Supporting feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements to thrive, to be a driving force in challenging systems of oppression, and to co-create feminist realities.
While we dream of a feminist world, there are those who are already building and living it. These are our Feminist Realities!
What are Feminist Realities?
Feminist Realities are the living, breathing examples of the just world we are co-creating. They exist now, in the many ways we live, struggle and build our lives.
Feminist Realities go beyond resisting oppressive systems to show us what a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy look like.
These are the narratives we want to unearth, share and amplify throughout this Feminist Realities journey.
Transforming Visions into Lived Experiences
Through this initiative, we:
Create and amplify alternatives: We co-create art and creative expressions that center and celebrate the hope, optimism, healing and radical imagination that feminist realities inspire.
Build knowledge: We document, demonstrate & disseminate methodologies that will help identify the feminist realities in our diverse communities.
Advance feminist agendas: We expand and deepen our collective thinking and organizing to advance just solutions and systems that embody feminist values and visions.
Mobilize solidarity actions: We engage feminist, women’s rights and gender justice movements and allies in sharing, exchanging and jointly creating feminist realities, narratives and proposals at the 14th AWID International Forum.
The AWID International Forum
As much as we emphasize the process leading up to, and beyond, the four-day Forum, the event itself is an important part of where the magic happens, thanks to the unique energy and opportunity that comes with bringing people together.
We expect the next Forum to:
Build the power of Feminist Realities, by naming, celebrating, amplifying and contributing to build momentum around experiences and propositions that shine light on what is possible and feed our collective imaginations
Replenish wells of hope and energy as much needed fuel for rights and justice activism and resilience
Strengthen connectivity, reciprocity and solidarity across the diversity of feminist movements and with other rights and justice-oriented movements
Feminist and women’s rights organizations don’t just rely on institutional funding, we resource ourselves. Our organizing is powered by passion, political commitment, solidarity and collective care.
These resources are self- generated and autonomous, and often invisible in our budgets, but they are the backbone of our organizing.
While this toolkit is designed to democratize WITM research, there are capacity constraints related to resources and research experience that may affect your organization’s ability use this methodology.
Use the “Ready to Go?” Worksheet to assess your readiness to begin your own WITM research. The more questions you can answer on this worksheet, the more prepared you are to undertake your research.
Trust
Before beginning any research, we recommend that you assess your organization’s connections and trust within your community.
In many contexts, organizations may be hesitant to openly share financial data with others for reasons ranging from concerns about how the information will be used, to fear of funding competition and anxiety over increasing government restrictions on civil society organizations.
As you build relationships and conduct soft outreach in the lead-up to launching your research, ensuring that your objectives are clear will be useful in creating trust. Transparency will allow participants to understand why you are collecting the data and how it will benefit the entire community.
We highly recommend that you ensure data is collected confidentially and shared anonymously. By doing so, participants will be more comfortable sharing sensitive information with you.
The solidarity economy (including cooperative economy and gift economy) is an alternative framework that is allowing for different forms in different contexts, open to continual change.
This framework is grounded in the principles of:
solidarity, mutualism (Mutual Aid), and cooperation
equity in all dimensions
social well-being
sustainability
social and economic democracy
pluralism
The producers in a solidarity economy develop economic processes that are intimately related to their realities, preservation of the environment and mutual cooperation.
Context
According to feminist geographer Yvonne Underhill-Sem, the gift economy is an economic system in which goods and services flow between people without explicit agreement of their value or future reciprocity.
Behind gifting is human relationship, generation of goodwill, and attention to the nurturance of the whole society and not just one’s immediate self and family, it is about the collective.
For example, in the Pacific region, this includes: collecting, preparing, and weaving terrestrial and marine resources for mats, fans, garlands, and ceremonial items; and raising livestock and storing seasonal harvests.
Feminist perspective
The incentives for women to be involved in economic activities are diverse, ranging from the fulfillment of career aspirations and making money for a long-term comfortable life to making money to make ends meet, paying off debt, and escaping from the drudgery of routine life.
