our voices to stop what is going on."
Women have always been at the forefront of the peace movement. FiLiA reached out to two remarkable grassroots organisations, Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun, who are operating across Israel and Palestine and advocating for dialogue, understanding, and lasting solutions. Their impactful work has not gone unnoticed; Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace are nominated to the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and both organisations were included in the 2024 Time Magazine Women of the Year List.

M.H. from Women of the Sun and Yael Braudo-Bahat from Women Wage Peace discuss their aims, how they work together, and their hopes for the future.

In this episode, Margaret Owen OBE founder of Widows for Peace (WPD) highlights the plight of the world’s dark secret of marginalised ‘invisible’ widows: a vast and growing number of women of all ages living in extreme poverty, forgotten, abused and neglected internationally, nationally at grassroots levels.

Featuring:
Lily Thapa, Founder of WHR/SWg (women for human rights single women's group), Nepal
Jacqueline Musugani, Coordinator IFESIDI (women living in disastrous circumstances), East Congo
Lyudmyla Porokhnyak, President of the National Council of Women in Ukraine
Agaw Mabior, Founder, Women's Support Network Organisation in South Sudan
Roseline Orwa, Founder & Director, Rona Foundation, Kenya

You will hear from widows themselves – representatives of widows living in
conflict, in extreme poverty, living with cultures that treat widows as outcasts who
are forced to migrate, forced to take part in abusive and cruel widow rites and
much more. The plight of half-widows – who are they and why we should care.

You will discover that widowhood is the most neglected of all Human rights. The
failure to address marginalised widows of all ages by the international
community: by our Governments, Civil Society Organisations, The International
Criminal Court and at the UN Security Council.

You will learn about the systematic widespread dehumanisation of widows and
their families who have little or no recourse to justice, social protection,
healthcare and education.

Listen and learn that your voice makes a difference: you may think it doesn’t, but it does. Pressure your politicians and ensure they are widow-informed. Use your networks and platforms to offer widows the chance to use their voices, to tell their stories, to receive education and training so that they can be included at all peace tables, decision-making tables, consulted when legislation is written or passed – that it is fully widow-aware and widow-sensitive.

"It's not rocket science... you investigate the suspect, not the victim," – Harriet Wistrich.

In this episode, Suzy Angus and Emma Bryson, survivors of sexual violence and founders of Speak Out Survivors, meet Dr Oona Brooks-Hay (Reader in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow) and Harriet Wistrich (Director of the Centre for Women's Justice) to discuss the difficulties in Scotland for victims and survivors to access justice. In particular, related to the outdated legal requirement for 'corroboration', which under Scots law means that only very specific types of evidence are admissible for the purposes of a criminal prosecution.

Speak Out Survivors was founded in 2018 by survivors of sexual violence who all sought justice through the Scottish criminal justice system but were told it was not possible for a prosecution to go ahead. Although in each of our cases, there was evidence available, that evidence did not meet the very stringent requirements of corroboration.

"One of the things I love about the feminist movement is that we're each other's catalysts. We are always pushing each other to go for our dreams and to maybe try that project that we're thinking of, make it a reality somehow."
Dr Bec Wonders reports from FiLiA 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland. Listen to interviews with an array of attendees and participants at the largest grassroots feminist conference in Europe. Over 1000 women, including 150 speakers from 32 different countries, gathered to talk about women’s rights, to reconnect and laugh with friends, to learn, listen and strategise for a feminist future.

Cover illustration by Bec Wonders

Hadley Freeman On Life Beyond Anorexia and Breaking Out of the Good Girl Socialisation

In this episode, Hadley Freeman discusses her latest book 'Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia' with FiLiA spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez, in which she shares a harrowing first-person account of her decades-long struggle with mental illness. She addresses the broader, structural issues driving disordered eating among girls and young women and what society can do to improve the situation. Freeman also discusses her writing career and offers advice to young women struggling with anorexia and mental illness in similar situations to those she has lived through.

Hadley Freeman was born in New York and read English Literature at the University of Oxford. She is the author of The Meaning of Sunglasses published by Penguin in 2009, Be Awesome: Modern Essays for Modern Ladies, Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned from 80s Movies, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia.

She was a columnist and staff writer for The Guardian for over twenty years, and she is now a staff writer at The Sunday Times. Her work has appeared in Vogue US and Vogue UK, New York Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and many other publications. Her bestselling family memoir, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, was published in 2020 and the paperback was Waterstone's Book of the Month in 2021. Her most recent book is Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, published in 2023.

You can find her on Twitter and you can purchase Good Girls at the FiLiA feminist library.

"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.

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. The podcast welcomes Jeanette Westboook 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.

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.

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 hague@filia.org.uk if you can help Jenny - with funding ideas, industry contacts, or professional advice.

"When you normalize paid rape in prostitution, it becomes confusing to an entire culture, even for [the] government, to define what consent is and what isn't, what rape is and what isn't. "
In this episode, FiLiA Volunteer Luba Fein talks to Dr Melissa Farley and Dr Inge Kleine about the results of their latest research (also co-authored by Kerstin Neuhaus, Yoanna McDowell, Silas Schulz and Saskia Nitschmann) revealing the most hidden secrets of sex buyers and why the men agreed to disclose their secrets.Their report on 763 sex buyers in six countries investigates the attitudes and behavior of sex buyers/punters/Freier/puteros in Germany, USA, India, UK, Scotland, Cambodia.

Dr Christine Cocchiola talks to FiLiA Trustee Sally Jackson about the impact of coercive control on children and the Mother-Child relationship and how to heal together after abuse.

Dr. Christine Marie Cocchiola, DSW, LCSW is a Coercive Control Advocate, Educator, Researcher & Survivor. She is a college professor teaching social work in the CT College System for the last 20 years and is also an adjunct instructor at NYU. Her expertise is in the areas of intimate partner violence, trauma, and child abuse, developing and presenting workshops on these topics both nationally and internationally. Christine, a Board Member of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, has supported policy codifying coercive control and has a small private practice, primarily serving victims and survivors of coercive control. She is the creator of theProtective Parenting Program, supporting protective mothers on their journey of healing their children.

You can find more about her work on her website or follow her on Instagram.

We are very pleased to share this interview by Raquel Rosario Sanchez with Caitlin Roper, author of “Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” which has just been published by Spinifex Press.

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” exposes the inherent misogyny in the trade in sex dolls and robots modelled on the bodies of women and girls for men’s unlimited sexual use. From doll owners enacting violence and torture on their dolls, men choosing their dolls over their wives, dolls made in the likeness of specific women and the production of child sex abuse dolls, sex dolls and robots pose a serious threat to the status of women and girls.

Caitlin Roper is an activist, writer and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, a grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media, advertising and popular culture.

Caitlin is an author whose work has been published in a range of mainstream media outlets including The Guardian, ABC, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald and Arena magazine. She contributed a commentary chapter to Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade (Spinifex Press, 2016). Caitlin Roper is a founding member of Adopt Nordic WA which advocates for implementation of the Nordic model of prostitution legislation in Western Australia. She has been a speaker and organiser for Reclaim the Night Perth. She is also aco-founder of the Feminist Academy of Technology and Ethics (the FATES).

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating”, is available on the FiLiA Bookshop, Spinifex Press and in all excellent bookstores. You can follow the work of the grassroots campaigning organisation Collective Shout on their website and social media. You can follow Caitlin Roper’s work on her Twitter and Instagram.

We are very pleased to share this interview by Raquel Rosario Sanchez with Caitlin Roper, author of “Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” which has just been published by Spinifex Press.

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” exposes the inherent misogyny in the trade in sex dolls and robots modelled on the bodies of women and girls for men’s unlimited sexual use. From doll owners enacting violence and torture on their dolls, men choosing their dolls over their wives, dolls made in the likeness of specific women and the production of child sex abuse dolls, sex dolls and robots pose a serious threat to the status of women and girls.

Caitlin Roper is an activist, writer and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, a grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media, advertising and popular culture.

Caitlin is an author whose work has been published in a range of mainstream media outlets including The Guardian, ABC, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald and Arena magazine. She contributed a commentary chapter to Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade (Spinifex Press, 2016). Caitlin Roper is a founding member of Adopt Nordic WA which advocates for implementation of the Nordic model of prostitution legislation in Western Australia. She has been a speaker and organiser for Reclaim the Night Perth. She is also aco-founder of the Feminist Academy of Technology and Ethics (the FATES).

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating”, is available on the FiLiA Bookshop, Spinifex Press and in all excellent bookstores. You can follow the work of the grassroots campaigning organisation Collective Shout on their website and social media. You can follow Caitlin Roper’s work on her Twitter and Instagram.

We are very pleased to share this interview by Raquel Rosario Sanchez with Caitlin Roper, author of “Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” which has just been published by Spinifex Press.

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating” exposes the inherent misogyny in the trade in sex dolls and robots modelled on the bodies of women and girls for men’s unlimited sexual use. From doll owners enacting violence and torture on their dolls, men choosing their dolls over their wives, dolls made in the likeness of specific women and the production of child sex abuse dolls, sex dolls and robots pose a serious threat to the status of women and girls.

Caitlin Roper is an activist, writer and Campaigns Manager at Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation, a grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media, advertising and popular culture.

Caitlin is an author whose work has been published in a range of mainstream media outlets including The Guardian, ABC, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald and Arena magazine. She contributed a commentary chapter to Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade (Spinifex Press, 2016). Caitlin Roper is a founding member of Adopt Nordic WA which advocates for implementation of the Nordic model of prostitution legislation in Western Australia. She has been a speaker and organiser for Reclaim the Night Perth. She is also aco-founder of the Feminist Academy of Technology and Ethics (the FATES).

“Sex Dolls, Robots and Woman Hating”, is available on the FiLiA Bookshop, Spinifex Press and in all excellent bookstores. You can follow the work of the grassroots campaigning organisation Collective Shout on their website and social media. You can follow Caitlin Roper’s work on her Twitter and Instagram.

Dr Emma Katz, a leading expert in coercive control and its impact on children is interviewed by FiLiA Trustee Sally Jackson.

A must for anyone working in the field or who cares about someone it has affected, Emma describes what coercive control is like for Mothers and their children and importantly how the Mother/child relationship affects its impact and their recovery.

Dr Emma Katz is Senior Lecturer in Childhood & Youth at Liverpool Hope University and is the author of the much-anticipated monograph Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives (Oxford University Press, June 2022). She was a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for the HARM Network/Research England’s Domestic Abuse Policy Guidance for UK Universities (2021 Her publications are internationally acclaimed, winning awards including the Wiley Prize for best paper published in Child Abuse Review 2015–18, and the Corinna Seith Prize judged by Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE).

"A lot of the messages around domestic abuse is that you just leave, right? So you just walk out that door and everything's fine. Well, that really couldn’t be further from the truth."
FiLiA Trustee Sally Jackson talks to Natalie Page, founder of #thecourtsaid, a campaign to challenge the mishandling of domestic abuse within the family courts.

Natalie discusses the problems faced by Mothers navigating their way through a process that is not fit for purpose and shares some of the options available and the work that she and other women are doing to provide safety to Mums and their children going through the system.

In 2021, Natalie was awarded the Centre for Women’s Justice and Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for her work preventing violence against women and children. She has founded a not-for-profit called Survivor Family Network, focused on furthering the rights of mothers and children in family court. Besides all her campaigning work, Natalie continues to work behind the scenes to support other mothers going through the family courts after domestic abuse Web: thecourtsaid.org and survivorfamilynetwork.com

"It was shocking. I felt a great sense of betrayal by the Police. How could they possibly do that to me? What right have they got? I've paid my taxes all my life and they spent that paying a man to come to sleep with me and deceive me. They were playing with our lives because they thought they could get away with anything so they just had a good time while doing it."
FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez speaks with Belinda, Alison and Helen Steel - co-authors of Deep Deception: The story of the Spycops network by the women who uncovered the shocking truth- who share their experiences of being deceived by the State, the process of writing their powerful book and how they found the courage to move forward.

These five women were targeted by the UK Police, through men who deceived them into intimate relationships in order to get access to their activist networks.

At the time they were targeted, Belinda was a 24-year-old non-activist who worked as an accounts assistant with the Central Electricity Generating Board. Helen Steel was a 22-year-old gardener and environmental and social justice activist with London Greenpeace. She later became one half of ‘the McLibel Two’ in a gargantuan fight against the McDonalds corporation. Alison was 29 years old at the time and was an English and Media Studies teacher and political activist with the Colin Roach Centre.

Deep Deception is not a book about men. This is a book about women who found a tremendous source of strength within themselves, and with each other. It is a book about women who are fighting an institutional form of misogyny: the infiltration of policemen in activist groups and what happens when the State decides to deliberately target women.

This could have been a book about women whose lives were destroyed and who were left with no trust in each other or in justice. Instead, Deep Deception is an inspirational story of fortitude, truth and dignity.

You can purchase Deep Deception: The story of the spycop network, by the women who uncovered the shocking truth from the FiLiA Book Shop. Please learn more about the women’s stories at the Police Out of Our Lives website. You can also read more about the Spycops scandal on the website built by the women who were targeted by the Police.

At the moment, there is a public inquiry about the Spycops scandal. You can learn more about the inquiry on its website which started hearing evidence in late 2020.

"I didn't know what personal persecution felt like before. I could imagine, of course. But there is something very physical about those experiences of being hounded or being piled on by a mob that feels very visceral."

Rosie Kay talks to FiLiA's Raquel Rosario Sánchez about how she came to be forced out of the dance company that she founded after bullying from inside the organisation and a targeted campaign to ruin her reputation. The controversy arose from opinions, expressed inside her own home, that biological sex is real, material to dance and that these conversations must be had openly and without abuse.

She will not go quietly. On the contrary, she has decided to push back bolder and louder than ever before.

Rosie Kay is an experienced choreographer and accomplished dance professional. She graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1998, founded the Rosie Kay Dance Company in Birmingham in 2004. Her productions have been acclaimed for their creativity and their sensitive treatment of topics such as sexual violence, conspiracy theories and military intervention.

Since leaving the Rosie Kay Dance Company Rosie has launched a new dance company called K2Co, which is preparing to delve into the sex and gender debate, exploring it through dance. “K2CO will create, produce and tour three new works over three years as a ‘Trilogy of Sex’ exploring themes and ideas around sex, identity, technology, bodies, women’s history and literature,” the company states in its mission statement.

You can read her first-person essay ‘My body will not be erased’, which she wrote for UnHerd. And you can donate to her legal fees to help her move forward.

Learn more about K2Co Dance Company on their new website. Rosie can also be found on Twitter at @RosieKayK2CO.

FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez speaks to author and activist Melinda Tankard Reist about pornography’s desensitisation of male sexuality and its traumatic effect on women and girls. Hear also about Melinda's work with children and teenagers in schools, her campaigning work with Collective Shout, and the way forward out of a culture of sexualised violence against women and girls.

Melinda Tankard Reist is an author, speaker, campaigner, and advocate for women and girls. She is best known for her work addressing sexualisation, objectification, the harms of pornography, sexual exploitation, trafficking, and violence against women. She has recently been appointed Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Culture and Ethics, Notre Dame University, Sydney.

She is the Founder and Movement Director of the campaigning organisation Collective Shout. She is the editor of six books including Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls (Spinifex Press, 2009), Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry (Spinifex Press, 2011, co-edited with Dr Abigail Bray), Prostitution Narratives: Stories of survival in the sex trade and Broken Bonds: Surrogate mothers speak out (Spinifex Press, 2019, co-edited with Jennifer Lahl and Renate Klein).

Recently, Melinda published He Chose Porn Over Me, a collection of essays written by 25 women who share their stories of broken relationships and enduring abuse by porn-obsessed male partners.

He Chose Porn Over Me was launched in early August 2022 during a global event hosted by Collective Shout. The book is available from the FiLiA Bookshop and at bookstores worldwide and via its publisher Spinifex.

You can learn more about Melinda’s work against a culture of sexualisation and objectification of women and girls on her website. You can learn more about the campaigning work of Collective Shout on their website.

Melinda can also be found on social media such as Twitter and Instagram.

"It's a double taboo - as a society, we don't talk about money and we don't talk about abuse. So when we are talking about economic abuse, there are quite a few barriers."

FiLiA Trustee Sally Jackson chats to Nicola Sharp-Jeffs OBE about Economic Abuse and why it has been recognised in the Domestic Abuse Act (2021) for the first time. Nicola has led the way in understanding its impact but also importantly working alongside survivors, improving the responses to the many women who are subjected to it. Her new book examines how far we have come, and the work yet to do.

Nicola is the founder and CEO of Surviving Economic Abuse and an Emeritus research fellow at Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit Awards and the Author of Understanding and Responding to Economic Abuse.

LinkedIn: @Surviving-Economic-Abuse

Buy Nicola's book from the FiLiA Bookshop.

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, FiLiA spokeswoman, Raquel Rosario Sánchez, talks to Stephanie Davies-Arai, the Founder and Director of Transgender Trend about her campaigning work to protect children from unnecessary medicalisation and sexist stereotypes.She created the organisation after speaking with a group of parents based in the UK, who were concerned about the current trend to diagnose ‘gender non-conforming’ children as transgender. On June 1st, 2022 she was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and received a British Empire Medal for “services to children” as a recognition of her vital work.

