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.
No articles found matching your filter. Please try removing a criteria for a wider search.
One wonders how the world’s largest human rights organisation, whose main claim is to ‘work to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied’ has found itself in opposition to women - some of whom have been victim to the most egregious suppression of their rights and dignity - discussing what has happened to them and why.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness involving psychosis (loss of contact with reality), with many myths associated. Women experience it differently to men, and face specific difficulties associated with their experiences.
It's vital that the needs of Women with schizophrenia are considered, particularly around MVAWG. Sisterhood with Women affected by serious mental illnesses, although sometimes difficult, is desperately important.
Women are rightly critical of trade unions. Sexism and misogyny abounds and Women raising concerns about their sex-based rights have been, at best, ignored and at worst vilified and attacked. Many Women now feel that unions are working in opposition to our rights. But trade unions remain a powerful force within UK society and Women make up the majority of the membership. Can we make the union movement work for us?
Porn and Porn-influenced culture is shaping the way children construct sexual behaviour and relationships. In this blog I outline a number of the harms of pornography and how teachers - as well as parents/carers and other professionals who work with children - can have clear and factual conversations with children about the harms of porn-influenced sexual abuse.
This piece combines the reflections of FiLiA’s Anti-Prostitution Lead Luba Fein and FiLiA’s Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez after participating in the 4 th World Congress to Abolish Prostitution. The Congress was organised by CAP International, Canadian-based organisation La Cles, Breaking Free, the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter and the EVA Centre. At the end of the Congress, the organisations launched the Montreal’s Call for the Abolition of Prostitution, which is signed by more than 60 organisations.
Mexican women and men went to their polling stations, the overwhelming majority to vote for a woman to be the next President of Mexico. A woman in charge of a State, which has miserably failed, so far, to guarantee a dignified life for women. Despite national laws, and international treaties, in Mexico women are not free from violence. Every day, the lives of over 64.5 million women in this country are plagued by femicide, and all kinds of violence: sexual, political, economic, reproductive, institutional, symbolic and structural.
Women and nature are both exploited under capitalist patriarchy - both legally and illegally. In addition, the climate crisis already disproportionately impacts women, who comprise 70% of the world's poor and face barriers to migration. Ecofeminism looks to women and nature for solutions to a man-made problem.
Gemma Aitchison is founder of YES Matters UK that supports children and young people who have suffered sexual abuse and exploitation. She also campaigns and works to prevent VAWG and improve victim rehabilitation including the compulsory PSHE curriculum and CSE Prevention Policy. She says ‘My mother died on Wednesday. As a survivor of CSEA and given that over 80% of perpetrators of CSEA are family members and family friends I figured my complex struggles around this are not unique. One that women who are survivors will relate to. It's a poem about that.’
Yasmin Morais is the founder of Vulva Negra, the first materialist feminist project ‘born from the desire to unite the materialist perspective of radical feminism with the narratives of black theorists and the lived experience of black Brazilian and Afro-Latin women.’ Yasmin travels around Brazil and the world with her itinerant lectures at the ‘Encontro Feminista Vulva Negra’ (Vulva Negra Feminist Meeting).
In this interview, Andreia Nobre talks to Yasmin Morais about the many pressing issues currently affecting Brazilian women, including femicide, domestic violence and the plight of black and brown women in a Latin American country, despite the country having been under a leftist government since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected for office in 2022 for the third time.
Lisa-Marie (FiLiA CEO) was introduced to the issue of the Kurdish struggle by Rahila Gupta. FiLiA recognised the potential of the Kurdish women's struggle to inform our understanding of the potential for liberation and has platformed Kurdish women's voices at conference, and in our blogs and podcasts, as well as attending in-person solidarity meetings. For this contribution, Rahila Gupta, author and activist, was invited to shape an interview with Kongra Star, the women's umbrella group leading the women's revolution in Rojava, North and East Syria. Kongra Star did what they do so well ‒ they used a collaborative approach and invited contributions from many women's groups in the region. The result is an extraordinary piece and one that we are very pleased to share with you on International Women's Day.
On 29th January 2024 Lisa-Marie Taylor, CEO of FiLiA, attended an event organised by the local council and billed as one of a series, with the aim of ‘hearing your ideas’ to ‘create the positive change you would like to see’ in Brighton & Hove. What she witnessed during the course of the two-hour workshop left her shocked; silencing, intimidation and a lack of willingness to engage on what is one of the key topics within the VAWG sector currently.
On UN International Day of Education, Rose Rickford shares what she has learnt from researching women's skills sharing projects of 1970s-90s Britain. Across the world, women are still systematically excluded from learning and using a whole range of manual skills. Even in countries with relatively high levels of educational equity, vocational training is still almost entirely sex-segregated. While young women learn care and beauty skills, young men learn construction and manufacturing skills. When it comes to getting work, jobs in skills that men learn are much better paid, so this is an important issue for women's equality. Part of the solution is of course to pay higher wages for the skills that women train in. But another part is to increase women’s participation in skills they are currently excluded from. In the 1970s-90s, women set up their own courses and projects to teach one another these skills. For those who took part, it was a doorway to a world they were previously locked out from.
This article by Hannana Siddiqui and Selma Taha, members of Southall Black Sisters, brings into focus the stark reality of the plight of migrant and asylum seeking women escaping gender-based violence; and how the state traps them in abusive relationships or gender related persecution. It also highlights and celebrates the fight back by black feminists to these sexist and racist immigration laws and the wider hostile environment.
How does one start with women in motion and end up with a women's movement? I want to share one of my last bike trips with the audience. I'm a woman on the go, meeting women along the way. I want to share how biking helps me on a daily basis. For me, biking is not only a means of transport, but a way of liberation, giving me a sense of freedom. It is also about women taking up public space and connecting together. I've noticed that the women I meet on the road are often isolated, with a need and a desire to connect with other women. I'd like us to be able to meet up on the same road, women on bikes, and share a stretch of the road together, an episode in our lives. A women's cycling movement! I want women who read my piece to find inspiration, if not join the movement to help them break any of the patriarchal chains that oppress us.