To accommodate the diverse environments that women operate in, the concept of solidarity economy is in continual development, discussed and debated.
Over the past few years, a troubling new trend at the international human rights level is being observed, where discourses on ‘protecting the family’ are being employed to defend violations committed against family members, to bolster and justify impunity, and to restrict equal rights within and to family life.
The campaign to "Protect the Family" is driven by ultra-conservative efforts to impose "traditional" and patriarchal interpretations of the family, and to move rights out of the hands of family members and into the institution of ‘the family’.
“Protection of the Family” efforts stem from:
rising traditionalism,
rising cultural, social and religious conservatism and
sentiment hostile to women’s human rights, sexual rights, child rights and the rights of persons with non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations.
Since 2014, a group of states have been operating as a bloc in human rights spaces under the name “Group of Friends of the Family”, and resolutions on “Protection of the Family” have been successfully passed every year since 2014.
This agenda has spread beyond the Human Rights Council. We have seen regressive language on “the family” being introduced at the Commission on the Status of Women, and attempts made to introduce it in negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Our Approach
AWID works with partners and allies to jointly resist “Protection of the Family” and other regressive agendas, and to uphold the universality of human rights.
In response to the increased influence of regressive actors in human rights spaces, AWID joined allies to form the Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs). OURs is a collaborative project that monitors, analyzes, and shares information on anti-rights initiatives like “Protection of the Family”.
Rights at Risk, the first OURs report, charts a map of the actors making up the global anti-rights lobby, identifies their key discourses and strategies, and the effect they are having on our human rights.
The report outlines “Protection of the Family” as an agenda that has fostered collaboration across a broad range of regressive actors at the UN. It describes it as: “a strategic framework that houses “multiple patriarchal and anti-rights positions, where the framework, in turn, aims to justify and institutionalize these positions.”
"Overcoming adversity and healing the pain" - Iniobong Usanga
Iniobong, an AWID member since January 2015, is an Irish citizen with Nigerian roots. In 2001, she migrated to Ireland because she was forced to leave Nigeria after experiencing domestic, sexual and reproductive abuse.
“I don’t think anyone should be put in that situation where they are a slave to someone…. It shouldn’t happen to anyone”, she says.
Her arrival to Ireland as an asylum seeker and a single mother was extremely difficult at the beginning.
“People judge you even without knowing your situation”, she says. But due to her determination, Iniobong completed post-secondary education and has since worked in different paid and voluntary positions.
For years Iniobong kept her experience of abuse and forced migration to herself. She feared her family’s reactions and did not want to be judged, pitied or labelled.
In 2014, Iniobong chose to break her silence.
She spoke out for herself but also “for people who are currently experiencing what I had gone through, for survivors, for those who have given up hope and those who want to make a fresh start.”
“I am grateful because I have a voice and I can use it freely.”
Iniobong also uses her voice to advocate for the rights of women and children who are facing different kinds of violence.
With the help of some friends, she founded Love and Care for People Worldwide, a non-governmental organisation that supports women, children and youth affected by abuse, poverty and other forms of social exclusion. “I wanted to offer people hope and make them know their determination combined with some support.” The organisation offers diverse activities to help strengthen children’s and women’s self-confidence, learning and vocational skills.
“I would not sell my happiness for anyone. I have to be happy for me. And not continue living my life to please every other person but me.”
"Superando la adversidad y sanando el dolor" - Iniobong Usanga
Iniobong es una ciudadana irlandesa con raíces nigerianas, que forma parte de AWID desde enero de 2015. Llegó a Irlanda en 2001 tras ser obligada a abandonar Nigeria por sufrir violencia doméstica, sexual y reproductiva.
“Nada justifica que una persona sea puesta en la situación de ser esclava de otra. Es algo que no debería sucederle a nadie, declara.
Su llegada a Irlanda como solicitante de asilo y madre soltera fue muy difícil al principio. Las personas te juzgan incluso sin conocer tu situación, afirma. Con determinación, Iniobong completó sus estudios superiores y ha realizado numerosos trabajos, tanto remunerados como voluntarios.