Stephanie is a communication skills trainer and the author of Communicating with Kids. She has worked with parents and teachers for over twenty years, including eight years at a primary school in East Sussex in various roles including parent governor. She is an experienced speaker on parenting, feminism and ‘transgender’ children. She has spoken at events around the UK, including in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and has been interviewed across the media, including Good Morning Britain, BBC Woman’s Hour, The Today programme and Newsnight.

You can learn more about Stephanie Davis-Arai and her ground-breaking work on behalf of children on her personal website and about Transgender Trend on their website. You can support their work by donating to the organisation.

You can follow Stephanie on social media at @CWKnews and @Transgendertrd.

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, FiLiA spokeswoman, Raquel Rosario Sánchez, talks to Stephanie Davies-Arai, the Founder and Director of Transgender Trend about her campaigning work to protect children from unnecessary medicalisation and sexist stereotypes.She created the organisation after speaking with a group of parents based in the UK, who were concerned about the current trend to diagnose ‘gender non-conforming’ children as transgender. On June 1st, 2022 she was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and received a British Empire Medal for “services to children” as a recognition of her vital work.

Stephanie is a communication skills trainer and the author of Communicating with Kids. She has worked with parents and teachers for over twenty years, including eight years at a primary school in East Sussex in various roles including parent governor. She is an experienced speaker on parenting, feminism and ‘transgender’ children. She has spoken at events around the UK, including in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and has been interviewed across the media, including Good Morning Britain, BBC Woman’s Hour, The Today programme and Newsnight.

You can learn more about Stephanie Davis-Arai and her ground-breaking work on behalf of children on her personal website and about Transgender Trend on their website. You can support their work by donating to the organisation.

You can follow Stephanie on social media at @CWKnews and @Transgendertrd.

In the latest episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Raquel Rosario Sanchez chats with the feminist philosopher and activist Jane Clare Jones who published her book ‘The Annals of the TERF war’ this month. They discuss feminism, sex-based rights, and the evolution of “gender identity” theory.

Dr. Jones studied Social and Political Science at the University of Cambridge, where she got a first-class degree and was informed by a rather pompous professor that her “intellectual trajectory” was “unfortunate.” In the early 2000s, she studied Continental and Feminist Philosophy at Goldsmiths (MPhil) and the State University of New York (PhD). Since 2011, Jane Clare Jones has been involved in feminist activism while writing popular pieces at the intersection of feminism, politics and culture. She is the director of The Centre for Feminist Thought, and the editor of the feminist journal The Radical Notion.

You can purchase the book on The Radical Notion website and on other outlets as an ebook. You can also subscribe to The Radical Notion for a quarterly magazine full of feminist wit, art and analysis. Read more about the Centre for Feminist Thought and the work they do to make feminist theory accessible for women, on their website.

Jane Clare Jones tweets at @JaneClareJones.

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Lawyer and academic Gina Masterton became an activist when her sister had a Hague case brought against her. That story has a (rare) happy ending but Gina continues to campaign to get the Convention amended. In this episode, she talks about the harshness of the Australian courts and the extent to which the law is failing both mothers and their children.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, lawyer and activist Sudha Shetty talks to us about the often desperate consequences of The Hague Convention for mothers and their children who are fleeing domestic violence. Her response to this injustice has been inspirational: the Hague Domestic Violence Project which she founded is a beacon of hope which we hope to build on through our international Hague Mothers’ project.

We are delighted to speak with Dr Alyson McGregor, a women’s health pioneer who has brought the concept of sex differences in the delivery of acute medical care to the national and international stage. She is also the author of: Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women's Health and What We Can Do About It.

Sex Matters represents a landmark moment in acknowledging the importance of understanding female bodies in all aspects of health research, treatment and medicine development. Reviewers for the book state: “Sex Matters tackles one of the most urgent, yet unspoken issues facing women’s health care today: all models of medical research and practice are based on male-centric models that ignore the unique biological and emotional differences between men and women – an omission that endangers women’s lives. (Transcription available on filia.org.uk)

The Hague Convention was originally intended to protect children from abducting fathers. The reality is very different. This is one mother's harrowing experience of the inhumanity and injustice suffered by women and children who are innocent victims of this legislation. Detroit is living on the run with her son in the US, an outlaw, having escaped from her violent husband. She sent emails while living in a tent, from a truck, in a forest, while parked by a lake, telling her story. A FiLiA volunteer has read Detroit’s words as the risk to her is too great. (Transcript available on www.filia.org.uk)

Documentary producer Alison Wilson joins FiLiA Volunteer Luba Fein to discuss her latest project ‘Exit’, a film about women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation in Spain. Alison discusses the recruitment process, how any woman can fall victim to the sex traffickers, how hard the recovery is for survivors of human trafficking, and the devastating reality that many don’t make it to the end. (Transcript available at filia.org.uk)

Cathy Devine, a researcher in the field of sports policy and equality, talks to FiLiA about how policies enabling male competitors to enter women's categories negatively impact female athletes and are detrimental to women's rights to fairness and inclusion in sport. She argues that "the human rights of females in sport depend on fair eligibility criteria which acknowledge human sexual dimorphism."(Transcript available on filia.org.uk)

In this pilot episode of FiLiA’s new women’s history podcast series, we bring together four feminists from around the world to have an international and intergenerational conversation about the importance of women’s archives. We speak to American historian Max Dashu, Indian artist and activist Aqui Thami, and Algerian archivists Lydia Saïdi and Awal Haouati. Facilitated by Bec Wonders and translated by Natalya Vince.

The 'Newlove Amendment' in the Governments Police Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill is hailed as making misogyny a hate crime, but is that really the case? Joan Smith discusses what the real consequences of this becoming law are, and how in fact, it could harmful to women and used against them.

This is a recording of the #FiLiA2021 panel discussion led by Julie Bindel. She discusses her book Feminism for Women, invites women from the audience to join the conversation about feminist issues across generational divides, and Zemzem Mohamed speaks about the unfolding crisis in Tigray. (Transcription available on filia.org.uk)

So-called 'Parental alienation' is spreading across the globe. We share one woman’s experience of the courts in Spain. It’s difficult to hear. Once again Mothers are not being believed when they are trying to protect their children from abusive parents.

Vaishnavi Sundar reminisces with Sally Jackson about her trip to #FiLiA2021 this year. They discuss what she thought about her first FiLiA, some of the memorable moments and who she met. They discuss the rest of her trip to the UK and also look forward to her newest film project on the horizon.

Margaret Owen, 89, began a hunger strike on November 16, 2021 to raise awareness to the imprisonment of Iranian-British charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

In early April 2016, Nazanin visited Iran to introduce her one-year-old daughter to her parents. She was accused by the Iranian government of being spy and “plotting to topple the government.” On November 2017, then British Foreign Secretary at the time and current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, accused Zaghari-Ratcliffe of “training journalists” while on her trip. There is no evidence for any of the charges brought against her and she denies any wrongdoing. However, Boris Johnson’s comments were used by the Iranian government against her.

On 25 October 2021, Nazanin’s husband, Richard, started a hunger strike in front of the Foreign Office in London that went on for 21 days. Margaret Owen, along with other campaigners, is continuing the hunger strike in solidarity to keep up the pressure and the media attention on Nazanin’s case.

We are honoured to speak with the campaigner Zemzem Mohamed who is working to support women and children affected by the hidden humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Tigray region. This crisis is considered by many to be a genocide, in which Ethiopian authorities are accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing against minorities. Speaking to FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez, the discussion covers the rights of women and children in Tigray, the political background to the war currently unfolding, the role of the international community and what justice may look like from a feminist perspective. (Transcript available on filia.org.uk)

Professor Jo Phoenix, Chair in Criminology at The Open University, a Trustee of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the Co-Convenor of the Gender Critical Research Network at the Open University, joins Raquel Rosario Sanchez to discuss the rights of women in prison, her decades-long work in Criminology and her personal experience being in the centre of the fight to uphold academic freedom. The transcript is available on filia.org.uk

Three women from three different Abrahamic religions talk with host Gita Sahgal about their experiences growing up in and leaving fundamentalist expressions of faith. Yasmine Mohammed, an ex-Muslim; Frimet Goldberger, formerly an ultra-Orthodox Jew; and Alice Greczyn, an ex-evangelical Christian, share how their different stories overlap with common bonds. Unpacking how religion perpetuates patriarchy offers listeners firsthand accounts of why so many girls and women are leaving toxic faith behind. Transcript available on filia.org.uk

In this episode, FiLiA volunteer Luba Fein meets Nicole, a sex trade survivor to discuss the University of Leicester’s recent publication, the “Student Sex Worker Policy and Toolkit” which details how best to support those who may turn to prostitution, online services and stripping. Transcript available on filia.org.uk

We are delighted to speak with a remarkable force of nature called Julie Macfarlane. A fierce advocate for survivors of sexual violence as well as survivors of institutional abuse, Dr Julie Macfarlane has spent her adult life teaching in law schools in four continents, researching and working on progressive causes that she feels passionately about. She is the author of Going Public: A Survivor’s Journey from Grief to Action which merges the worlds of personal and professional, activism and scholarship. Drawing upon decades of legal training, Macfarlane decodes the well-worn methods used by church, school, and state to silence survivors, from first reporting to cross-examination to non-disclosure agreements. At the same time, she lays bare the isolation and exhaustion of going public in her own life, as she takes her abuser to court, challenges her colleagues, and weathers a defamation lawsuit.

In this episode, Raquel Rosario Sanchez learns about the work of such a force of nature and Julie’s inspirational journey from survivor to activist game changer. (Transcript available on filia.org.uk)

Ann Henderson was the second female Rector at the University of Edinburgh. During her three-year tenure, she experienced sustained targeting by trans activist students and staff members, while receiving minimal institutional support. In this episode, she speaks about her background as a campaigner in the labour movement, her work in the railway industry and her experiences leaving her mark in academia. (Transcript available on filia.org.uk)

We speak to Gemma Aitchison from Yes Matters about the Yes Matters Commitment, an initiative to tackle rape culture in schools. Helping schools to show pupils and parents alike that they are taking rape culture seriously and that they are taking the well being, safety and social development of their child seriously, the project teaches educators about consent, respect, good mental health and emotional regulation skills.

Gemma also discusses why she created YES Matters UK, and about her work to challenge policies in Westminster and the European Parliament. An inspirational story of a working-class woman determined to change the world.

We talk to Halaleh Taheri, Founder & Executive Director of MEWSo, who is campaigning to ban Virginity testing and Hymenoplasty (hymen repair) and to expose it as the misogynistic practice that it is, which has no place in society today.

In this episode, Halaleh talks about her life as an activist, the brilliant work of MEWSo and explains more about the campaign and how you can help to end this abuse of young women and girls.

We listen to stories of survivors of prostitution/pornography, female sexual mutilation, rape... It is now time we confronted the reality of torture. Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald have compiled decades of activism against torture and testimonies of survivors in their forthcoming book Women Unsilenced: Our Refusal To Let Torturers-Traffickers Win.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, Yagmur Uygarkizi from Radical Girlsss speaks to Jeanne and Linda about feminist healing, 'the right to anger' and the power of laughter, and about their indefectible hope for change.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, we speak to poet Sharena Lee Satti about her work and inspiration.

Writing has never been optional for Sharena Lee Satti. Like eating and breathing, it’s something integral to her existence. Every day she is thankful to be able to make a small difference to society, sharing something she is deeply passionate about.

In January 2020 a literary agent (The Verve Poetry Press) saw her potential and that was the beginning of a new chapter of Sharena’s professional literary life. She published her book "She" in Autumn 2020.

"The poems in She cover an already long career as an inspiring live poet, host and workshopper. Her poems are real, raw and honest, addressing issues such as survival, cultural-identity, life’s battles, self-love, body dysmorphia and many other subjects that people struggle to speak out about. Her love of nature is also evident. She writes with her emotions to the fore and her heart at the centre – with a power that can leave you breathless." (Transcript available on filia.org.uk).

Birthing expert Milli Hill who was “cancelled” for suggesting violence in childbirth was committed against women rather than against “birthing people” talks to FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sanchez in this episode of the FiLiA podcast.

Milli Hill, a bestselling author and an expert in women’s rights in childbirth and throughout their reproductive lives, found herself at the epicentre of a bullying and ostracism campaign last year that has spanned over eight months of her life. Recently, she published an essay titled ‘I will not be silenced’where she details her experiences of ostracism and abuse in the birthing community, after stating that obstetric violence constitutes sex-based violence and is, therefore, a form of violence against women. (Transcript available on filia.org.uk)

Dr Helen Joyce, author, journalist and editor at The Economist, joins the FiLiA podcast to discuss her newly-released book Trans. An in-depth exploration of the phenomenon of gender identity theory, Helen writes about how these ideas impact our ability to speak about biological sex and what these developments mean for society.

Helen's work outlines how ideas that privilege subjective feelings of personal gender identity over objective definitions of sex are logically nonsensical, with implications that cause damage to children, erode the rights of women & girls, and make homosexuality once again taboo.

Helen highlights the importance of hearing the stories of detransitioners, the ethical duties of a journalist and whether the misogyny and homophobia we see in some aspects of gender identity activism might be a feature, not a bug.

Leading expert Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of Transgender Trend discusses Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria with two concerned mothers, Emily and Marie, who are involved with Genspect, an international alliance of parent and professional groups whose aim is to advocate for parents of gender-questioning children and young people. They discuss current parenting struggles within the transgender movement, the role of feminism in protecting all children, and Autism, which affects many girls struggling with gender identity as well. (Transcript available on filia.org.uk).

We speak to Houzan Mahmoud, a Kurdish feminist, writer and anti-war activist from South Kurdistan. She was one of the speakers at the anti-war rally in March 2003 in London and is the co-founder of the Culture Project, a platform for Kurdish feminists, writers and activists. Houzan’s book, conceived as part of Culture Project's self-writing program, is essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand the struggle of Kurdish women through their own words.

This May, feminists around the world greeted the news that efforts to uphold women’s sex-based rights were being upheld both in the Spanish and German national Congress:

On May 18th, Spain voted against attempts to introduce sex self-identification into Congress (in large part, thanks to the abstention of the left-wing PSOE political party).

The next day, on May 19th, through a couple of legislative proposals, Germany’s Congress also rejected similar efforts.

While this may represent temporary measures, it is important to note the significant opposition from grassroots feminist in achieving this outcome, recognise their efforts and learn about the next steps in this continuing battle.

In this podcast, FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sanchez speaks with Tasia Aránguez Sánchez from Spain and Victoria Feuerstein from Germany about these recent developments.

Discover the real, often hidden story of the legalised German sex trade. Manuela Schon and Elly Arrow are two abolitionists from Germany, a country famous for its vast legal sex industry. Many people believe that the German model proves the success of legalisation, arguing that the sex trade is safer when legalised. However, feminist researchers and activists from Germany have been telling a completely different story for years. It is a shocking story about violence, suffering, rape, cruelty and even murder under the auspices of legal prostitution. (transcript available on filia.org.uk)

FiLiA volunteer Salonika, interviews Lierre Keith and Julia Barnes about their book and documentary film, ‘Bright Green Lies’. Lierre and Julia explain how the environmental movement has now been highjacked by the ideas that harm the environment, and what we can do to reclaim the movement.

The discussion also highlights the relationship between the oppression of women and the destruction of the natural world and the parallel between the mainstream environmental movement and the mainstream feminist movement.

Journalist, author, co-founder of Justice for Women and Feminist activist Julie Bindel and founder of SPACE International Rachel Moran discuss one of the most contested issues facing feminists, human rights activists and governments around the globe – the international sex trade.

This episode of the FiLiA Podcast is the recording from the Audio Book Launch of Julie Bindel’s book ‘The Pimping of Prostitution. This new release is timely and pertinent. As the pro-prostitution lobby gathers pace in both the UK and elsewhere, so must the abolitionist movement, which is fully represented in this book.

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Gill discusses how her new book, History and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement, showcases the campaigning zeal on which policies, services and awareness-raising on male violence against women in the UK and across the world were built by the women of the liberation movement.

Professor Alice Sullivan joins FiLiA volunteer Sara on the FiLiA podcast to explain why we need accurate data on sex in scientific research (and how it is especially important for women and girls), what happened regarding the sex question on the UK Census in 2021, institutional capture, and the chilling effect in universities on this topic.

Alice Sullivan is a Professor of Sociology and Head of Research at the UCL Social Research Institute and was director of the 1970 British Cohort study. She is outspoken on the importance of sex as a variable in data collection, and concerns over academic freedom on the issue of tensions between sex and gender identity.

Sharon Aitchison, Margaret Lynch and Dawn Fyfe, three Scottish sisters on the frontline of preserving the knowledge and expertise of the Specialist Women’s sector in Scotland speak to FiLiA trustee, Sally Jackson, after another service lost its contract to a generic provider.

It’s a frank, passionate and honest account of the situation, the causes and what we can all do about it. They discuss the history of the movement in Scotland, the importance of women-led services for women only and what survivors want and need from the services they access.

