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How the ISS Workers Won
How the ISS Workers Won

Our ISS striking women are showing every worker how real trade unionism is done. Their inspiring struggle has set an example for the entire labour and trade union movement to follow. It’s working-class women like this who have the most to lose from the attacks on pay, conditions and public services and who have the most to gain from getting organized in the unions and fighting back. Women who are prepared to to get properly organized in their workplaces are the ones who will genuinely shape working conditions for future generations and stop society from slipping into barbarism.

BlogSara DahlenClass Politics, Representation
From Grassroots to the International: A Focus on Women’s Rights and Activism at Huge Annual Feminist Conference
From Grassroots to the International: A Focus on Women’s Rights and Activism at Huge Annual Feminist Conference

FiLiA steps into the spotlight as a showcase for new thinking in feminism | Portsmouth, 16-17 October

At its seventh annual event, at Portsmouth Guildhall this month the FiLiA conference is hosting the Women who, in 2021, put feminism back at the top of the political agenda.

DiaryJ SteinSex-Based Rights, Sexual Exploitation Industries, Representation, Reproductive Rights, About FiLiA, Health, Class Politics, Disability, Anti-racism, Peace, Global, FiLiArts, General Feminism, Secularism, Lesbian Rights, Spirituality, Violence Against Women
#110 Fighting for Freedom: Lina Al-Hathloul Speaks About Her Sister Loujain’s Imprisonment
#110 Fighting for Freedom: Lina Al-Hathloul Speaks About Her Sister Loujain’s Imprisonment

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.

PodcastJ SteinGlobal, Representation, Violence Against Women
#85 FiLiA meets: Wanda Wyporska
#85 FiLiA meets: Wanda Wyporska

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.

PodcastLisa-Marie TaylorSex-Based Rights, Representation
#76 FiLiA meets: Sam Smethers
#76 FiLiA meets: Sam Smethers

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.

Sam Smethers is the Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society. Sam has longstanding experience in equalities and human rights, having worked for the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. She also has nine years’ experience working in Parliament. Sam is passionate about equal representation, valuing and sharing care and closing the gender pay gap.

PodcastLisa-Marie TaylorRepresentation
#55 FiLiA meets: Mary-Ann Stephenson
#55 FiLiA meets: Mary-Ann Stephenson

FiLiA meets Mary-Ann Stephenson, 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.

PodcastLisa-Marie TaylorRepresentation
FiLiA meets: Karen Dobres
FiLiA meets: Karen Dobres

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.

PodcastLisa-Marie TaylorRepresentation
HOW ONE WOMAN BECAME A FAN OF WOMEN'S FOOTBALL
HOW ONE WOMAN BECAME A FAN OF WOMEN'S FOOTBALL

How One Woman Became a Fan of Women’s Football
By Karen Dobres, Volunteer Equality FC Campaign Manager, Lewes FC Women

 My Dad never liked it, and my Mum, sister and girlfriends weren’t fans.

In the ‘70s at primary school the boys had kickabouts on the field, but us girls challenged each other on hopscotches chalked on playground concrete. Football just passed me by.

BlogLisa-Marie TaylorHealth, Representation
OPEN LETTER TO DAWN BUTLER MP
OPEN LETTER TO DAWN BUTLER MP

Open Letter to Dawn Butler MP, Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary

Dear Ms Butler

We write to draw your attention to a post on social media in which an elected Labour official replied to a woman bringing unfair dismissal proceedings against her employer with the message “Good. Go fuck yourself.”

BlogLisa-Marie TaylorRepresentation
FEMINIST ACTIVISM - Gemma Aitchison
FEMINIST ACTIVISM - Gemma Aitchison

Yesterday I went on a protest for access to justice for women and girls. Because justice is a basic right of citizenship and yet because of entrenched sexual objectification of women and girls, it is one we are denied. This is a response to the between 1.3 and 1.8% conviction rate. The use of porn as an excuse for accidentally murdering us. The lack of taking women seriously leading to more crime. The consistent problem of police committing sexual exploitation and domestic abuse without action. Finally the new rule of electronic devices for seven year history for those reporting rape. #ENOUGH

BlogLisa-Marie TaylorRepresentation, Violence Against Women
THE VIEW FROM EUROPE: PROTECTING POLICY FROM POPULISM

The view from Europe: protecting policy from populism 

Gender equality has been recognized for decades not only as a fundamental principle of the European Union but as one of the EU’s long-term success stories, a part of its identity. The  introduction of the concept of gender mainstreaming in the European treaties in the 90’s reflected the idea that gender equality was about more than adding a few women into decision-making positions. Instead, it required a fundamental review of policy – including the principles of democracy, transparency and inclusiveness.

BlogLisa-Marie TaylorGlobal, Representation
A REPLY TO SALLY HINES by HEATHER BRUNSKELL-EVANS
A REPLY TO SALLY HINES by HEATHER BRUNSKELL-EVANS

The representation of women’s bodies has been subject to masculinist authority for much of recorded history. Before the 19th century, religious leaders in the West informed women it was the lusty, disobedient Eve, not Adam, who was to blame for earthly sexual corruption.  Since the 19th century, scientists added to the historical narrative the ‘truth’ that women were incapable of taking up positions of authority in the public sphere since women’s hormones and brains were clearly responsible for their educational, social and political inferior status.  

BlogLisa-Marie TaylorViolence Against Women, Representation, Sex-Based Rights
Fancy Little Problems?

Watching the reaction to Marks & Spencers’ #fancylittleknickers adverts has been illuminating. Women in Nottingham complained that the juxtaposition of “MUST HAVE outfits to impress” with fully clothed male mannequins and “MUST HAVE fancy little knickers” on female mannequins was reflective of a wider problem with objectification of women, including in advertising, and was in poor taste given the recent Irish case in which a seventeen year old girl’s fancy little knickers were held up in front of a jury as evidence that she might have been out on the razzle, and therefore presumably up for it with any older man in the mud on a lane.

BlogJulian NormanRepresentation