Durante varios años, guardó silencio sobre sus experiencias de abuso y migración forzada. Sentía temor de la reacción de su familia y no quería ser juzgada, etiquetada o que sintieran lástima por ella. En 2014, Iniobong decidió romper el silencio, lo hizo por ella misma, pero también por aquellas personas que ahora están sufriendo lo que yo sufrí, por las supervivientes, por quienes han perdido la esperanza y por quienes desean comenzar de nuevo.
“Agradezco tener voz y poder usarla con libertad."
Iniobong también usa su voz para defender los derechos de aquellas mujeres, niñas y niños que están viviendo algún tipo de violencia. Con la ayuda de algunas amistades, fundó Love and Care for People Worldwide (Amor y protección para las personas de todo el mundo), una organización no gubernamental que apoya a las mujeres, niñas y niños afectados por el abuso, la pobreza y otras formas de exclusión social. Quería dar esperanzas a la gente, que conocieran su valor y que tuvieran cierto apoyo. La organización ofrece distintas actividades para ayudar a fortalecer la confianza de las mujeres, las niñas y niños, sus habilidades para aprender y sus destrezas vocacionales.
“No vendería mi felicidad por nadie. Es por mí que debo ser feliz y no dejar de vivir mi vida por complacer a nadie que no sea yo.”
Escuche la historia de Iniobong con sus propias palabras. (en inglés)
« Surmonter l'adversité et guérir de la douleur » - Iniobong Usanga
Iniobong, membre de l’AWID depuis janvier 2015, est citoyenne irlandaise et d’origine nigérienne. En 2001, elle est arrivée en Irlande après avoir été forcée de quitter le Nigéria suite à des violences domestiques, sexuelles et reproductives.
« Je pense que personne ne mérite d’être l’esclave de quelqu’un. Cela ne devrait arriver à personne. » dit-elle.
Au début, son arrivée en Irlande, comme demandeuse d’asile et fille mère, a été très difficile : « les gens vous jugent sans vraiment connaître votre situation », commente-t-elle. A force de détermination, Iniobong a achevé ses études secondaires et a occupé de nombreux postes rémunérés et bénévoles.
Pendant des années, Iniobong a gardé toute cette histoire d’abus et de départ forcé pour elle. Par crainte des réactions de sa famille et aussi parce qu’elle ne voulait pas qu’on la juge, qu’on la plaigne ou lui mette une étiquette. En 2014, Iniobong a choisi de rompre la loi du silence, pour elle, et aussi « pour toutes celles et ceux qui endurent ce qu’elle a vécu, pour les survivant-e-s, pour les personnes qui n’ont plus d’espoir et celles qui veulent prendre un nouveau départ.»
« Je suis reconnaissante d’avoir une voix et de pouvoir m’exprimer librement. »
Iniobong fait aussi entendre sa voix pour militer pour les droits des femmes et des enfants qui subissent eux-mêmes différentes formes de violence. Avec l’aide de quelques ami-e-s, elle a fondé “Amour et attention aux gens du monde entier” (Love and Care for People Worldwide), une organisation non-gouvernementale qui aide les femmes, les enfants et les jeunes ayant subi des abus, et souffrant de pauvreté et d’autres formes d’exclusion sociale. “Je voulais apporter de l’espoir aux gens et leur faire savoir que nous soutiendrons leur détermination.” L’organisation propose différentes activités qui permettent de renforcer la confiance en soi des enfants et des femmes, de les éduquer et de développer leurs compétences professionnelles.
« Je ne pourrais jamais brader mon bonheur. C’est mon bonheur. Je continuerai de vivre pour moi-même et non pour satisfaire les autres. »
Ecoutez Iniobong raconter son histoire avec ses propres mots (en anglais)
The Abortion Rights Campaign "Breaking the Silence" in Ireland
The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) - advocating for free, safe, and legal abortion in Ireland - has been an AWID member since May 2015. It is a grassroots, non-hierarchical, all-volunteer organization and is autonomous in its pro-choice activism.