EcoFeminist legends Vandana Shiva, Farida Akhter, and Susan Hawthorne have highlighted the role of women in the ecological movement throughout their lives. In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, they discuss how environmental destruction is based on the patriarchal mindset, from the language we use to the way we relate to the natural world. The relationship between ecocide, genocide, colonialism and patriarchy is highlighted. The discussion covers the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum, surrogacy, sexual assault, transgender ideology, the sex trade and how women are the first to be impacted by ecological destruction.

Sharing their experiences in the ecofeminist movement. They discuss non-patriarchal societies, indigenous knowledge, and the transgenerational relationship between women. Also how, by remembering our relation with Mother Earth and each other, women can reconnect with the land, and build sisterhood and solidarity to fight back against both patriarchy and ecocide.

In this episode, Alexandria Sherman, student of the Dianic tradition and FiLiA volunteer, meets Cristina Pandolfo, Dianic practioner and teacher, to talk about the Dianic tradition of witchcraft that was revealed in the 1970s by Zsuzsanna Budapest as a spiritual path that formed another way to fight the patriarchy.

The Dianic Tradition combines the spirituality of the matriarchal religion of the Great Mother with modern witchcraft and feminist politics.

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Raquel Rosario Sanchez interviews Professor Kathleen Stock about her new book ‘Material Girls’, a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex.

In Material Girls, Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir’s statement that, ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman’ (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler’s claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection.

The book makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.

In this episode, FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sanchez speaks with Elizabeth Miller, the editor of new anthology Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century.

Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Centuryseeks to raise up the voices of women around the world writing or creating from a radical feminist perspective, including scholars, journalists, political activists and organizers, bloggers, writers, poets, artists, and independent thinkers.

Campaigners Sammy Woodhouse and Victoria Hudson have been subjected to the trauma of the Family Court system and are now fighting to redress the harm done to so many women and children and improve the system for the future.

In this podcast, they discuss the government’s planned overhaul of the Family Court system and the recommendations of The Ministry of Justice’s Harm Report. They also share their campaign to help the forgotten victims who have already gone through the system in the past.

Listen to activist and LISG volunteer Maggy Moyo and writer and researcher, Jane Traies, discussing their new collection of interviews with lesbian and bi women seeking asylum in the UK and the campaigners working with them, which was published on this year’s International Women's Day.

The book relays their own words stories of love, trauma, struggle and friendship, courage and solidarity.

RISE has been providing services for women who have been subjected to male violence across Brighton and east Sussex for decades. Yet, in the recent local retendering process they have lost three specific services to a generic, non-specialist (cheaper) service.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, Sally Jackson speaks to Jo Gough CEO of RISE Brighton, about the history of RISE, its impact on survivors, the council’s decision to cancel RISE’s contract, and what we can all do to help.

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Luba Fein talks to Dr Melissa Farley, PhD. Dr Farley's contribution to the body of knowledge in the sex trade is tremendous. She is the most influential researcher in this field today, and learning about her research and activism is a "must" for every abolitionist and/ or feminist.

Dr. Farley has practiced as a clinical psychologist for 50 years. She brings that experience to her consultations with agencies, governments, and advocates for prostituted and trafficked women. She has articulated the harms of prostitution, pornography, and trafficking as an expert witness in forensic evaluations. She has been categorized as a legal expert on the effects of sexual violence against women and children, posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociation, prostitution, and trafficking. I

Esther Figueroa Ph.D, is a Jamaican independent filmmaker, writer, educator and linguist with over 35 years of media productions including television programming, documentaries, educational videos, multimedia and feature film. Her activist film making gives voice to those outside of mainstream media and focuses on the perpetuation of local and indigenous knowledge and cultures, the environment, social injustice, and community empowerment.

In this interview, Esther describes her journey as an activist and organiser and covers topics including Esther’s films, GEFF 2020, aluminium mining in Jamaica, the history and legacy of colonisation, and how "development" and "poverty eradication" as defined by colonial powers has taken the so-called Low and Middle-Income Countries towards inequality and ecocide.

Esther shares her insight on the oppression of nature and oppression of women, and how environmentalism should go beyond sustaining our way of life on the planet, in the same way that feminism should go beyond empowering women to continue patriarchal roles.

This connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature makes it clear why radical efforts to topple these structures of power is necessary to liberate women and nature.

In this interview, Luba Fein speaks with the leaders of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, Kathleen Richardson and Charlotta Odlind to understand how ubiquitous the sex robots are, what they look like, who is the target audience, and why they are so dangerous.

The Campaign Against Sex Robots was founded in 2015 to warn against the dangers of normalising relationships with machines and reinforcing female dehumananisation. The first campaign image featured a broken mannequin and represents dissociation from relationship and the instrumentality of women’s bodies, reduced to parts. The campaign has received international attention and will continue to defend the dignity and humanity of women and girls.

Activist, journalist, a founding leader of the Women’s Equality Party and described as a ‘modern-day suffragette’. Sophie Walker worked as an international news agency journalist for nearly twenty years and is also an ambassador for the National Autistic Society, campaigning for better support and understanding of autism, particularly in women and girls. Sophie was also one of the Women alongside Claire Heuchan and Cordelia Fines who opened the FiLiA2017 Conference.

The paperback version of her book Five Rules For Rebellion has just come out and explains how we can ‘convert our confusion and impatience into a powerful force for change.’

Listen to Sophie speak to each of those Five Rules and join the Rebellion!

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, Fiona MacKensie, from the campaign group ‘We Can’t Consent to This’ talks to Gemma Aitchison about her campaign to make the government ban the so called ‘rough sex defence’. Now set to become law in England and Wales, those accused of murder and assault will no longer be able to claim that the victim consented to their death or injury as part of rough sex or a sex game gone wrong.

60 UK women have been killed by men who claimed a sex game had gone wrong, and in the last five years, the defence was successful in seven of the 17 killings of a woman which reached trial, with the man being found not guilty or receiving a manslaughter conviction.

The campaign is now moving to Northern Ireland where the Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long has opened a consultation to adopt a new law, expressly forbidding the use of “consent” defences to charges of violence for ABH and above.

Esther, a sex trade survivor from London, talks to FiLiA’s Luba Fein and explains why prostitution cannot be separated from abuse and exploitation. She became involved with activism against the sex trade because of what was happening to women still involved in prostitution, the structural discrimination which puts huge obstacles in the way of their attempts to exit, the hypocrisy of those who are apologists for the sex trade, and the clear targeting of ever-younger girls with messages sanitising it and normalising the sexualised violence which is ubiquitous in online porn.

On this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Joan Smith talks to FiLiA’s Sally Jackson about the many ways in which our patriarchal system fails Women who have been subjected to violence from men.

Joan Smith is a novelist, journalist and human rights activist. She began writing about violence against women after covering the murders carried out by Peter Sutcliffe in the north of England, which she described in her book Misogynies. She is also the author of the Loretta Lawson crime novels, two of which were filmed by the BBC. She is a former Chair of the English PEN Writers in Prison Committee and has been Co-chair of the Mayor of London’s VAWG Board since 2013.

Her latest book is Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists.

Follow Joan on Twitter at @pollblonde

In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Luba Fein talks to Caroline Pugh-Roberts, a survivor of eight years of human trafficking. Caroline now works full time exclusively with trafficked persons through the Salvation Army and is an expert on human trafficking who is often called upon to testify as such in trials. She has spoken to and educated over 20 thousand people and is an international speaker. Caroline teaches about HT at the Canadian Police College and has trained the RCMP on the psychology of HT victims.

Caroline has received the Queens Diamond Jubilee medal, the Hope award and the John Robinson award for her work in this area.

Tua is a lesbian from Cameroon who finally received her leave to remain in the United Kingdom in 2019.

Tua talks to Sally Jackson about the violent lesbophobia she was subjected to in Cameroon, and how she was forced into a marriage by her mother. During her escape, she was exploited and trafficked to England where she faced the shameful policies of the UK's Hostile Environment before finding support here. Her asylum claim was finally accepted in 2019 and she has received her leave to remain.

Listen to members of Women In Black Armenia, Sona Hovakimyan and Arpi Balyan, who share their opinions and thoughts about the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war which began on September 27, 2020, and lasted 44 days. The war ended after three failed cease-fires on November 9, 2020, when Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia have signed an agreement to end the military conflict.

This recording is the first of our Women in Black series, a powerful collection of testimonies from Women peace activists from across the globe.

FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez speaks with Imogen, a representative of the Cambridge Radical Feminist Network to discuss its origins as a group, its politics and the recent controversies regarding free speech at the University of Cambridge.

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The Cambridge Radical Feminist Network is a network of feminist students and Cambridge residents who meet throughout the academic term to discuss feminism from a radical, materialist and gender-critical perspective. They hold discussion groups every two weeks, which are open to all women, student or not.

The Cambridge Radical Feminist Network believes that open, rational and well-reasoned debate is central to genuine feminist analysis, activism and ultimately liberation. They exist to provide a space on campus where lively discussion can take place.

Sall Grover is the founder & CEO of Giggle, a social network & social medial platform for females. Prior to Giggle, Sall pursued her dream of screenwriting in Hollywood but retired after almost 10 years due to extreme sexual assault and harassment. While she sold screenplays, her movies were never made, probably because they were all about strong women who come to realise that they don’t need a man. Sall currently lives in Australia. She is very happily eternally single and is the proud single-dog-mum to a 10-year-old, 20% evil and slightly misogynistic Pekingese-pomeranian named Puck.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, Sall talks to Sally Jackson about her life in Hollywood and why she returned to Australia, What led her to found Giggle and why it’s female only. Sexual harassment, #MeToo, Women's health, Sex-based rights and prostitution are also discussed.

This episode of the FiLiA podcast is a recording of the latest meeting of the FiLiA Feminist Book Club. FiLiA CEO, Lisa-Marie Taylor, talks to Dr Jessica Taylor about her new book, based on three years of doctoral research and ten years of practice with women and girls in which she explores the many reasons we blame women for male violence committed against them. Learn about the powerful forces in society and individual psychology which compel us to blame women subjected to male violence. Dr Jessica Taylor writes in a way that makes this information understandable to any woman and her accessible language clearly explains these complex issues.

Dr Olivia Smith is calling for a national system of legal advocacy, after publishing a report that aims to improve sexual offence victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system.

In this episode of the FiLiA podcast, Dr Smith, a lecturer in criminology & social policy at Loughborough University talks to FiLiA volunteer Gemma Aitchison about her campaign for independent legal representation for survivors of all serious sexual offences in England and Wales so that all victims of rape and sexual offences are given free access to a lawyer who can advise and represent them at important points in the criminal justice process.

Grizelda Grootboom from South Africa survived apartheid, homelessness and decades of sexual abuse. Now a famous author and survivor activist, Grizelda is interviewed by Luba Fein about her escape from a life of prostitution.

Susan Hawthorne discusses her new book Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy which draws on her decades of experience and radical feminist knowledge to take on a huge task. Vortex is a wide-ranging analysis of the devastation patriarchy wreaks, including on women, lesbians, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, refugees and landless people, nature and the planet itself.

In this podcast, Susan explains the key ideas in Vortex, the running theme in the book of the myth of Cassandra and Trojan horses, how growing up in Australia has affected her work and why she asks readers whether we care about the safety of lesbians. (And if that isn’t enough, Susan weaves in stories from her life, reads two of her poems and suggests how women might reverse the patriarchal crises.)

Illuminating her inner journey growing up mixed-race in Britain, Esua Jane Goldsmith's unique memoir exposes the isolation and ambiguities that often come with being ‘an only’.

Raised in 1950s South London and Norfolk with a white, working-class family, Esua’s education in racial politics was immediate and personal. From Britain and Scandinavia to Italy and Tanzania, she tackled inequality wherever she saw it, establishing an inspiring legacy in the Women’s lib and Black Power movements.

Plagued by questions of her heritage and the inability to locate all pieces of herself, she embarks on a journey to Ghana to find the father who may have the answers.

A tale of love, comradeship, and identity crises, Esua’s rise to the first Black woman president of Leicester University Students’ Union and Queen Mother of her village, is inspiring, honest, and full of heart.

Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans is a feminist, academic, social theorist and philosopher. On this episode of the podcast, she discusses her latest book, Transgender Body Politics published by Spinifex Press. Transgender Body Politics analyses the political movement of transactivism in a broader sense, explaining the damage this has done to women. Heather outlines the tragic absurdity of having to argue that lesbians don’t have penises, that “women” is a far preferable word than “menstruators" and feminists not being allowed to speak respectfully about this issue with women who disagree. Her book compellingly makes the case that what she calls a "transgender empire" is a form of patriarchy women must stand shoulder-to-shoulder against. Heather co-edited two previous books on the subject of the transgendering of children, with Professor Michele Moore. Hear Heather talking about this earlier work here. Find out more about Transgender Body Politics and how to order the book here, or check out this book review. Read more about Heather on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Luba Fein interviews Jewell Baraka, a writer, an activist, and a survivor who was trafficked into prostitution and the pornography industry from age 11-17, in Portland, Oregon, USA. Now, Jewell uses her voice, alongside other survivors and activists to shine a light on the human rights violations in the sex industry.

Hibo Wardere introduces her memoir 'Cut', detailing her life in Somalia and the UK and sheds light on the practice of Female Genital Mutilation, that's still being carried out in the 21st century.

In this episode, Pragna Patel reflects on her work with Southall Black Sisters, which was established in 1979 to meet the needs of Black (Asian and African-Caribbean) women, and aims "to highlight and challenge all forms gender-related violence against women."

Pragna joins FiLiA volunteer Sadia Hameed in a conversation that spans her earlier experiences to the present day, including: getting involved with the feminist, anti-racist and anti-fundamentalist struggles (and why they are interlinked), the impact of COVID-19 on black and minority women, and Southall Black Sisters' vital campaign to include migrant women in the Domestic Abuse Bill.

Gemma Aitchison is a director at the YES Matters UK CIC which is also part of the End Violence Against Women coalition. In this episode of the FiLiA Podcast, Gemma discusses the recent findings of a research report carried out by Yes Matters, looking at sexual violence and sexual harassment.

Dr Laurel Foster, Reader in Cultural History at the University of Portsmouth, gives a fascinating insight into some of the stories she uncovered from interviewing Women activists in Portsmouth for the Women’s Activism in Portsmouth project.

Alexine Solis is a young woman from France who has been in prostitution between 19 and 21 years old. She became an abolitionist activist after participating in the March of Survivors in Germany, Belgium and Spain in 2019.

Stephanie Davies-Arai is “interested in all things to do with communication.” She designed her own course & accompanying book Communicating with Kids, and is an expert trainer in schools for both teachers and students. She is a feminist, a mother, and campaigner against cultural messages that promote harmful social ‘norms’. Stephanie established Transgender Trend, which describes itself as “a group of parents and professionals concerned about the current trend to diagnose ‘gender non-conforming’ children as transgender.” She speaks and writes extensively on the transgendering of children. Transgender Trend’s website is a treasure trove of information, it includes comprehensive guides for schools, created in conjunction with teachers, child protection professionals, and lawyers. Stephanie’s work was shortlisted for the John Maddox Prize in 2018, which “recognises the work of individuals who promote sound science and evidence on a matter of public interest, facing difficulty or hostility in doing so.” Recently, Transgender Trend intervened in the judicial review brought by Keira Bell and Mrs A against the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, questioning whether under-18s can give valid informed consent to puberty blockers and hormonal interventions for gender dysphoria.

In this podcast, Stephanie Davies-Arai reflects on how her expertise in communication and combating gender stereotypes relates to her work in analysing the harms of gender identity teaching for young people. She explains how feminism informs what she does at Transgender Trend, an organisation she set up to question the mainstream narratives. Stephanie outlines the relationship between the "social transitioning" of children and adolescents in schools and the "affirmation model" of medical practice in gender clinics, and how girls may be more profoundly affected by these ideas. She covers recent developments in the UK such as the Kiera Bell case, in which Stephanie provided evidence about how our cultural context is inextricably linked with questions of "gender" and medical decision-making.

Check out Transgender Trend’s website and how to donate to support their work

Find out more about Stephanie here

Follow @Transgendertrd and @cwknews on Twitter

FiLiA speaks with Lina Al-Hathloul, the sister of Loujain Al-Hathloul, a women's rights campaigner from Saudi Arabia who has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia as punishment for her campaigning for women's rights. Loujain's campaigning work for women’s civil rights includes advocating for an end to the male guardianship system, for women’s right to drive, for women’s right to political representation and participation, and for the creation of a women’s shelter for victims of domestic violence. Lina has become one of the few family members able and willing to speak out on behalf of an incarcerated relative. She has become a tireless advocate for her sister Loujain and continues to bring to light the widespread mistreatment and torture of prisoners such as her sister at the hands of the Saudi government.

Simone Watson is a Survivor activist. She is the director of Nordic Model Australia Coalition and a former human rights delegate for Amnesty International. Simone entered prostitution in a legal brothel in Melbourne in her 20’s, she found the world of legalised prostitution to be anything but ‘safe’ and left.

