FiLiA FiLiA

"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