ARC partners with numerous social justice, human rights and gender equality groups working on issues that intersect with and are impacted by Ireland’s failure to support full sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHRs) for women since the 1983 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution.
Although ARC only formed in January 2013, it currently actively partners with over 15 organizations throughout Ireland and internationally including the women’s councils, transgender, immigrant, traveler and regional/rural groups.
The march is part of ARC’s wider mission to secure access to free, safe, and legal abortion, while challenging the restrictive, stigmatized, and patriarchal environment surrounding SRHRs in Ireland.
Cathie Doherty, one of the co-conveners of ARC tells us, “There is an appetite in Ireland for real change, contrary to the statement from the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach. We need to end the hypocrisy of travel and the hypocrisy which forces women who cannot travel to carry pregnancies or to break the law by importing the abortion pill. We can change Ireland. We can have a society which treats us as the valuable human beings that we are.”
ARC works closely with women who have had abortions to tell their stories. They create a safe space where women can speak and be listened to. Ireland’s ‘Speak-Out’ organized in 2013 and again in 2014 gave a platform to women to talk about their abortions and reproductive health experiences abroad or illegally in Ireland. Some women have shared their stories with the press.
The Comedian and writer Tara Flynn recently spoke publicly about her experience in the Irish Times and said about the March for Choice that she will also MC for, “It’s time to acknowledge real women’s stories – women we all know – and actual facts: hundreds of thousands of women have had to travel and will continue to travel for healthcare they need, or put themselves at risk. Silence has got us nowhere. It’s time to talk.”
Dismantling Myths Through Social Media
For ARC, social media is an effective platform to campaign for and highlight bodily autonomy issues which often more traditional media fail to engage with.
“We strive to incorporate the use of new media and technologies into all of our advocacy work, with the aim of engaging as wide an audience as possible,” ARC said.
Ahead of International Women's Day in 2014, ARC ran the '8 days, 8 myths' campaign, dismantling the stigma and falsehoods surrounding abortion.
La Campaña por el Derecho al Aborto «Rompiendo el Silencio» en Irlanda
Abortion Rights Campaign [Campaña por el Derecho al Aborto, ARC] — que aboga por el aborto libre, seguro y legal en Irlanda — se afilió a AWID en mayo de 2015. Se trata de una organización de base, no jerárquica y formada por personal voluntario, que actúa de forma autónoma en su activismo por el derecho a decidir.
ARC trabaja en conjunto con numerosos grupos de justicia social, derechos humanos e igualdad de género en temáticas relacionadas entre sí y que se ven afectadas por el hecho de que desde 1983, cuando se aprobó la octava enmienda a la Constitución irlandesa, el país no ha brindado un apoyo pleno a la salud y los derechos sexuales y reproductivos de las mujeres.
Aunque la ARC se creó recién en enero de 2013, ya trabaja activamente con más de 15 organizaciones de toda Irlanda y también a nivel internacional, entre las que se cuentan Consejos de Mujeres y grupos trans*, de inmigrantes, de simpatizantes, regionales y rurales.
Marcha por el Derecho a Decidir
En el marco del Día de Acción Global por un Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito, la ARC organizó su Cuarta Marcha Mundial por el Derechoa Decidir, el 26 de septiembre de 2015. La marcha es parte de la misión de ARC que incluye tanto garantizar el acceso al aborto libre, seguro y legal, como cuestionar el ambiente restrictivo, estigmatizado y patriarcal que rodea a la salud y los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en Irlanda.
Cathie Doherty, una de los co-convocantes de ARC afirma: «En Irlanda hay ganas de que se produzca un cambio real, en contra de lo que sostienen el Ministro de Sanidad y del Primer Ministro. Tenemos que acabar con la hipocresía de los viajes al exterior, que obliga a las mujeres que no pueden viajar a continuar con sus embarazos o a incumplir la ley importando píldoras para abortar. Podemos cambiar Irlanda. Podemos tener una sociedad que nos trate como seres humanos valiosos, que lo somos».