Find the Nordic Model Australia Coalition on their Website and Facebook

Speak Up for Women is a non-partisan organisation that exists to protect and advance the rights and interests of women and girls in New Zealand, in law, policy, and society, based on the shared material reality of being members of the female sex. They support respectful, evidence-based dialogue and freedom of speech. They support the rights of transgender people to live their lives free from violence and discrimination. Rights do not exist in isolation and a fair society balances the rights of all.

As a feminist campaign, SUFW has been dismayed by the way in which women’s voices, both in New Zealand and overseas, have been silenced by slurs, smears and targeted harassment campaigns. It is not transphobic or bigoted to ask questions, to advocate for women and girls, or to draw attention to male violence. Where there is a conflict between transgender rights and women’s rights, SUFW believes it is critical that there is a need for respectful open discussion and that women’s concerns are listened to.

Speak Up for Women includes teachers, academics, health professionals, care workers, activists, lawyers, corporates, retirees, and students. They are run entirely by volunteers and receive no public funds or funds from external organisations. They are not affiliated to any political party or religious organisation.

Speak Up for Women Principles

Women are adult human females; girls are human female children.
Women and girls have the right to live free of violence, including sexual abuse or violence.
Women and girls have the right to organise and gather in safe, sex-segregated spaces.
Women and girls have a right to reproductive sovereignty.
Women and girls have the right to live free from commercial sexual exploitation.
Women and girls have the right to economic independence, pay equity, and living wages, including that which pertains to reproductive labour, child-raising, and domestic work.
Lesbians are exclusively same-sex attracted females and have the right to assert their same-sex attraction without facing harassment.
‘Sex’ refers to the biological characteristics that distinguish males from females. Sex is immutable. ‘Gender’ refers to the stereotyped roles, behaviours and attributes that society at a given time considers appropriate for males and females.

This episode features Ro Edge from Speak Up for Women. She is the New Zealand Spokewoman for Save Women Sports Australasia. Ro is a women’s rights advocate who comes from a sport loving family, so she has a special interest in ensuring girls and women retain their pathways to achieving sporting excellence. Ro’s daughter is currently studying under a university sporting scholarship in the USA. Her niece is focused on representing New Zealand at the Tokyo Olympic Games. She joins FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sanchez in discussion.

You can learn more about the work of Speak Up for Women on their website. And connect with them through social media on Twitter and Facebook.

You can listen to Speak Up for Women’s own Podcast here.

Valérie Pelletier (aka Legal Tender) is a militant abolitionist radical feminist from Montréal, Quebec in Canada. She is a survivor of prostitution, now a public speaker, a conceptual artist. a vlogger, a singer (jazz, country etc.) and the happy mother of 4 cat children. She is also involved at CAFES (Collectif d'Aide aux Femmes Exploitées Sexuellement).

Contact via email

Page as a militant artist (more English)

Activist project page (more French)

YouTube Channel

Afsana Lachaux is a policy specialist and an award-winning women’s rights campaigner on access to justice and violence against women and girls. This podcast interview highlights Afsana's legal struggle to obtain contact with her son Louis and the pitfalls of Sharia law in Dubai for women. Afsana writes about why a British court ordered her to pay her ex-husbands £94K legal bill here. She continues her battle as a mother to be reunited with her child, which so far has spanned eight years and three countries.

You can support Afsana by donating to her crowdfunder.

Find out more on Afsana’s website: afsanalachaux.com

Follow Afsana on Twitter @afsanalachaux and Instagram

Fair Play for Women is a campaigning and consultancy group which raises awareness, provides evidence and analysis, and supports policy-makers to protect the rights of women and girls in the UK.

Their aim is to facilitate the much-needed factual discussion about the need for sex-based policies for women and to provide policy makers with the guidance they need for evidence-based policy making that is fair for all. Fair Play for Women has earned a reputation, amongst the general public, policy makers, politicians and the media, for calm, rational, fact-checked, accurate information, statistics, and good-faith debate.

Fair Play for Women Guiding Principles

1) Biological sex exists, and in certain situations it is vitally important – objective truths are not bigoted or transphobic.

2) Sexism exists, it is endemic, and women and girls face structural inequality, male physical and sexual violence, harassment, reproductive injustice, unequal pay and so on precisely because they are members of the female sex.

3) Gender (or culturally determined roles, beliefs, and stereotypes) is neither natural nor innate but a socially constructed hierarchy borne of the dominant order that varies over time and between cultures; it is harmful to men and boys, but oppressive to women and girls. Sex and gender are not the same and must not be conflated.

4) Women and girls have a right to terms that are necessarily exclusive so that they can accurately name themselves and the injustice they suffer; a right to organise as a sex to address this injustice; and a right, in a democracy, to laws (and discussion of those laws) that protect them as a sex from this injustice.

5) Whilst we oppose all forms of bigotry and discrimination, trans rights do not exist in isolation and they must not come at the expense of another extremely vulnerable and disadvantaged group: women and girls.

FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez spoke with Dr Nicola Williams, the Director of Fair Play for Women. Dr Williams is a research scientist specialising in human biology. She has held a number of senior scientific positions within the pharmaceutical industry. She is now dedicated to her full-time voluntary role as campaign director and public spokeswoman for Fair Play for Women.

Dr Williams has an excellent working knowledge of the laws designed to protect women and the transgender community. As a professional scientist, she also offers a critical and informed view of current research necessary for evidence-based policy development.

You can learn more about the work of Fair Play for Women on their website. And connect with them through social media on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

You can also support the vital work of Fair Play for Women by donating to their Crowdfunding page.

Cherry Smiley is a feminist campaigner, artist, and researcher from the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) and Diné (Navajo) Nations. She has worked as an anti-violence worker in rape crisis centres and transition houses for battered women and their children, as the assistant coordinator for drop-in anti-violence groups for Indigenous girls, and as a project manager for a national native women’s organization.

Cherry speaks locally, nationally and internationally on sexualized colonial male violence against Indigenous women and girls. She is also the founder of Women Studies Online, an educational platform which aims to recentre women in their academic field utilising consciousness-raising as a liberational tool.

She is a co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry and was the recipient of a 2013 Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Person’s Case and the 2014 winner of The Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy. She is currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University where her research works to end sexualized male violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Cherry Smiley spoke with FiLiA’s Spokeswoman, Raquel Rosario Sánchez, about her work as a campaigner for the liberation of Indigenous women and girls, and as a researcher within the Canadian academic system.

You can read more about Women’s Studies Online on their website.

And you can read Cherry Smiley’s work as a writer on Policy Options, Medium and Feminist Current.

Mary Stolinski is not only a survivor of the sex trade but also a radical feminist thinker. She analyzes her personal story in the light of feminist and Marxist theories, and explains how a liberal, capitalist and misogynist society sacrifices women to the sex trade. Mary refutes the prevailing liberal beliefs about the sex trade and gender ideology.

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: courses@youmysister.org.uk

Find You My Sister on Twitter and Facebook

Get in touch: i@youmysister.org.uk

Lock up your boys, there's a new Sheila Jeffreys book in town: Trigger Warning. Her ideas are so triggering, we had to warn our listeners! Godlessness forbid you heard about women's liberation or other frivolous ideas without mental preparation. In this FiLiA podcast, you'll learn about Sheila Jeffreys's life as an activist and her opinions on religion (hint: it's a patriarchal institution), lesbianism, animal liberation and more. She is interviewed by Yağmur Uygarkızı.

Sheila Jeffreys is a radical feminist activist who has worked mainly against male violence and for lesbian feminism. She joined her first Women’s Liberation Movement group in the UK in 1973 and became a lesbian in 1977. In 1991, she moved to Australia to teach at the University of Melbourne, and retired back to the UK in 2015. She is the author of ten books on issues such as the history of sexuality, lesbian feminism, prostitution, gay men’s politics, beauty practices, the threat of patriarchal religion to women’s rights, and the politics of transgenderism.

We warned you...

Find Sheila’s book: Trigger Warning

Read Yağmur’s review of the book here

Louise Godbold shares her experience and knowledge on how trauma can affect us, what happens in the brain and how that might show in our behaviour and body. Lou shares examples from her work with fellow trauma survivors, and personally as a Weinstein survivor to help us deal with our trauma or support those we care about. For this podcast, she joins FiLiA’s Sally Jackson in discussion.

Lou is Director of Echo Training, which provides trauma & resilience training for families, communities, professionals and organizations. Echo Training draws on the latest scientific research on trauma as well as emotional regulation techniques and nonviolent communication to empower survivors and educate those who support them.

Follow Lou’s work:

Echo Training Website

Twitter @EchoTrainingOrg

Facebook

Instagram

YouTube

This episode was edited by wonderful FiLiA volunteer Michelle Kerwin.

Harriet Wistrich is founder and director of the Centre for Womens Justice 2016, a multi partner organisation aimed at bringing cases holding the state to account in relation to violence against women and girls. She is also a solicitor of many years experience, winner of the Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award 2014 and Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2018. She also a founder of the campaign group Justice for Women and trustee of the charity, the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize. She has acted for Sally Challen, for the two women who sued the police in the Worboys case and challenged the parole board decision to release him and for Fiona Broadfoot and others in their challenge of the governments disclosure and barring scheme requiring them to disclose criminal records for soliciting. Harriet joins Pippa Banham in conversation about her vital work for women, the law and feminism.

Update: Further to our interview with Harriet Wistrich in which we discussed this case and pending appeal we are absolutely delighted by the Court of Appeal’s recent judgment giving permission to proceed with a judicial review of the CPS policy & practice on charging rape cases. Huge congratulations to Harriet and all the team at the Centre for Women’s Justice for this important work.

LINKS

CENTRE FOR WOMEN’S JUSTICE

TWITTER - CWJ

TWITTER - HARRIET WISTRICH

FACEBOOK - CWJ

Audrey Ludwig is a discrimination solicitor who, unusually, puts her head above the parapet on social media. She tweets openly as @AudreySuffolk about her subject. As part of Audrey’s commitment to public legal education, she gives her general opinion where she thinks people have got rights under Equality law. More recently, she has done so with regards to the heated gender identity/trans rights versus women’s rights conflict. She tweets politely and tries to assume interest and goodwill from those who correspond with her. Sadly, this is seldom replicated by some who engage with her with hostile condemnations (perhaps known by some women as the “die in a fire scum TERF” brigade). For this podcast, she joins FiLiA’s Raquel Rosario Sánchez in discussion.

Audrey believes that people who come under all nine protected classes have equality rights, but sometimes those rights conflict and have to be balanced, in accordance with the principles of UK Equality law.

For this, she has been complained about to her employers, to her organisation's funders and to her professional networks, despite these explicitly being her own thoughts and not necessarily shared. Luckily, all the organisations have shown a backbone, but others have not been so fortunate. You can read her two most recent articles on the conflict between sex-based rights and ‘gender identity’ policies here and here.

Or connect through Twitter @AudreySuffolk

We spoke to lesbians living in block 13 of Kakuma refugee camp Kelly, Eva, Keryn, Juliet, Seema, Latifah, Ann-Marie, Brenda and Regina.

Escaping violence and lesbophobia in their home country, these women are sent by UNHCR to Kakuma refugee camp. As they are seeking asylum due to their sexuality they are put in the LGBT Block 13. This identifies them to other refugees in the camp and they suffer ongoing violence and abuse as a result. The UNHCR and Police have been informed of these crimes but do nothing to support them or keep them safe.

“Every woman deserves to be respected, Women have no dignity here, Please help us.”

FOR WAYS TO HELP please read this CAMPAIGN PACK, which details how you can support including: volunteering as a counsellor, donating funds, signing a petition, emailing UNHCR (the pack includes a draft letter & addresses) and sharing on social media.

Serenity Rose is heading a London-based survivor-led campaign, together with The Public Interest Law Centre, aimed at receiving justice, social change and acknowledgement of the harms done to women previously denied access to safety when applying for housing assistance after fleeing abuse and violence against women & girls. After the landmark amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill, women now have a legislative right to help but historical systemic failures to safeguard often hold lifelong repercussions, impacting survivors in ways which have largely been unseen and unheard. Serenity joins FiLiA’s Sadia Hameed to discuss her experiences as a survivor, the problems in our systems of misogyny and repeated discrimination against women and girls. Serenity hopes this campaign will create a collective voice of survivors who have previously been silenced, systemically, who basically say the truth of “this is what has been happening to us for all these years. She argues there needs to be a shift socially, and a recognition of that… we need to stand together and very very strongly state: “this was wrong and we want something done about it.”

Follow Serenity on Twitter

Read Serenity’s Blog

Take Action

If you feel you have been wrongly treated by London councils when you most needed help with accessing safe housing please get in touch with Serenity or Helen and Isabella from the Public Interest Law Centre who will provide you with an emphatic ear, guidance and a community of women working towards transcendence of what was wrongly done to us at our most vulnerable; one voice alone is often ignored, many voices together speak truth into change!

Vaishnavi Sundar is a self-taught filmmaker, writer, and grassroots activist. She is from Chennai, in the south of India. Vaishnavi produced and directed India's first feature-length documentary, called But What Was She Wearing? She is the alumna of the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Program, a professional exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Vaishnavi is the founder of Women Making Films, which is known for its effort to break the glass ceiling within the fraternity of domestic and world cinema. She has written, directed, and produced all her films, under her own production company, Lime Soda Films.

Even though But What Was She Wearing is India's only film on the sexual harassment women suffer in the workplace that covered voices from women across caste, class, region and religious differences, it earned her the title of “cancelled feminist” among some left-wing sectors, and she has since been wearing it on her sleeve, with pride.

Vaishnavi was “cancelled” on the basis of her political opinion women’s sex-based rights ought to be protected and that men should not be in women’s sex segregated safe spaces. Vaishnavi centres women in all her films, her writing and she is unapologetically pro-women’s sex-based rights. When she is not filming or writing scathing rebuttals to liberal feminist drivel, she is busy logging all things WTF on her new VLOG channel on Youtube.

You can learn more about Vaishnavi’s work here and on the Lime Soda Films Website

Watch the trailer for But What Was She Wearing?

Or connect through Twitter @Vaishax

Tegan Larin is a member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia (CATWA), a feminist organisation that works to end all forms of sexual exploitation of women. She has several years experience volunteering at front-line organisations in Melbourne that support women in prostitution as well as women who have been trafficked. Tegan completed a Masters of International Relations at the University of Melbourne including a semester at Humboldt University in Berlin where she focused on feminist issues and gender studies. Tegan is currently a PhD candidate at the Monash University XYX Lab. Her research interests include public policy, design, urban planning and feminist theory. Tegan's PhD research focuses on the unregulated sex industry in Melbourne. She joins FiLiA’s Sadia Hameed to discuss her work, the situation in Victoria, Australia, the importance of listening to survivors and why prostitution is different from a job at McDonalds.

Links:

CATWA Submission to the Victorian Review into Decriminalisation Of Sex Work

Tegan’s piece Full decriminalisation of the sex industry is a step backwards

Follow CATWA on Twitter: @CATWAustralia

Find out more on CATWA’s website: www.catwa.org.au

Watch this video about the situation of women in prostitution in Australia during COVID-19

Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans is an academic, philosopher, social theorist and feminist activist. She specialises in analysing the politics of the body. Heather’s most recent book Transgender and Body Politics is published by Spinifex Press later in 2020. Heather is a passionate advocate for women’s sex based rights and co-writer of the Women’s Declaration of Human Rights. Heather has co-edited two books on the subject of transgender children and young people together with Professor Michele Moore - Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body and Inventing Transgender Children and Young People. In this podcast, Heather explains why she uses the phrase “the transgendering of children,” why this is an important feminist issue, as well as why she believes the figure of the transgender child has been socially constructed and how this topic may be related to political forces, misogyny and medicine.

Dr Kathomi Gatwiri is an award-winning researcher and teacher. She is based at Southern Cross University on the Gold Coast Queensland where she teaches in the School of Arts and Social Science across a range of subjects. She completed her PhD with a thesis (and subsequent book) on ‘African womanhood, health, sexuality and incontinent bodies: A case of Kenyan Women living with vaginal fistula’. She has a Master of counselling and psychotherapy, and a Bachelor of Social Work with first class honours.

Kathomi talks with Sally Jackson about her work in Kenya raising awareness of the effects of vaginal fistula and the Counting Dead Women Kenya Project which she co-founded. This interview contains graphic descriptions of both.

Follow Kathomi’s work:

Counting Dead Women Kenya on Facebook and Twitter

Kathomi on Twitter and Instagram

Daisy is a perpetually exhausted autist and chronically ill home-educating mother of seven. She is an English literature student and a working-class radical feminist. She can sometimes be found writing things on Medium, but most of her activism takes place on social media platforms.

Daisy joins FiLiA’s spokeswoman Gemma Aitchison for a discussion about class, how women are kept in poverty and impacted by the welfare state.

Read Daisy’s essays on Medium

Follow Daisy on Twitter

Zara is a survivor of childhood sexual exploitation and abuse, trafficking and domestic violence. After experiencing twelve years of systematic sanctioned homelessness she turned her passions towards campaigning for better safeguarding, housing and equality for survivors of abuse. Zara is an advocate for women’s independence, freedom and personal empowerment of choice through the means of fundamental rights to safety and exiting from persecution.