«Alza la voz» – Romper el silencio y acabar con el estigma
La ARC trabaja en estrecha colaboración con las mujeres que han abortado para que cuenten sus historias, creando un espacio seguro donde las mujeres pueden hablar y ser escuchadas. La acción «Speak Out» [Alza la voz] organizada en 2013 y nuevamente en 2014 facilitó una plataforma a las mujeres para que pudieran hablar sobre sus experiencias de abortos y atención a la salud reproductiva en el extranjero o ilegalmente en Irlanda.
Algunas mujeres compartieron sus historias con la prensa. La actriz y escritora Tara Flynn habló recientemente en público sobre su experiencia a través del periódico The Irish Times, en declaraciones sobre la Marcha por el Derecho a Decidir en la que se dispone a participar: «Es hora de admitir las historias de las mujeres reales — las mujeres que todo el mundo conoce — y los hechos concretos: cientos de miles de mujeres han tenido que viajar y continuarán viajando para obtener la atención médica que necesitan, o han puesto en riesgo su vida. El silencio no nos ha llevado a ninguna parte. Es hora de alzar la voz".
Desmontando mitos a través de las redes sociales
Para la campaña ARC, las redes sociales son una plataforma eficaz para hacer campaña y poner de relieve cuestiones que tienen que ver con la autonomía corporal, de las que no se ocupan los medios de comunicación más tradicionales.
«Nos esforzamos por incorporar el uso de los nuevos medios y las tecnologías en todo nuestro trabajo de incidencia, con el objetivo de involucrar a un público lo más amplio posible», afirmó una portavoz de la ARC.
En 2014, en la semana previa al Día Internacional de las Mujeres, ARC organizó la campaña «8 días, 8 mitos», para acabar con el estigma y las mentiras que rodean al aborto.
Cuarta Marcha Anual por el Derecho a Decidir (en inglés)
En Irlande, le « silence est rompu » : La Campagne pour le droit à l’avortement
Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC – Campagne pour le droit à l’avortement) – qui milite pour que l’avortement devienne gratuit, sûr et légal en Irlande – est membre de l’AWID depuis le mois de mai 2015. Cette organisation de base, non hiérarchique et entièrement composée de bénévoles mène son action en faveur de l’avortement en toute indépendance.
Elle collabore avec de nombreux groupes de défense de la justice sociale, des droits humains et de l’égalité de genre qui, tous, travaillent sur des thèmes liés à l’incapacité de l’Irlande à garantir pleinement la santé et les droits sexuels et reproductifs (SDSR) des femmes, notamment depuis l’adoption en 1983 du 8e amendement de la Constitution irlandaise. L’ARC n’existe que depuis janvier 2013, mais elle collabore déjà activement avec plus de 15 organisations basées dans toute l’Irlande ou d’envergure internationale, parmi lesquelles des conseils de femmes, des groupes de défense des droits des personnes transgenres, des migrant-e-s, des gens du voyage mais aussi des organisations régionales / rurales.
Marcher pour le droit de choisir
Dans le cadre de la Journée mondiale d’action pour l’accès à l’avortement sûr et légal, l’ARC a organisé sa 4e Marche annuelle pour l’avortement (site en anglais) le 26 septembre. Cette marche est une partie intégrante de la mission de l’ARC, une mission qui consiste d’une part à lutter pour que les femmes puissent avorter légalement, gratuitement et en toute sécurité et, d’autre part, à remettre en cause le contexte restrictif, stigmatisant et patriarcal dans lequel la SDSR est mise en œuvre en Irlande.
Selon Cathie Doherty, l’une des co-organisatrices de l’ARC, « l’Irlande aspire actuellement à un vrai changement, contrairement à ce que prétendent le ministre de la Santé et le Premier ministre. Nous devons cesser de prétendre que les femmes irlandaises ne vont pas à l’étranger pour avorter. Cette hypocrisie contraint les femmes qui ne peuvent pas adopter cette solution à mener à leur terme des grossesses non désirées ou à importer illégalement des pilules abortives. Nous pouvons faire évoluer l’Irlande. Nous pouvons également vivre dans une société qui nous traite comme les êtres humains estimables que nous sommes.»