On this podcast, Zara spoke to Sadia Hameed about her work which was thankfully successful: the APPG amended the Domestic Abuse Bill to include priority need for homeless survivors. On a local level, Brighton & Hove policy was changed to ensure women leaving refuge bypass temporary accommodation and go straight into settled housing. For more background, see this article &. petition about Zara’s case.

This audio was regretfully very delayed in publication. We hope listeners will find the conversation valuable and support Zara’s future important endeavours.

On the 8th anniversary of the UK signing the Istanbul Convention, Director of IC Change Robyn Boosey talks to FiLiA’s Policy Assistant, Adeline, about why ratifying the Convention could be so life-changing for many women in the UK.

Robyn Boosey is the co-director of the IC Change campaign, and Manager of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne's Preventing Violence Against Women Program. She was previously the policy lead on West and Central Africa at Tearfund.

Useful links

Sign and share the IC change petition.

Read Robyn’s blog for FiLiA

Follow IC Change on Twitter and Facebook @ICchangeUK

Find out more here: www.icchange.co.uk

Dr Wanda Wyporska, Executive Director of the Equality Trust, talks to FiLiA’s Public Policy Assistant Adeline about the 50th Anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, and why more work needs to be done to ensure women are being given a fair deal.

Dr Wanda Wyporska, FRSA, is Executive Director at The Equality Trust, the national charity that campaigns to reduce social and economic inequality. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of York, a trustee of ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations), Redthread Youth, and Equally Ours and Governor of a primary school. She is a regular keynote speaker and sits on or has advised a range of bodies, such as the ACEVO race advisory panel, the Fight Inequality Alliance Steering Group, the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Social Power review, NUS Poverty Commission and the Sex Education Forum Advisory Group.

Wanda has over a decade of experience working in the trade union movement, leading on equalities, social mobility and education policy and is an experienced campaigner. She is a TEDx speaker, has spoken at the United Nations, York Festival of Ideas, and chaired a panel at the Women of the World Festival. She regularly comments in the media, having appeared on Newsnight, BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze, Sky News, and BBC 1's The Big Questions, and written for The Guardian, HuffPo, and The Independent among other outlets.

Wanda was a Starun Senior Scholar at Hertford College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate in European History and subsequently published her first book, Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland 1500-1800 in 2013. It was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award.

Useful links

The Equal Pay Act: All You Need To Know (FiLiA resource)

Equality Trust lifetime earnings loss calculator

‘From Pin Money to Fat Cats’ report

Rebecca Mordan spoke with Sally Jackson prior to the FiLiA Conference in 2019 about her work and the amazing Greenham Women Everywhere project, which was shown at FiLiA in Bradford.

After graduating from Bristol Old Vic and working in film, theatre and television, Rebecca became disillusioned by the dearth of roles and opportunities for women.

A dynamic and enterprising artist, she created her own company Scary Little Girls to try and ‘level the playing field’, populating stories with fascinating, diverse female characters; and rescuing amazing women from the wastelands of history.

Rebecca has been intimately involved with every aspect of SLG, writing, directing, producing and performing to take the company from strength to strength. She is still also a grassroots campaigner against male violence and a frequent guest expert on BBC Radio and Sky News.

This podcast was regretfully very delayed in publication, but we hope listeners will enjoy the interesting conversation and support Rebecca’s important endeavours.

Find out more on the websites:

www.scarylittlegirls.co.uk

www.greenhamwomeneverywhere.co.uk

Follow Rebecca on:

Twitter @ScaryLittleGs

Facebook

Instagram @scarylittlegirls

Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith is a writer, feminist activist and development consultant of English – Ghanaian heritage. In 1975 she was the first woman of colour to be elected President of Leicester University Student’s Union, in 2001 she became the first woman of colour to be elected Chair of the Fawcett Society. In 1977-9 Esua served as one of the first black volunteers to be sent on Voluntary Service Overseas in Tanzania. She is a woman of firsts. This podcast talks with Esua about her first book: The Space Between Black and White, her memoir and reflections on growing up mixed race in Britain.

You can find out more about Esua on her website, and her publishers Jacaranda and the Twenty in 2020 campaign here.

Buy Esua’s book The Space Between Black and White from Jacaranda.

Follow Esua on:

Twitter @Esuantsiwa

Facebook

Insta esuantsiwa

Laura Richards BSc, MSc. MBPsS is an award winning and world-renowned criminal behavioural analyst, investigator and advocate. On this podcast, Laura joins Gemma Aitchison in conversation about her current vital campaign to protect women and girls from male violence and abuse: that serial stalkers and domestic violence offenders will be included on a Serial Perpetrator Register. Laura explains why “A cultural shift is urgently needed, one where we prioritise and focus on the perpetrator, ask questions about their offending behaviour, collect and share intelligence about their offending behaviour, assess and manage their behaviour, seek to hold them to account and close their behaviour down.”

Listener Actions

Read more about the cases on Laura’s blog and sign the petition for law reform.
Use this template letter to write to your MP and Police and Crime Commissioner and demand serial domestic violence offenders and stalkers are included on the Violent and Sexual Offenders Register and managed via the Multi-agency Public Protection Panel just like sex offenders. See this briefing for further information.
Public Bill Committee for the Domestic Abuse Bill is calling for written evidence. Please write and ask that serial domestic abuse and stalkers are included on the Violent and Sexual Offenders Register and managed via MAPPA. The deadline closes at 5pm on June 25, 2020.

About Laura

Laura Richards BSc, MSc. MBPsS is an award winning and world-renowned criminal behavioural analyst, investigator and advocate. Laura worked for a decade at New Scotland Yard as Head of the Homicide Prevention Unit, Head of the Violent Crime Intelligence and Analysis Unit and Head of the Sexual Offences Section.

Laura founded Paladin, National Stalking Advocacy Service following the success of the stalking law reform campaign and more recently Laura spearheaded the Domestic Violence Law Reform campaign in England and Wales, which resulted in the offence of coercive control being introduced in 2015. Laura has won numerous awards for her campaigning, advocacy and analytical work to better protect victims.

Laura is author of the Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment and Honour Based Abuse Risk Model and Oxford University Press book Policing Domestic Violence.

Laura is executive producer of Jennifer 42, consulting producer of Dirty John, the Dirty Truth, co-creator and executive producer of “The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey” on CBS and The Case of Caylee Anthony, Oxygen and host of the Netflix series Killer in the Family.

Laura is co-creator and co-host of the award-winning podcast Real Crime Profile and has a golden doodle puppy called Beatrice #SavageLittleBeast.

Find out more on the websites:

www.laurarichards.co.uk

www.dashriskchecklist.co.uk

www.realcrimeprofile.com

You can follow Laura and h

Mia is a radical feminist, mother and leftist and kickboxer. She was born in Sarajevo and moved with her family to Slovenija in summer of 1994, after the war ended in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her family was communist leaning atheists, and Muslims by heritage. Mia is an anti-theist. Mia cares deeply about the rights of women and girls, and the harms they suffer under patriarchy including religious oppression, commodification of women’s bodies (such as in prostitution and pornography), domestic violence and child abuse. She joins FiLiA’s Sadia Hameed to discuss Bosnia & Herzegovina after the war and her experiences.

Marie Laguerre is a French feminist and author. She was assaulted on the street by a man during the summer of 2018. She posted the video of the attack online, which became viral and drew media attention. Marie used the opportunity to raise awareness about violence against women and sexism in general. The man who physically assaulted her was convicted to prison. The event also led to her being harassed online by hundreds of people, mostly men. On this podcast, Marie speaks to FiLiA spokeswoman Gemma Aitchison about her experiences.

Marie Laguerre spoke at the FiLiA Conference in 2019 - “From being catcalled and punched in the street to cyber harassment - a story of sexist violence.” Marie’s book Rebellez-Vous with Laurène Daycard is available in to read in French.

The Feminist Student Society at the University of Bristol, Women Talk Back! provides a space for women to engage in lively discussion and debate. They are in pursuit of global liberation from all forms of patriarchy. They therefore centre all women who experience misogyny, but who may also face racism, anti-lesbianism, classism and other forms of structural discrimination that arise from male domination.

Women Talk Back! are committed to the power of sisterhood and believe that it is only through an understanding of women's similarities and differences that they can liberate themselves from patriarchy.
Women Talk Back! believes that dialogue with each other is the first step towards liberation from oppressive structures and practices. They welcome women from all backgrounds to join and take part in all aspects of the group. They aim to foster a culture of collective responsibility, care, and honesty with ourselves and one another.

Founding Members
May Mundt-Leach is a graduate in Social Policy and Sociology from the University of Bristol. She set up Women Talk Back! in the living room of her university flat in 2018 as she felt that there were few spaces on campus where women could come together and talk about the issues affecting them. Having worked in France after graduating, she is now looking to pursue postgraduate studies in social research in the UK. She is particularly interested in the role that policy and social interventions play in the everyday lives of women and girls.

Diana Barrera Moreno is Women Talk Back!'s Unruliness Coordinator. An enthusiast of dance, nature, art, and sport. She believes that the creation of a better reality for women is possible. She has helped hosting our weekly consciousness-raising gatherings, and multiple street safety workshops, as well as other hands-on projects. She has organised regular women-only parkour sessions across Bristol and encourages women to roam about in the outdoors. She is concerned about the pervasive nature of violence against women and will address the importance of visibilising this plight in society.

You can learn more about the Feminist Society here:

www.womentalkback.org/

Or connect through social media:

facebook.com/womentalkback/

twitter.com/womentalk_back

Rahila Gupta is a writer, journalist and activist. She has published a number of books, short stories and poems, including Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong and Enslaved: The New British Slavery. Rahila has been involved with Southall Black Sisters for many years. She joins Sally Jackson in conversation about her work, the importance of stories, the significance of women organising in Rojava and exploring themes such as disability, inclusion, displacement and survival.

Rahila’s website

Twitter: @RahilaG

Jo Bartosch is a feminist writer and campaigner against the sex industry. She is the Founder and Director the of anti-pornography think tank Click Off. Click Off draws on feminist knowledge and aims to raise awareness about the harms of pornography, to share learning with legislators and to build a movement against pornography in the UK. Jo joins FiLiA’s Spokeswoman Gemma Aitchison in a discussion about why feminists should oppose pornography and its objectification of women, and how to get involved in the campaign against it.

Sam Smethers talks to FiLiA’s Policy Assistant, Alice, about the UK Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unseen impact on some of the most vulnerable women in society.

The Fawcett Society is the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights. Sam Smethers is the Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society and took up her post in 2015. Prior to that she was the Chief Executive of Grandparents Plus for over six years. She had previously worked for the Equal Opportunities Commission as their Director of Public Affairs and also has nine years experience of working in parliament.

Sam is a trustee of Equally Ours, and a Director of the Good Law Project. She is also a former Trustee of the Fawcett Society and of single parent charity Gingerbread.

Fawcett Society: Website, Twitter, Facebook

Saba Ismail has been advocating for women’s rights since she was a teenager, co-founding the organisation Aware Girls with her sister Gulalai. Gulalai’s work focuses on sexual violence in armed conflict, the dangers of radicalisation and the abuse of women: “We cannot have peace without gender equality, and without gender equality we cannot have peace. These two things are linked.” Because of this activism, the family has been attacked and Gulalai forced to flee Pakistan. Since Saba’s discussion with Sadia Hameed was recorded, Gulalai arrived safely to the United States although her family is still facing persecution in Pakistan.

Read more about Gulalai

Support Gulalai and Saba’s nonprofit: Voices for Peace and Democracy

Follow Saba and Gulalai on Twitter

Hilla Kerner is a feminist who works with Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, the longest standing rape crisis centre in Canada. She joins Sadia Hameed in a conversation about Cindy Gladue, a mother and Indigenous woman involved in prostitution who was killed at the age of 36. In a shocking and disturbing trial, her accused killer was acquitted of murder. Cindy Gladue's case has become emblematic of the abuse and injustice faced by Indigenous women and girls in Canada, and the lack of justice for victims of sexual assault.

Read this blogpost about the case. More articles here and here.

Vancouver Rape Relief's Submission for the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter Website, Twitter, Facebook

Sarah and Alice discuss the current Government consultation on pre-charge bail, and why a change in police practice is needed to protect victims-survivors of rape, domestic abuse and stalking.

Sarah Learmonth is a committed advocate for women and girls. She worked for 8 years as the Communications Officer for a Rape Crisis Centre and holds an MA in Woman and Child Abuse. Her dissertation study, which focused on the use of bail in rape cases, has been referenced by such institutions as HMICFRS, the Office of the Victims Commissioner and the College of Policing as well as the Centre for Women's Justice.

Sarah’s particular interest is feminist participative research, and she now works on a number of projects and campaigns tackling sexual violence across the women’s sector.

Sarah’s blogs and research

7 facts everyone should know about pre-charge bail

Your chance to respond to the Government’s pre-charge bail consultation

Study of bail use in rape cases

How to submit to the consultation

You can submit to the consultation here. You can find a response template at the bottom of Sarah’s article here.

Raquel Rosario Sánchez is a writer, campaigner and researcher from the Dominican Republic. She became Spokeswoman for FiLiA on 25 November 2019, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Today, we are delighted to broadcast our first podcast with her.

Raquel specialises in ending male violence against girls and women. She is a featured writer at Dominican newspaper El Caribe and Spanish platform Tribuna Feminista. She was a contributor for Feminist Current and is the co-founder and editor of Women Talk Back! Her work has been translated into French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian and Korean.

As a campaigner, Raquel has worked for the National Organisation for Women and successfully championed the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in Oregon, United States. In the United Kingdom, apart from being our Spokeswoman, she has worked with feminist political campaigns Woman's Place UK and Fair Play for Women. As a researcher, Raquel is currently pursuing a PhD with the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol. Her MA and PhD work focuses on online communities of men who pay for sex.

You can read more about her work here:

www.raquelrosariosanchez.com

Or follow her on social media:

facebook.com/8RosarioSanchez

twitter.com/8RosarioSanchez

instagram.com/8RosarioSanchez

Simi Kamal is head of grants at the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund. She is a geographer, social development specialist, and women’s rights advocate with over 30 years’ experience in water sector, poverty alleviation, inclusive development, and gender equality. She is author or co-author of more than 400 papers, articles, book chapters, handbooks, and modules published and presented worldwide. Simi joins FiLiA to discuss her experience and work as part of the Every Woman Treaty - a campaign to end violence against women and girls worldwide.

Sign the Every Woman Treaty

Recording from the Violence Against Lesbians Panel at the FiLiA Conference in 2019.

Featuring:

Susan Hawthorne - Unnoticed, Unrecorded, Unremembered: Inscribing the Torture of Lesbians

Hilary McCollum - Voicing Violence Against Lesbians

Counsuelo Rivera Fuentes - My Experiences of Pain in Torture and Imprisonment in Dictatorial Chile

Angela C Wild - Lesbians at Ground Zero: Lesbians and the Cotton Ceiling

Recording from the Sunday Closing Session of the FiLiA 2019 Conference. Featuring a number of women speaking, including:

Sharena Lee Satti, author and passionate poet from Bradford, who speaks openly about her past and encourages others to find their voice through art and self-expression.

Megan Armitage, 19-year old university student and great-granddaughter of Bradford suffragette Lilian Armitage.

Dr Akima Thomas, Black feminist activist from a background in nursing, social work and psychotherapy. Founder and Clinical Director of Women and Girls Network which is a holistic therapeutic service working with women and girls surviving VAWG.

Recording from the Sunday Opening Session at the FiLiA Conference in 2019.

Marie Laguerre - From being catcalled and punched in the street to cyber harassment - a story of sexist violence.

Jessica Taylor - All the ways we continue to blame women and girls for male violence.

Miss Yankey - Secret chains and chambers: “Another Woman’s Cry” My story of survival.

A recording of the panel on the invention of transgender children from the FiLiA Conference in October 2019. Featuring: Charlie Evans, who founded the Detransition Advocacy Network; a charity to support people who have desisted or reversed gender reassignment. Susan Matthews, who shows how the new genre of gender identity workbook effectively creates a new consciousness within its readers, creating anxiety and developing an obsession with the concept of gender which is understood as biologically innate. And Heather Brunskell-Evans, who describes how the rationale for ‘transgendering’ children has grown out of the idea that ‘gender identity’ is pre-social. The new proposition (from transgender ideology) that ‘gender identity’ is an inherent, ‘born’ property is not a scientifically established fact but a disputed concept with a political history.

In the UK, as the coronavirus pandemic rages, we are seeing the effects of years of over-medicalisation of birth. The NHS has decided that the best use of its midwives would be to close all midwifery-led units, strip back their home birth services and redeploy all midwives to the obstetric units. This is a huge blow, but it is just the start. This move made it so that healthy women had to scrap their plans for a low/no-intervention natural birth and head to an obstetric unit, where the rates of intervention and caesarean are so much higher. Imagine the anxiety of that woman, being told to go to the hospital that everyone else in the country is being told to stay away from if they are not sick. Pregnancy is not a sickness and more often than not, doesn't need to be a medical event.