Prendre la parole pour rompre le silence et mettre fin à la stigmatisation
L’ARC collabore étroitement avec de nombreuses femmes qui ont avorté, et ce dans le but de faire connaître leur histoire. Elle met à leur disposition un espace sûr au sein duquel elles peuvent parler et être écoutées. Des séances de prise de parole (« Speak-out ») ont été organisées en 2013 puis en 2014, dans le but d’offrir à ces femmes la possibilité de parler de l’avortement ou des soins de médecine procréative dont elles ont pu bénéficier à l’étranger ou, illégalement, en Irlande.
Certaines des participantes ont confié leur témoignage à des journalistes. L’écrivaine et comédienne Tara Flynn a récemment évoqué sa propre expérience dans un article de l’Irish Times (site en anglais). Elle a notamment affirmé qu’elle participerait à la Marche pour le droit de choisir, poursuivant en ces termes : « il est temps de reconnaître le vécu réel de toutes ces femmes – que nous connaissons – et d’admettre les faits tels qu’ils sont : des centaines de milliers de femmes ont été contraintes de prendre des risques ou d’aller à l’étranger pour recevoir les soins de santé dont elles avaient besoin. Le silence ne nous a mené à rien. Il est temps de parler. »
Mettre à bas les mythes grâce aux médias sociaux
L’ARC considère les médias sociaux comme une plateforme efficace pour mener son action et mettre en lumière les questions relatives à l’autonomie corporelle, un sujet que les médias traditionnels n’abordent généralement pas.
« Pour atteindre le public le plus large possible, nous [l’ARC] nous efforçons d’intégrer l’utilisation des nouveaux médias et des nouvelles technologies à tous les niveaux de notre travail de plaidoyer. »
En préparation de la Journée internationale des femmes 2014, l’ARC a mené la campagne « 8 days, 8 myths » (« 8 jours, 8 mythes »), dans le but de saper les fondements de la stigmatisation et des préjugés dont sont victimes les femmes qui avortent.
Présentation de la 4e Marche annuelle pour le droit de choisir (en anglais)
While active participants on the front lines of protests and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), women became invisible, absent from processes of formation of the new states, and excluded from decision-making roles, responsibilities, and positions in the aftermath of the uprisings. Except in rare cases, men dominated leadership positions in transitional structures, including the constitutional reform and electoral committees[i]. Subsequent elections brought very few women to parliamentary and ministerial positions.
Additionally, a strong and immediate backlash against women and women’s rights has clearly emerged in the aftermath. The rise of new religious fundamentalist groups with renewed patriarchal agendas aiming to obliterate previous gains of the women’s movements even in countries with longer histories of women’s rights, such as Tunisia, has been very alarming.
The varying contexts of governance and transition processes across the MENA countries presents an important opportunity for women human rights defenders to shape the future of these democracies. However, the lack of prioritization of women’s rights issues in the emerging transitions and the aforementioned backlash have posed a variety of complex challenges for the women’s movements. Faced with these enormous challenges and possibilities, women’s rights activists have been struggling to forge ahead a democratic future inclusive and only possible with women’s rights and equality. The particular historical and contextual legacies that impact women’s movements in each country continue to bear on the current capacities, strategies, and overall preparedness of the women’s movements to take on such a challenge. Burdened with daily human rights violations in one context, with lack of resources and tools in another, with organizational tensions in a third, in addition to the constant attacks on them as activists, women human rights defenders have voiced their desire to be more equipped with knowledge and tools to be effective and proactive in engaging with these fast-changing environments. Conceptual clarity and greater understanding of notions and practices of democratization, transitional justice tools and mechanisms, political governance and participation processes, international and local mechanisms, movement building strategies, constitutional reform possibilities, and secularization of public space and government are important steps to defining future strategic action.