LINKS:

Greater Manchester Doulas Website

Facebook

Instagram

Meera Khanna is a feminist, social activist, writer, and poet, and the trustee and executive vice president of Guild for Service, an NGO focused on empowering marginalized women and children across India. She joins FiLiA in conversation as a member of the Every Woman Treaty Working Group, a campaign for a global treaty to end violence against women and girls. She has 20 years of experience working in development, including spearheading projects that build the economic, political, and legal capacities of underprivileged women and conflict-affected women and children in Kashmir. She has served as a consultant to the High Level Committee on the Status of Women, Government of India, and has served on two Expert Committees on Widows, one with the Supreme Court of India, the other with the National Commission for Women. Meera has authored two books on Kashmir, several papers on women’s rights and widows’ rights, and presented papers at both national and international forums and the UN system. She currently serves on the Civil Society Advisory Group for UN Women for India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan.

Sign the Every Woman Treaty

Susan Bewley is a feminist and Professor Emeritus in Obstetrics & Women’s Health at King’s College London. She qualified as a doctor in 1982 and was the first woman to subspecialise in maternal-fetal medicine in the UK. Susan became consultant & Clinical Director at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals. She was a Sexual Offences Examiner & job-share clinical lead at The Havens Sexual Assault Referral Centres. Susan has published widely on severe maternal morbidity and health aspects of violence against women & girls, and has chaired NICE Guideline Development Groups. She the chair of the charity Healthwatch-UK ‘for science & integrity in healthcare.’

Twitter @susan_bewley

Healthwatch-UK

Kathleen Barry is a feminist, sociologist and internationally recognised human rights activist. She is a Professor Emerita and the author of five books, including the landmark work Female Sexual Slavery published in 1979. Kathleen has been a close friend of FiLiA for a number of years and we are honoured to be speaking with her on this podcast. She joined a FiLiA weekend by Skype to handhold the team through our first Consciousness Raising session. Her book Susan B Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist was the inspiration for the decision to take FiLiA out of London and to a different city every year - one of the best decisions we made.

Kathleen’s Website

Books

Sam Walshe speaks about the impact of being exploited into street prostitution as a teenager and having disclosable criminal records. She participated in a legal case brought by three women (including Fiona Broadfoot) formerly involved in prostitution, which challenged the Government’s Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Regulations. After an unhappy childhood marred with violence and sexual abuse, Sam was exploited into prostitution at the age of 14. She was trafficked between Bristol and London on the streets, in brothels, massage parlours and escort agencies. By the time she escaped her pimp she was hooked on crack and heroin and remained on the streets to feed her habit. Sam has been drug free for 14 years and off the streets for the same time. She has 2 children and helps at a support project that works with sexually exploited women.

Sam spoke at FiLiA in 2019 on the Issue of Criminal Records for Prostituted Women.

Read about the legal case at the Centre for Women’s Justice.

Find out more information on the 2018 ruling.

Bev Jackson set up the LGB Alliance together with Kate Harris in October 2019. LGB Alliance is a lesbian-led organization for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals that emphasizes the importance of biological sex, not gender identity, when talking about sexual orientation. The best ways to support LGB Alliance are to follow it on Twitter at @AllianceLGB (and get all your friends to follow it as well!), find it on Facebook and to donate at: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/lgb-alliance

Those who want to get involved can use the contact form on the website lgballiance.org.uk

Read the LGB Alliance Guide on the Scottish GRA Consultation

Read FiLiA’s Sex Gender and Legal Reform

Manu Schon is a sociologist and radical feminist blogger for the Blog “Die Störenfriedas.” She is an anti-prostitution activist, co-founder of Abolition 2014 and LINKE – for a world without prostitution. Manu runs (together with others) SEX INDUSTRY KILLS – documenting homicides and attempted homicides in prostitution. In this podcast, she is joined in conversation with Heather Brunskell-Evans to discuss the subject of prostitution, the experience of German women and the sex industry and why feminists ought to support the Nordic Model.

This podcast was recorded prior to the FiLiA Conference in 2019, where Manu spoke on Feminist Perspectives on the Sex Trade.

LINKS

SEX INDUSTRY KILLS
MANUELA SHON
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

This podcast was edited by wonderful FiLiA volunteer Toyin Jimoh

In this podcast, Susan Hawthorne speaks to FiLiA about her work in researching violence against lesbians. Susan joined the Women's Liberation Movement in 1973, the Collective of Melbourne's Rape Crisis Centre in 1974 and has been involved in many different areas including as an aerialist in the Performing Older Women's Circus, organising writers festivals and feminist conferences. She is the author of fifteen books: three fiction, nine poetry and three non-fiction. In Uganda in 2002, a woman said to her, "Be careful, in Uganda lesbians are tortured." This set her on the path to researching why she had not heard this before. From 2003 onwards she has written numerous research papers, spoken on the subject of the torture of lesbians at conferences in India, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, South Korea, USA and Australia to almost no effect. In 2017, her novel Dark Matters was published. She hopes one day to reach a wider audience. Her poetry collections The Butterfly Effect (2005), Cow (2011) Lupa and Lamb (2014) and The Sacking of the Muses (2019) also deal with violence against lesbians and the importance of lesbian culture.

She spoke at the FiLiA conference in 2019 on two panels: violence against lesbians and feminist publishing.

Susan on Twitter @susanha

Read Dark Matters

Find out more about Susan and her work

Spinifex Press: Website, Facebook and Twitter

Came Women and Girls Development Organisation (CAWOGIDO) is a community based diaspora organisation dedicated to improving the health and well-being of a variety of people from disadvantaged communities, Black and Minority Ethnic groups, develop their potential and mobilise them to engage effectively in community development and regeneration activities and build their capacities. For this podcast, Margaret, Bernadette and Geraldine join FiLiA in a discussion on breast ironing.

From the CAME Website: “Breast ironing is a traditional practice that many Cameroonians do not talk about and nobody wants to work on it but it is secretly taking place. According to a recent study conducted in Cameroon it involves massaging or pressing the breasts of adolescent girls in order to suppress and reverse their development. The rationale is to prevent girls from developing breasts between 11 and 15 years old in the belief that a flat childlike chest will discourage unwanted male attention, rape and premarital pregnancy. Breast ironing is a well-kept secret between the young girl and her mother. Often the father remains completely unaware. The girl believes that what her mother is doing is for her own good and she keeps silent. This silence perpetuates the phenomenon and all of its consequences. Breast ‘ironing’ involves massaging the growing breasts of young girls in order to disappear the breasts, usually by using a stone, a hammer or a spatula that has been heated over coals. Breast ironing is terribly painful and violates a young girl’s physical integrity. Breast ironing exposes girls to numerous health problems such as cancer, abscesses, itching, and discharge of milk, infection, dissymmetry of the breasts, cysts, breast infections, severe fever, tissue damage and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts. This painful form of mutilation could not only have negative health consequences for the girls, but often proves futile when it comes to deterring teenage sexual activity. Saying that breasts are destroyed is an understatement. Adolescents are traumatised, mutilated. This is a serious damage not only on their physical integrity, but also on their social and psychological well-being. And we must stop it.”

CAME Women and Girls Website

CAME on Facebook

Read more about Breast Ironing

Mandy Sanghera is an award winning philanthropist, a community consultant and global campaigner often referred to as a global catalyst.

As well as being an international human rights activist & motivational TEDx speaker from the UK, Mandy has travelled all over the world, empowering & motivating others. With over three decades of experience, Mandy is an expert in various development-related fields. She has been driving innovation, building strategic partnerships, and promoting advocacy and programming in the areas of human rights, gender equality, accountability and social justice globally.

Mandy has helped hundreds of individuals and now reaches thousands through social media and her generous amount of worldwide TV appearances and public speaking engagements.

Find Mandy on Twitter and LinkedIn

(Apologies for the issues in sound quality - this was an online discussion and our fabulous volunteer editor did the best that she could with the recording!)

FiLiA has covered the case of a young British woman who reported being gang raped while staying at a resort in Cyprus. FiLiA called on the UK Government to take action: read our piece Cyprus: trial by porn culture

In this podcast, FiLiA speaks with feminist activist Bracha Barad, who flew from Israel to Cyprus to show support for the victim. Bracha Barad is a Co-founder and Executive Director of Kulan, an Israeli feminist NGO. She began producing the Tel Aviv Slut Walk in 2016, administration that is part of an international movement against sexual violence and victim blaming. Under her leadership the TLV Slut Walk has become the biggest feminist annual protest in Israel. She is also part of the managing team of the biggest feminist virtual community, Feminist Discourse, and together they founded Kulan, an organization that builds a community of women struggling for social change, and helps sound the voices of women in the field, in the media, and on social networks. Julian Norman joins her in a discussion about the case in Cyprus.

Kulan Website

Follow Bracha on Twitter and Facebook

Sign the petition for the Cypriot government to drop all charges

Find out updates about the case on BBC News

Mary-Ann Stephenson is the Director of the Women’s Budget Group, an independent network of academic researchers, policy experts and campaigners working for a caring economy that promotes women’s equality. She has worked for women’s equality and human rights for over twenty years as a campaigner, researcher and trainer. She was previously Director of the Fawcett Society and a Commissioner on the Women’s National Commission. She is a founder member of Coventry Women’s Voices and a board member at Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre. She has a PhD in Law from the University of Warwick.

Women’s Budget Group Website

@WomensBudgetGrp Twitter

Women’s Budget Group on Facebook

Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes spoke at the FiLiA Conference in 2019:

I am an activist, EFL teacher, sociologist, feminist Lesbian, writer and publisher.

As a feminist Lesbian writer and reader, I practise Sym/biography and Flourishing (two concepts I have coined and developed throughout the years).

As a publisher I give huge importance to the enmeshing ofboth concepts above in a wider system called Bibliodiversity.

As a writer, I love to ‘memory’ in company, so I form part of Las Juanas (feminist literary collective of women), SLAP (Latin-American poets and writers) and to Exiled Writers Ink.

I teach English to Syrian refugees in Shropshire (as part of the Refugee Council) and I am one of the three Directors of the Festival El Sueño Existe.

I am also a member of the Autobiography Study Group of the British Sociological Association

LINKS

VICTORINA PRESS

TWITTER

La Liberación de la Eva Desgarrada (1990) Poetry
Arena En la Garganta (2011) Poetry
Wonder-Makers: Navigators of the Thames: Stories and other narratives (2016) Bilingual Spanish-English with Las Juanas literary collective
Wonder-Makers: Navigators of the Thames (2015) (Bilingual Spanish-English Poetry with Las Juanas

Jalna Hanmer is a Professor of Women’s Studies who has been influential in developing our theory and understanding of male violence against women and established early Women’s Studies courses at the University of Bradford. In 1974 Jalna was involved in setting up the National Women’s Aid Federation (NWAF) and later the Women’s Aid Federation England (WAFE). She also was part of the organising group for the international conference on multiple forms of violence against women (WOVA) held in Brighton in 1996. She was a founder member of the radical feminist journal, Trouble & Strife, and is a founder member of Feminist Archive North. 50 years on from her first involvement with the women’s movement, Jalna is now involved in the Campaign to End the Leeds Sex Trade. She is joined in conversation with FiLiA’s Sally Jackson.

Please support the Campaign to End the Leeds Sex Trade by visiting the CELST website or emailing admin@celst.co.uk

Hala Aldosari, PhD, Saudi Arabia/USA, is a scholar-activist best known for advocating for women’s rights and protection from violence in Saudi Arabia. Her writing, speaking, and activism focuses on ending the country’s oppressive male-guardianship law and reforming family law. She was part of the protest to end the driving ban in Saudi Arabia; founded Aminah, an online resource center to promote full citizenship rights of Saudi women; and hosted a radio show for women’s rights. Hala’s activism and extensive writing for international media draw from her research on women’s health, women’s rights, and violence against women in Saudi Arabia.

Currently, she is at the MIT Center for International Studies (CIS) as its Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow conducting research on successful initiatives of women’s rights in the Arab countries and will use her fellowship to establish an advocacy organization to advance women’s and human rights in Saudi Arabia. Hala was previously a scholar in residence at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University, where she examined the intersection of reproductive health and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. In 2018, she was awarded the Alison Des Forges Award by Human Rights Watch for her extraordinary activism. Hala is part of the steering committee for the Every Woman Treaty to end violence against women and girls. For this podcast, she is joined in conversation with FiLiA’s Sadia Hameed.

Find out more about the Every Woman Treaty and Sign

Sian Norris is a feminist activist, writer, poet, journalist, copywriter and producer. She is the founder and director of the Bristol Women’s Literature festival. In her journalism she specialises in feminism, LGBT rights and the rise of the Far Right. For this podcast, Sian is joined in conversation by FiLiA volunteer Alice to discuss her work, including Sian’s piece Revealed: controversial plan to boost religious lobby in Brussels as far right pledges to fight for Christian Europe.

(Please note, this discussion was recorded before the changes in abortion legislation in Northern Ireland!)

LINKS:

Article about the rise of the Far Right in Europe

Sian Norris Website

Blog: Sian and crooked rib

Bristol Women’s Literature Festival

Twitter: @sianushka

Angela C. Wild is a lesbian feminist activist, writer, researcher and a political artist. Her work focuses on promoting uncompromising lesbian visibility, building lesbian culture, fighting for women-only-spaces as well as challenging compulsory heterosexuality, institutionalised femininity, motherhood and pornography.

She is a founding member of Get The L Out lesbian activist group and author of Lesbians At Ground Zero the first research on the cotton ceiling.

She is a contributor to the radical feminist journal 'Rain and Thunder'. Her work is featured in the 'Archives Recherche Culture Lesbiennes' in Paris. She is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Women’s Studies.

She spoke at the FiLiA conference 2019 on the panel Violence Against Lesbians.

LINKS:

Adrienne Rich - Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence

Angela C. Wild - A bundle of Joy

Get The L Out Website

Wild Womyn Workshop

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Panel discussion on surrogacy - a human rights violation, recorded at the FiLiA Conference 2019.

Do we need a feminist analysis of surrogacy? the law commission of England and Wales and the Scottish law commission have been conducting a public consultation on provisional proposals for reform of the laws governing surrogacy in the UK. the closing date for the consultation is October 11, 2019. after reviewing all responses, they will decide on their final recommendations for law reform, accompanied by a draft bill (legislation) in 2021.

Their project does not seek to examine whether or not surrogacy should be allowed. instead, the Commission’s first premise is that surrogacy is an accepted form of building a family, as recognised by the department of health and social care (DHSC). the DHSC already recognises surrogacy as a legitimate form of family-building. their focus in the project is on improving how surrogacy operates. they believe that while society and attitudes have evolved, the law has not done so sufficiently.

the speakers on this panel - Julie Bindel, Sheela Saravanan, Jennifer Lahl and renate Klein - challenge the Commission’s proposition that surrogacy is progressive. they demonstrate that when the focus shifts onto a feminist examination of women, women’s bodies and women’s human rights a different conclusion about the politics of surrogacy will be reached.

STILL WE RISE

WAST roadshow - “Still WE Rise”- is written, performed by our members of WAST and directed by Magdaline Bartlette. The roadshow is made up of drama, song and poetry performances which show the reality through our own experiences of the trauma that we and so many other women seeking asylum have to face living under immigration rules in the UK. The roadshow also shows how together we can give each other strength and hope. WAST will showcase an abridged version of the roadshow with songs from some members of their renowned choir.

WAST is made up of women seeking asylum in Greater Manchester, many of us are under threat of deportation and are destitute. We share our experiences, empower and support one another whilst fighting for our rights and raising awareness about the issues that force women to seek international protection and the effects of the injustices experienced through the UK immigration system.

We are women of all ages, nationalities, ethnicities, sexual orientation and disability. We speak many languages, practice many religions and accommodate for all.
The WAST choir go into the community to reach out to people who have never met anyone in the asylum system and think we are given homes and free mobiles and don't know how we suffer and also that we are women just like them, who care about our kids and just want to be safe and free.

In 2015 the Women Asylum Seekers Together WAST choir were recognized for their commitment to the rights of women by the Liberty who awarded them the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award. The WAST choir continue to sing and use their voices to raise awareness of the challenges they and other women face.

LINKS

WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

SOUTHALL BLACK SISTERS’ ‘BRADFORD CONNECTION’ AND THE POLITICS OF SIMULTANEOUS RESISTANCE: LESSONS FOR CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM

Southall Black Sisters is 40 this year and FiLiA is organising its 6th feminist conference in Bradford. Against this backdrop, Pragna Patel, director of SBS, explores BME women’s experiences and political activism in the context of austerity, rising racism and religious fundamentalism and the attendant patriarchal agenda. She explores the ways in which SBS’s 'Bradford connection' has shaped the organisation's brand of secular, anti-racist and anti-fundamentalist feminism and draws out lessons for contemporary feminism.

LINKS

SOUTHALL BLACK SISTERS
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

Note: the questions and answers for this podcast had to be recorded separately as we were unable to continue the conversation over the internet due to Rojava being an active war zone. FiLiA is grateful to the Women Defend Rojava team for speaking with us.

About Women Defend Rojava, in their own words from their homepage:

“We, the women of Kongra Star, began the campaign Women Defend Rojava to co-ordinate international resistance in solidarity with the women of Northern and Eastern Syria and the Rojava revolution against the occupation war of the Turkish state.

For over a year, the Turkish army has illegally occupied the city and region of Afrin. This has particularly impacted the women of the region, with rape, kidnapping and gendered violence systematically used as weapons. The Turkish army and the jihadist militias they fund and support work together in these aims, and have forcibly imposed Sharia law on women of all different beliefs.

The Turkish state is now threatening to make a direct invasion along the whole of the border with Syria that is currently self governed by the peole of the region under the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria. This region, commonly known as Rojava, was liberated by the revolutionary forces from Daesh fascists, bringing peace and freedom. Erdogan and his government have made their intentions plain: to wipe out the revolution.

The Rojava revolution is a revolution of all women of the world. Kurdish, Arabic, Assyrian, Ezidi, and other women of the region have inspired and given hope to thousands of women globally who are fighting for and imagining a better world. The revolution positions anti-patriarchal struggle as the most important battle, and thousands of people have been able to connect the revolution with common struggles in their own surroundings. Many women from all over the world have from the beginning participated in the revolution, some travelling to Rojava to join the struggle on the ground.

The fighters of the women’s defence forces YPJ took a central role in the military defeat of Daesh, and more widely the women of the Rojava revolution have devoted their whole lives to their freedom and the freedom of their communities. This is also the freedom of all women and all men who want to create a better world, based on true gender liberation, ecological principles, and socialist values. Our freedoms are linked because of what the revolution represents, because of principles of internationalism, and because of the international links that have already been built up.

This means that when the Turkish state attacks Rojava, it attacks us all. Women Defend Rojava aims to connect women who stand up, stand together, and speak out against the Turkish attacks. We publish voices of women’s resistance from Rojava, and messages of solidarity from around the world. Only the force of organised women can defend Rojava, and we will show that the women of the region are not alone. With your voices our voice will get stronger.

We co ordinate solidarity actions so we can have a united international presence. We call on groups and individuals to take action and share the results with us. We will spread the word of marches, demonstrations, occupations, statements and letters, messages of solidarity and any steps taken in the fight against occupation and fascism.

In all our different colours but together in our aims, we will stop the Turkish state’s war on women, democracy, and freedom.

We will unite, resist and defend!

Jin Jiyan Azadî!”

Homepage and social media:
www.womendefendrojava.net
Twitter: @starrcongress
Facebook: Kongra Star Diplomacy
Instagram: @WomenDefend

Contact:

Huschke Mau is a German woman who was in prostitution for a long time.
She´s a writer, an activist and doing her PhD. Her biography in her own words:
- Was born

- Experienced heavy violence in childhood

- Ran away at 17

- Has been in prostitution for many years

- Survived rape, prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide attempts

- Attended university

- Writing her PhD right now

- Founder of Netzwerk Ella, the only prostitution survivors group in Germany

- Activist for the Nordic Model since 2014

Huschke will be speaking at the FiLiA Conference in 2019.

LINKS

HUSCHKE MAU
NETZWERK ELLA
FACEBOOK – HUSCHKE MAU
FACEBOOK – NETZWERK ELLA
TWITTER - HUSCHKE MAU
TWITTER – NETZWERK ELLA

HOUZAN MAHMOUD is feminist activist, public lecturer and co-founder of Culture Project, a project formed to raise awareness about feminism and gender in Kurdistan and diaspora. She is also editorial board member of Culture Magazine, a quarterly publication published in Kurdistan/Iraq. She has an MA in Gender Studies from SOAS, London University. She was born in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1973 and currently resides and works in London.

She is the winner of 2016 Emma Humphrey’s Memorial Award and One Law for All’s Secularism Award for 2018 for her tireless work in defense of women’s rights and secularisation of Kurdish society.

Houzan is scheduled to speak at the FiLiA conference in 2019 on Kurdish Women’s Experiences and Political Alternatives. For this podcast, she is joined in conversation with Heather Brunskell-Evans.

Vandana Aparanti is an anti-caste activist and expert in the field of oppressed caste women’s rights. She is co-founder and the Chair of STOP gender based caste oppression, one of the only women’s organisation raising awareness about caste discrimination in India and the UK. Vandana has been into active campaigning to bring caste legislation into British law, participating in protests and events around the issue. Vandana has spoken at a number of events about human rights violations on oppressed caste women.

Vandana holds a Masters in Sociology and is currently working as a Domestic Violence Officer in a well-known BME charity in London.

Ms. Lahl is founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Lahl couples her 25 years of experience as a pediatric critical care nurse, a hospital administrator, and a senior-level nursing manager with a deep passion to speak for those who have no voice. Lahl’s writings have appeared in various publications including Cambridge University Press, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, and the American Journal of Bioethics.

Lahl made her writing and directing debut producing the documentary film Eggsploitation. Her other films include Breeders: A Subclass of Women?, which focuses on surrogacy, Maggie’s Story, which follows one woman’s egg donation journey. Lahl’s latest feature film is #BigFertility .

Jennifer Lahl will be at the FiLiA Conference in 2019 on the panel about surrogacy. Heather Brunskell-Evans joins her in conversation for this podcast.

Links:

International Campaign to StopSurrogacyNow

Follow Jennifer Lahl on Twitter

Read the book Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out

Fiona Broadfoot is a sex trade survivor, having been trafficked into prostitution at the age of 15. Fiona spent 11 years entrenched in the violent world of prostitution. she has since worked to raise awareness of the harm it causes to young people and their families. She was a close friend and fellow campaigner of Irene Ivison, the founder of PACE (formerly known as CROP), and was instrumental in the setting up of CROP in 1996, alongside her own organisation, EXIT, which was formed offer support to women exiting prostitution. Fiona travelled the country with Irene, campaigning, speaking about her own experiences, at conferences and on television, challenging the public and professional perception that young people involved in CSE were ‘prostitutes,’ who had chosen that ‘lifestyle’. Irene sadly, died in 2000, but Fiona had the strength and commitment to carry on the fight, alone. This was at a time when CSE was not recognised as a child abuse issue, but Fiona did not let this deter her.

She went on to become involved in training professionals and working with young people at risk of, or being, sexually exploited. She could speak directly to young people, using the credibility given to her by her own personal experience.

Fiona has also continued to campaign on the issue of violence against women and girls. She has spoken at many national and international conferences, impressively for the last 3 years at the United Nations in New York and has advised government policy in both Ireland and Scotland. She is a fierce proponent of the Nordic model and is a member of SPACE International (Survivors of Prostitution Abuse Calling for Enlightenment). She is an inspirational communicator, who can change attitudes through the power and passion of her public speaking. She is also selfless in telling her own story, sometimes at much personal cost, to demonstrate the reality of being a victim and survivor of prostitution abuse. She can communicate effortlessly and effectively with victims, survivors, professionals and those in power. She has spent her life combatting sexual abuse and violence.

Fiona recently achieved a place on the highly competitive Lloyds School for Social Entrepreneurs and has now started her own social enterprise called the ‘Build a Girl Project’. The Project is firmly based on a survivor led perspective and is deeply committed to supporting and empowering victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse and challenging the normalisation of sexism and misogyny that girls and young women are often faced with and constrained by.

For the FiLiA conference in 2019, Fiona will be opening the event, leading the March Against the Sex Trade and chairing a panel on the sex trade.

Support Build A Girl HERE

BUILD A GIRL TWITTER

FIONA BROADFOOT TWITTER

BUILD A GIRL FACEBOOK

An award-winning freelance journalist, Louise specialises in education and social affairs. She has written extensively on domestic abuse, the effects of poverty on children’s education and child protection.

She has a particular interest in family courts and the care system, and is a member of The Transparency Project which aims to promote greater understanding of family law.

In 2017, Louise was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils for her work on the BBC One film Behind Closed Doors and her Guardian reporting on domestic abuse. In 2016 she was also shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, and was a joint winner of the Bar Council’s Legal Reporting Award. She has won a number of CIPR Awards for outstanding education journalism, and has twice been the winner of the Rosemary Goodchild Award for Sexual Health Journalism run by Brook and the Family Planning Association.

She is joined by FiLiA’s Sally Jackson for a discussion on this podcast and will be speaking at the FiLiA Conference in 2019.

Louise’s Website

Sammy Woodhouse describes her story like this:

“I am an author, public speaker, campaigner, fundraiser, consultant & assisting in training throughout the UK. My greatest achievement, I am a mum to 2 beautiful boys. I am also a young woman rebuilding my life after I was groomed and abused mentally, physically and sexually as a child and throughout my adult life.

In July 2013, I contacted Andrew Norfolk at The Times newspaper and handed over evidence that proved I was abused and failed by authorities. My story was published, naming the man that abused me, Hussain and the deputy leader of Rotherham council in August 2013. This triggered the Alexis Jay report, which exposed 1,400 children being abused and failed in Rotherham. A police investigation (Operation Clover & Operation Stovewood) was also launched into my abuse and into all non-recent child abuse cases in South Yorkshire making it the biggest investigation in the UK.

In February 2016, after testifying in court, Hussain was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison alongside 5 others, for a total of 102 years. Four trials in total under Operation Clover & Thunder, 21 survivors, 20 criminals and a total sentencing of 290 years 6 months.

As an award winning campaigner, I have campaigned for improvements around counselling services, better national funding, mandatory education, licensing policies and Sammy’s Law.

As a campaigner I am trying to bring awareness and make changes at a national level.”

Sammy Woodhouse Website

Twitter & Facebook

Read Sammy’s book - Just a Child: Britain’s Biggest Child Abuse Scandal Exposed

Nicole Jacobs has been named as government’s designate Domestic Abuse Commissioner.

Nicole has been the CEO of charity Standing Together Against Domestic Violence for the last 6 years and has more than 25 years’ experience supporting women subjected to abuse. During her career, Nicole has worked in a number of roles, including a frontline practitioner, in senior operational and management roles, and as a trainer and strategic leader.

The role of Domestic Abuse Commissioner will lead on driving improvements on the response to domestic abuse in the UK, championing victims and making recommendations on what more should be done to better protect victims and bring more offenders to justice

Nicole said “It is an honour and a privilege to be appointed as the first Commissioner and I intend to raise the voices of victims and survivors of all ages, status and background and ensure that we shine a light on practice that fails them.”

The news was warmly welcomed by the sector with messages of support praising her leadership, integrity, ability to listen and ability to raise the voices of survivors.

FiLiA is delighted to welcome such a great feminist to the role.

http://www.standingtogether.org.uk/

This podcast contains sensitive information, which some listeners may find distressing.

FiLiA is honoured and humbled to be able to share this important, brave and honest conversation with Rina. She introduces herself like this:

“I am Rina. I am a public speaker, advocate and campaigner for Domestic and Honour Abuse and the impact abuse has on our mental health.

Having been on the receiving end of physical, emotional, sexual, financial, psychological and honour abuse.... and surviving, and having my own struggles with mental health, as a direct impact of trauma. I now share my journey, as well as assisting in the delivery of training to professionals, business's and the general public on these issues, in order to raise awareness, educate and impact change.

I also support and help other survivors on their journey to a life free from abuse and the family court process as well as being a volunteer champion at a local Domestic Abuse charity.”

Twitter: RinaC110306

Instagram: xRed80x

Contact information for help or advice can be found from the following national agencies/charities:

Women’s Aid (Domestic Abuse Support): 0808 2000 247 (24h helpline). http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/ and www.womensaid.org.uk

Samaritans (Mental health & Suicidal Behaviour Support): 116 123 (24 hours) www.samaritans.org

Karma Nirvana (Honour Abuse & Forced Marriage Support): 0800 5999247 (Mon - Fri 9 am to 5 pm) www.karmanirvana.org.uk

Rape Crisis UK: www.rapecrisis.org.uk

Mind (Mental Health Support): www.mind.org.uk

Freedom Programme: https://freedomprogramme.co.uk/

FiLiA is honoured and humbled to be able to share this important, brave and honest conversation with Nancy. She introduces herself like this:

“Hi, my name is Nancy I am 63 years old and I've been abused since I was 8 years old. I have gone through many bad times, until I found out that there were people that could help and believe in me. I am now 3 years free of any abuse xxx”

Contact information for help or advice can be found from the following national agencies/charities:

Women’s Aid (Domestic Abuse Support): 0808 2000 247 (24h helpline). http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/ and www.womensaid.org.uk

Samaritans (Mental health & Suicidal Behaviour Support): 116 123 (24 hours) www.samaritans.org

Karma Nirvana (Honour Abuse & Forced Marriage Support): 0800 5999247 (Mon - Fri 9am to 5pm) www.karmanirvana.org.uk

Rape Crisis UK: www.rapecrisis.org.uk

Mind (Mental Heath Support): www.mind.org.uk

Freedom Programme: https://freedomprogramme.co.uk/

Daniela Nadj, LLB, LLM, PhD is a graduate of Queen Mary, University of London, Cornell University and the University of Westminster. She has been a lecturer in Public Law at Queen Mary. Daniela’s research interests are in the fields of international criminal law and human rights, feminist legal theory and housing. She is the author of the recently published book Women, Wartime Sexual Violence and Interpretation of Gender in the Contemporary International Criminal Trial, published byRoutledge in 2018. FiLiA’s Julian Norman joins Daniela in conversation for this podcast.

E-mail Daniela: D.nadj@qmul.ac.uk

Sign the Every Woman Treaty

Ailbhe Smyth has been active in LGB&TIQ, feminist and radical politics for many years. She was head of Women’s Studies at UCD from 1990 until 2006 when she left the university to work in the community sector. She was centrally involved in Ireland’s successful Marriage Equality campaign in 2015. A co-founder and Convenor of the Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment, she co-directed the victorious Together for Yes national campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment and legislate for women’s right to choose in Ireland. She was on the Time Magazine list of the '100 Most Influential People' this year. She is joined in conversation with Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans.

Follow Ailbhe on Twitter

Dr Renate Klein is a Swiss-Australian biologist and social scientist. She has been a feminist health activist and academic since the 1980s and was a founder of FINRRAGE (Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering). She is the (co)author and (co)editor of 15 books on radical feminist theory and critiques of biotechnological procedures. Her most recent books are Surrogacy. A Human Rights Violation (Spinifex Press, 2017, translated into German as Mietmutterschaft. Eine Menschenrechtsverletzung; Marta Press, 2018) and Broken Bonds. Surrogate Mothers Speak Out (Spinifex Press, 2019, co-edited with Jennifer Lahl and Melinda Tankard Reist). She is also an original signer of www.stopsurrogacynow.com/ and a founder of ABSA – Abolishing Surrogacy (Australia).

Renate will be speaking on the panel Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation at the FiLiA conference in October 2019. For this podcast she is joined in conversation by FiLiA spokeswoman Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans.

LINKS

Read Renate’s books Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation and Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out

STOP SURROGACY NOW

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Sarit Bloom is a member of the group Women Wage Peace (WWP), which started in November 2014 after Operation Protective Edge, also known as the 2014 Gaza war. WWP is the largest grassroots movement in Israel that strives to promote a political agreement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sarit explains the history of the group, their aims and why it is so vital to involve women in every aspect of the peace process.

Women Wage Peace Website

Women Wage Peace Worldwide Supporters Facebook Group

Pieces for Peace

1325 From Theory to Practice Women Wage Peace Talk Security

Donate to Women Wage Peace

Pray the Devil Back to Hell: the remarkable story of incredible Liberian women who came together to bring peace to their country

Merly Åsbogård is a wonderful feminist who will be speaking at the FiLiA conference in 2019. She describes herself like this:

”I administrate a support group online for women with experience of different kinds of abuse.

“I'm the woman behind the account Viskans Viol on Instagram. The account is used to raise awareness of prostitution, men's violence against women and body positivity. I hold lectures about the same and write on my first book as we speak.

“I believe in changing the attitude and general discourse when it comes to how we perceive the people in prostitution the people buying people in prostitution. When it comes to prostitution as with many problems in society we need to keep tearing down the patriarchy. Keep questioning the men's rights to a woman’s body. How can vulnerability be allowed to be a commodity for men to buy? Work towards the Nordic Model.”

Merly shares the following link:

@Viskans Viol

Julie Furlong is a lesbian feminist activist, who is part of a group of proud lesbian women organising the Lesbian Strength March in Leeds on 7th September. The day will include a march for lesbian women from 2pm, followed by a rally for lesbian women and all female supporters. She speaks to FiLiA volunteer Zoï Hélène in this podcast about topics including what lesbian feminism means, why supporting this event is so important, and Anne Lister.

Julie would like to share the following links:

Lesbian Strength March GoFundMe

Eventbrite page: Lesbian Strength March

Lesbian Strength on Facebook

Twitter @strengthlesbian

Email: lesbianstrength@gmail.com

Leeds Resisters

Resisters United

Magdalen Berns YouTube

Campaign to End Leeds Sex Trade

Zainab Ali Khan is a Gender & Research Specialist with 10 years of work experience in the Development and Corporate sectors of Pakistan. Her educational background includes a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine in English Literature and a minor in Women’s Studies. Furthermore, she also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto in Women and Gender Studies. Ms Ali Khan extensively researched honor crimes in Pakistan for her dissertation entitled, “Honor Crimes in Pakistan: A Critical Analysis of the Zina and Qisas & Diyat Ordinances”.