It is clear that feminists and women’s rights activists cannot wait for women’s rights to be addressed after transitions – issues must be addressed as the new power configurations are forming. Experiences of earlier moments of transition, namely from colonial rule, have clearly demonstrated that women’s rights have to be inherently part of the transition movement towards a more just and equal society.
What is included?
This publication represents a research mapping of key resources, publications and materials on transitions to democracy and women’s rights in different countries of the world that have undergone such processes, such as: Indonesia, Chile, South Africa, Nepal, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, Ukraine, as well as within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It provides bibliographic information and short summaries of resources which succinctly identify the contextual changes and challenges facing women in those particular transitional moments, as well as clearly delineates the ways in which women’s rights activists sought to confront those challenges and what lessons were learned.
A key criterion in the selection process was the primacy of a women’s rights/feminist perspective; the few exceptions to this rule offer a unique and, we hope, useful, perspective on the issues that women’s rights organizations and activists face in the region. The texts have been selected to provide a wide range of information, relevant to women human rights defenders working from the grassroots to the international level, across issues (including different case studies and examples), from different perspectives (international human rights bodies, academic institutions, NGO contributions, activists’ experiences, etc.), and at a wide range of levels of complexity, in order to respond to the needs of as many readers as possible.
The mapping clusters resources under six major categories:
Transitions to Democracy
Political Participation
Movement Building
Transitional Justice
Constitutional/Legal Reform
Responses to Fundamentalisms
[i]This and other context points are drawn from the report from Pre AWID Forum meeting on Women’s Rights in Transitions to Democracy: Achieving Rights, Resisting Backlash, collaboratively organized by AWID, the Equality Without Reservation Coalition, Global Fund for Women and Women’s Learning Partnership
Six thematic anchors hold the Feminist Realities framework of the Forum. Each anchor centers feminist realities, experiences and visions, on the continuum between resistance and proposition, struggle and alternative. We seek to explore together what our feminist realities are made of and what enables them to flourish in different spheres of our life.
These realities may be fully articulated ways of living, dreams and ideas in the making, or precious experiences and moments.
The anchors are not isolated themes, but rather interconnected containers for activities at the Forum. We envision many activities to be at the intersection of these themes, at the intersection of different struggles, communities and movements. The descriptions are preliminary, and continue to evolve as the Feminist Realities journey continues.
Resources for Communities and Movements & Economic Justice
This anchor centers questions of how we -- as individuals, communities, and movements -- meet our basic needs and secure the resources that we need to thrive, in ways that center care for people and nature. By “resources” we mean food, water, clean air, as well as money, labor, information, knowledge, time, and more.
Drawing on feminist resistance to the dominant economic system of exploitation and extractivism, the anchor highlights the powerful and inspiring feminist proposals, experiences and practices of organizing our economic and social life. Food and seed sovereignty, feminist visions of work and labor, just and sustainable systems of trade, are just some of the questions to explore. We will bravely face the contradictions that emerge from the need to survive in oppressive economic systems.
This anchor positions funding and resourcing for organizations and movements in a broad feminist analysis of economic justice and wealth creation. It explores how to move resources where they are needed, from tax justice and basic income to different models of philanthropy and creative & autonomous resourcing for movements.
Governance, Accountability and Justice
We seek to build new visions and amplify existing realities and experiences of feminist governance, justice and accountability. In the face of the global crisis and rising fascisms and fundamentalisms, this anchor centers feminist, radical and emancipatory models, practices and ideas of organizing society and political life, - locally and globally.
The anchor will explore what feminist governance looks like, from feminist experiences of municipalism to building institutions outside of nation-states, to our visions of multilateralism. We will exchange experiences of justice and accountability processes in our communities, organizations and movements, including models of restorative, community-based and transformative justice that reject state violence and the prison-industrial complex.
Centering experiences of travel, migration and refuge as well as feminist organizing, we seek a world without deadly border regimes; a world of free movement and exciting journeys.