She is the author of a number of case studies, success stories, reports, and magazine. As a women’s rights activist who feels very passionately about gender equality, Ms Ali Khan has had the opportunity to speak about women’s empowerment in Pakistan and internationally. She is also part of the working group and steering committee of Everywoman Treaty, an NGO and initiative of Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights, to build a stand-alone global treaty on violence against women and girls.

Sign the Every Woman Treaty

Jody Raphael is Senior Research Fellow, Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Law Center, DePaul University College of Law, Chicago, Illinois. She has been researching in the areas of prostitution and human trafficking since 2001 and is the author of four books on violence against women with particular emphasis on denial. In this interview, she discusses her article “Decriminalization of Prostitution: The Soros Effect” with Heather Brunskell-Evans. Jody explains the Soros position on prostitution, its relationship to neoliberalism, the issue of how research is used, the funding involved, and what feminists can do.

Read Jody’s article “Decriminalization of Prostitution: The Soros Effect”

Read about this podcast in Dignity Journal

Dignity Journal

Read Jody’s latest book, Rape Is Rape: How Denial, Distortion, and Victim Blaming Are Fueling a Hidden Acquaintance Rape Crisis

Maryam Namazie is a political activist, campaigner and blogger. She is the Spokesperson for Fitnah - Movement for Women's Liberation, Equal Rights Now, One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB). Maryam is an inveterate commentator and broadcaster on rights, cultural relativism, secularism, religion, political Islam and many other related topics. She is the producer and host of Bread and Roses TV broadcast in English and Persian via New Channel TV and deemed ‘immoral’ and ‘corrupt’ by the Islamic regime of Iran. She is joined in conversation by Sadia Hameed, FiLiA and CEMB spokeswoman.

Attend an event!

4th July 2019: Evening on LGBT+ rights and apostasy, London

31st Aug - Sept 1st, 2019: Celebrating Dissent Festival, De Balie in Amsterdam

Louise Winstanley has been working with ABColombia since 2010. As Programme and Advocacy Manager, Louise’s role is to manage and co-ordinate the work of ABColombia - the joint advocacy project of five leading British and Irish organisations with programmes in Colombia: CAFOD, Christian Aid UKI, Oxfam GB, SCIAF and Trócaire. Amnesty International and PBI are observers. ABColombia members work with over one hundred partner organisations in Colombia. Many of ABColombia partners are local and national women organisations and human rights defenders working specifically on issues impacting Indigenous, Afro-Descendant and peasant farmer communities. ABColombia has been working with women's organisations throughout the Peace Talks to support ethnic leaders and civil society organisations to achieve a gender focus in the Peace Accord. Louise speaks here with FiLiA volunteer Marta Nunez.

Find out more:
Twitter: @ABColombia1
FACEBOOK
Instagram: abcolombia
Youtube: ABColombia
ABColombia website: https://www.abcolombia.org.uk

Write a letter to your MP about the situation in Colombia - draft copy here!

ColombiaWomenPeace

Eleanor Nwadinobi, MBBS, EMA, FAAC, Nigeria, is an independent gender, health, women’s rights, and women, peace, and security consultant. She has worked on a wide range of issues including child trafficking, girls education, peace building, and violence prevention with the African Union, ECOWAS, UNICEF, the World Bank and others. Eleanor oversaw the women, peace and security networks that conducted advocacy on the Nigerian National Action plan, including special initiatives around widows and persons with disabilities in conflict-prone environments. The network actively advocated for the release of the 200 Chibok girls abducted by insurgents. More recently, Eleanor facilitated support for passage of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition act in Nigeria. Eleanor has presented numerous papers on women’s rights and security, most recently “Achieving Economic Empowerment and the Women Peace and Security Agenda” at the 2018 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women conference. Eleanor is president of Widows Development Organisation and president-elect nominee of the Medical Women’s International Association, a global association for women physicians. Eleanor joined the Every Woman Treaty Working Group in 2016 and served on the Expert Special Committee Life Stages. She speaks here with FiLiA’s Julian Norman.

Please look at the Every Woman Treaty website and sign the treaty! Check out the call to action: https://everywoman.org/the-peoples-treaty/.

Find Every Woman Treaty:

@EveryWomanTreaty on Facebook

@WomanTreaty on Twitter

Everywomantreaty on Instagram

Use #isigned to share posts/tweets related to the Treaty

Karen Dobres, Equality FC Campaign Manager for Lewes Football Club, talks about why and how Lewes became the first football club in the world to achieve pay parity for its male and female players, and why - shockingly but brilliantly - it is still the ONLY club in the world to do it. Karen is interviewed by Jacqueline Winstanley, Global Disruptor, Founder, CEO Universal Inclusion and our FiLiA lead on Diversity and Inclusion.

Want to help reverse the years of injustice in women's football? Become a co-owner of Lewes FC's 100% community-owned club. Use this link for a discounted rate for FiLiA listeners.

reclaimthegame

Find out more about Lewes FC on their website, and on social media:

Twitter - @LewesFCWomen (Lewes Women's Team), @Lewes_cfc (Lewes FC), @LooseDebra (Karen)

Instagram - @lewesfcwomen, @karendobres

Facebook - @LewesFC, @LewesFCWomen

Find out about Jacqueline’s work on her website, and on Twitter - @univinclusion

Bec Wonders is a PhD student at the Glasgow School of Art in secondwave feminist print culture and theory. She co-founded the Vancouver Women's Library and earned a Master of Publishing at the Simon Fraser University. She is interviewed by Heather Brunskell-Evans.

Bec’s Website

Twitter @wondersbec

Instagram @frauenkultur

Take an ACTION: Support "Sister Library"- Physical Space For Women Authors

Dr Ava Kanyeredzi is a lecturer on the Forensic, Clinical and Community Psychology programmes at the University of East London. Her book Race Culture and Gender: Black Female Experiences of Violence and Abuse (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) presents an in-depth account of nine Black British women’s experiences of violence and abuse, and their feelings of being silenced as children, women, Black women and as victims/survivors. She speaks here with FiLiA volunteer Sally Jackson.

Read Ava’s Book: RACE, CULTURE AND GENDER

(Apologies for the poor sound quality - this was an online discussion and our fabulous volunteer did the very best that she could with the recording!)

Megan Manson joined the National Secular Society in 2017 as a Campaigns Officer. The NSS campaigns for the separation of religion and state and equal respect for everyone's human rights, so no one is either advantaged or disadvantaged because of their beliefs. The NSS works in the UK and internationally to challenge religion's disproportionate influence on governments and in public life. It defends freedom and equality as a counterbalance to the powerful religious lobby that can threaten human rights worldwide.

National Secular Society Website

Exploring Secularism

No More Faith Schools Campaign

Twitter: @NatSecSoc

Facebook: National Secular Society

Kiri Tunks is a teacher, trade unionist, socialist feminist and one of the co-founders of Woman’s Place UK (WPUK). This grass-roots women’s rights campaign group started with 5 demands:

Respectful and evidence-based discussion about the impact of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act to be allowed to take place and for women’s voices to be heard.
The principle of women-only spaces to be upheld – and where necessary extended.
A review of how the exemptions in the Equality Act which allow or single sex services or requirements that only a woman can apply for a job (such as in a domestic violence refuge) are being applied in practice.
Government to consult with women’s organisations on how self-declaration would impact on women-only services and spaces.
Government to consult on how self-declaration will impact upon data gathering – such as crime, employment, pay and health statistics – and monitoring of sex-based discrimination such as the gender pay gap.

Find out more at WPUK Website

Share the WPUK manifesto with your politicians in the UK

Follow WPUK on Twitter @Womans_Place_UK

Khadija Khan is a feminist, independent journalist and commentator. She is originally from Pakistan, but left the country after she criticised religious fundamentalism. Khadija now lives in Germany. Her work focuses on women's rights and secular critiques of Islam. She is joined in an important two-part series of conversations by Sadia Hameed: ex-Muslim, anti-theist and secular women's rights activist.

Part 2 of 2

Follow Khadija on Twitter: @KhadijaKhan__

Sadia Hameed is Spokeswoman for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Great Britain

Follow Sadia on Twitter: @sadia936

Meghan Murphy is a freelance journalist and writer, who uncompromisingly highlights women’s rights issues. She is the founder and editor of Feminist Current, Canada’s leading feminist website. Meghan is visiting the United Kingdom in May 2019, where she will be appearing at a number of events. She speaks to FiLiA’s Heather Brunskell-Evans about international issues facing feminists, silencing, social media bans, and women’s sex-based rights.

Feminist Current

Feminist Current Podcasts

Mine Atli: Lawyer and activist from THE ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN TO SUPPORT LIVING, or KAYAD as its known in Cyprus, speaks with FiLiA volunteer Sally Jackson.

KAYAD was established in 1998 with the aim of eliminating all forms of discrimination against women and contributing to gender equality by strengthening the profile of women in the community.

As the first and only of its kind in the northern part of Cyprus, KAYAD has carried out various awareness raising activities to prevent domestic violence and has made an effort to ensure that all steps it has taken for community development are sustainable.

Within a volunteer framework KAYAD has provided solidarity to all women, families and children that seek support.

KAYAD Website

Follow Mine on Twitter: @MineAtli1

UPDATE 26th May 2019

“I end my hunger strike but continue my fight against isolation”
Leyla Güven

Article in the Morning Star HERE

Sabiha Temizkan is the daughter of Leyla Güven. Leyla is a Kurdish member of parliament from the Peoples’ Democratic Party in Turkey and co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress. Leyla has been on hunger strike since November 8th 2018 to protest the conditions of isolation in which PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has been kept. Sabiha and Güzide Diker (interpreting) speak with Sally Jackson from FiLiA about Leyla’s resistance for democracy and peace in Turkey and how women can support her.

Speak Up for Leyla Campaign

FiLiA Statement – a letter to Leyla

Follow Sabiha on Twitter: @sabihatemizkan

Write to your MP in the UK

Dr Sasha Rakoff is the CEO of Not Buying It, a UK-based feminist group who challenge the sexual exploitation of porn and the sex trade. She is joined by Sally Jackson from FiLiA in a discussion on strip clubs, including the recent exposure by Not Buying It of the sexual acts expected of performers at Spearmint Rhino in Sheffield. Sasha explains why the lap dancing industry is a problem for all women, especially the women working within it.

Website: www.notbuyingit.org.uk

Sign the petition: www.notbuyingit.org.uk/Petition

Email for support with local activism: no@notbuyingit.org.uk

Sunday Times Article: Sting at Spearmint Rhino

Khadija Khan is a feminist, independent journalist and commentator. She is originally from Pakistan, but left the country after she criticised religious fundamentalism. Khadija now lives in Germany. Her work focuses on women's rights and secular critiques of Islam. She is joined in an important two-part series of conversations by Sadia Hameed: ex-Muslim, anti-theist and secular women's rights activist.

Part 1 of 2

Follow Khadija on Twitter: @KhadijaKhan__

Sadia Hameed is Spokeswoman for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Great Britain

Follow Sadia on Twitter: @sadia936

Sheila Jeffreys became a feminist activist in 1973, and a lesbian feminist in 1977. She is the author of 10 books on the history and politics of sexuality, and is a Professorial Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She has been involved in many groups and campaigns against male violence towards women. Sheila's most recent book is Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK 1970-1990. On this podcast, she discusses her work with Heather Brunskell-Evans, touching on the scope, culture, ideas and practices of lesbian feminism, and the forces that led to the disappearance of the lesbian feminist movement. To quote Sheila: "Lesbian feminism is now rising again, and I hope that this book will provide fuel to that flame."

Read: The Lesbian Revolution (available through News From Nowhere and others)

(Apologies for the poor sound quality - this was an online discussion and our fabulous volunteer did the very best that she could with the recording!)

Kendra Houseman is a survivor of child sexual exploitation and gangs. As a child, she always used to think that adults couldn’t see her. Kendra now works with children and young people at risk of child sexual exploitation and gangs, and trains and educates practitioners around the subject. She promotes greater awareness of the issues with her campaign #ICU, and was a key speaker for International Women's Day 2018. Follow Kendra's journey on her blog Out of the Shadows.

Follow Out of the Shadows on TWITTER

Hibo Wardere is a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) who spends her time working to ensure that no other girl will be subjected to the pain and long term physical and emotional damage it causes. She works in the UK and all over the world advising governments and teaching schools and health professionals about FGM.

In Somalia, where Hibo was born, 98% of women have been cut; it is most commonly practised in west, east and north Africa. It is also practised in parts of the Middle East and Asia, particularly Indonesia, but, with migration, girls in any country can be at risk. It is estimated there are 170,000 women and girls in England and Wales who have been affected by it, and 63,000 who are at risk.

Hibo talks about her own experience, the works she is involved now and why stopping FGM is everyone’s business. She will be talking in more detail on the Sunday of the FiLiA conference in 2018.

Follow Hibo on TWITTER

Carol J. Adams is an American activist and author who has written extensively on the sexual politics of meat. Here she discusses how a culture of meat-eating and the objectification of women as flesh to be consumed are intimately connected. She argues that veganism and the dismantling of misogny go hand-in-hand.

Sodfa Daaji is a Tunisian-Italian feminist engaged in Europe and Africa. Here she interestingly draws out the connections as well as differences between European and African cultures, traditions, and religions, and their effects on the achievements of women’s rights across both continents.

Elizabeth Gordon is an artist and a campaigner against Non State Torture. She advocates for non state torture to be named and recognised for what it is, so that the voices of survivors have the words to name the violence they suffered. She campaigns for a human rights based approach to supporting survivors. She is interviewed here by Julian Norman.

Find out more artprintspace.net

PERSONS AGAINST NON-STATE TORTURE

Huda Ammori an activist and Campaign Officer from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign talks to us about her family history in Palestine and why she got involved as an activist in this issue. She discusses the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and how you can get involved. Huda will be speaking on our Panel - Justice for Palestine: Women’s Perspective on Saturday morning of the conference 2018.

Huda Ammori - Palestinian Solidarity Campaign

FiLiA Podcasts

Working people have always struggled to get their voices heard. The Working Class Movement Library in Salford records over 200 years of organising and campaigning by ordinary men and women. Our collection provides a rich insight into working people's daily lives as well as their thoughts, hopes, fears and the roles they played in the significant events of their time. And it’s free for everyone to come and use…

The Library couldn’t function without its amazing team of volunteers, who undertake tasks such as welcoming visitors; cataloguing books, photographs, posters, badges etc; and looking after the Library’s garden which has been in severe need of taming! We also have a dedicated team of volunteers who research and then write the display boards for our popular exhibitions. FiLiA volunteer Sally came to speak to the team as they prepared the forthcoming suffrage centenary exhibition at the Library, Votes for Women…or Votes for Ladies?, which opens at the Library on 5 October 2018.

TWITTER

This is part two of a two-part series from CADFA & FiLiA.

CADFA was formed to promote human rights and respect for international humanitarian law, and our main method has been to link people in order to build awareness and understanding and encourage people to be active in pursuit of human rights.

Special thanks to: Nandita, Khawla, Hiyam, Kifaf and Salma.

Here FiLiA spokeswoman Heather Brunskell-Evans joins CADFA to interview women from Palestine to hear directly what impact the Israeli—Palestinian conflict is having on their lives.

Find out more: http://www.cadfa.org/

TWITTER

This is part one of a two-part series from CADFA & FiLiA.

CADFA was formed to promote human rights and respect for international humanitarian law, and our main method has been to link people in order to build awareness and understanding and encourage people to be active in the pursuit of human rights.

Special thanks to: Nandita, Khawla, Hiyam, Kifaf and Salma

Here FiLiA spokeswoman Heather Brunskell-Evans joins CADFA to interview women from Palestine to hear directly what impact the Israeli—Palestinian conflict is having on their lives.

Find out more: http://www.cadfa.org/

TWITTER

Gail recently presented in London providing insight, information, solutions, and a passion for building a healthy generation of kids.

'Culture Reframed responds to the pornography crisis by providing education and support to promote healthy child and youth development, relationships, and sexuality.

Our research-driven programs teach parents and helping professionals how to recognize and respond to the role pornography can play in sexual violence, unhealthy relationships, internet addiction, negative self-image, sexual dysfunction, depression, sexually transmitted infections, injuries, and other health problems.

We aim to empower participants to create positive and lasting change in families and communities harmed by the sexually abusive and hyper-sexualized media that marks the digital age.'

CULTURE REFRAMED

PARENTS PROGRAMME

We are Nurses, Self-funded Independent Scholars, Human Right Educators & Defenders, Researchers, Grassroot Supporters and Listeners of Atrocities

Our work includes: Supporting the Human Rights of Women who have survived Non-State Torture, International Human Rights Education, Speaking, Consulting, Research, Activism, Writing, and Listening to those who have survived atrocity.

PERSONS AGAINST NON-STATE TORTURE

nonstatetorture

TWITTER

The 50:50 Parliament #askhertostand programme encourages, advises and mentors women on their journey to becoming an MP. The group was founded by Frances Scott in 2013.

Charlie Brades-Price is a television producer and has been a member of 5050 Parliament since 2014. She makes campaign films for the group and is often seen out and about in London wearing her 5050 parliament t-shirt.

5050 PARLIAMENT

5050Parliament #AskHerToStand

TWITTER