Digital Realities
The role of technology in our lives is ever increasing and the line between online and offline realities blurred. Feminists make widespread use of technologies and online space to build community, learn from each other, and mobilise action. With online spaces, we can expand the boundaries of our physical world. On the flip side, digital communications are largely owned by corporations with minimal accountability to users: data mining, surveillance and security breaches have become the norm, as well as online violence and harassment.
This anchor explores the feminist opportunities and challenges within digital realities. We’ll look at alternatives to privately owned platforms that dominate the digital landscape, well-being strategies for navigating online spaces, and uses of technology to overcome accessibility challenges. We’ll explore the potentials of technology in relation to pleasure, trust and relationships.
Bodies, Pleasure and Wellbeing
We hold feminist realities also within ourselves -- the embodied experience. Control of our labour, mobility, reproduction, and sexuality continues to be central to patriarchal, cis-heteronormative and capitalist structures. Defying this oppression, people of diverse genders, sexualities and abilities create encounters, spaces and sub-cultures of joy, care, pleasure and deep appreciation for ourselves and each other.
This anchor will explore multiple ideas, narratives, imaginations, and cultural expressions of consent, agency and desire as held by women, trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming and intersex people in different societies and cultures.
We will exchange strategies for winning reproductive rights and justice, and articulate social practices that enable and respect bodily autonomy, integrity and freedom. The anchor links different struggles and movements to inform each other’s perceptions and experiences of wellbeing and pleasure.
Planet and Living Beings
Imagine a feminist planet. What is the sound of the water, the smell of the air, the touch of the earth? What is the relationship between the planet and its living beings, humans included? Feminist realities are realities of environmental and climate justice. Feminist, indigenous, decolonial and ecological struggles are often rooted in transformative visions and relations among people and nature.
This anchor centers the wellbeing of our planet, and reflects on the ways in which humans have interacted with and reshaped our planet. We seek to explore aspects of traditional knowledge and biodiversity as part of sustaining a feminist planet, and learn about feminist practices around degrowth, commoning, models of parallel economies, agro-ecology, food and energy sovereignty initiatives.
Feminist organizing
While we see all the anchors as related, this one is truly cross-cutting so we invite you to add an organizing dimension to whatever anchor(s) your proposed activity links to.
How is feminist organizing happening in the world today? This question turns our attention to actors, power dynamics, resources, leadership, to the economies we are embedded within, to our understanding of justice and accountability, to the digital age, to our experiences of autonomy, wellbeing and collective care. Across all anchors, we hope to create a space for honest reflection on power and resources distribution and negotiation within our own movements.
The Forum is a collaborative process
The Forum is more than a four-day convening. It is one more stop on a movement strengthening journey around Feminist Realities that has already begun and will continue well beyond the Forum dates.
In a context like Colombia’s, the work of imagining, dreaming and even creating processes of transformation so we can live in worlds that are decent, just, careful, and affectionate is worthy of admiration. It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
Privacy is a fundamental right not just for the most powerful and privileged
In a context like Colombia’s, the work of imagining, dreaming and even creating processes of transformation so we can live in worlds that are decent, just, careful, and affectionate is worthy of admiration. This is an emboldened paragraph.
We are thinking of them and of all the women leaders who are continuing the fight, having gained consciousness, from their respective ethnic, political, cultural, and identity locations and from their work, of their selves and the social problems facing their communities.
This link goes somewhere, but this sentence doesn't, it only exists to show how a link works. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry.
£2600 is an amount of money that I've wrapped some <strong> tags around, while 4 weeks – a length of time – also has had the same treatment for the purposes of just testing how typography appears on the page. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
In a context like Colombia’s, the work of imagining, dreaming and even creating processes of transformation so we can live in worlds that are decent, just, careful, and affectionate is worthy of admiration.
We are thinking of them and of all the women leaders who are continuing the fight, having gained consciousness, from their respective ethnic, political, cultural, and identity locations and from their work, of their selves and the social problems facing their communities.
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Women leaders and human rights defenders in Colombia: A legacy of dreams, struggles and affection that we will not silence
It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
£2600 is an amount of money that I've wrapped some <strong> tags around, while 4 weeks – a length of time – also has had the same treatment for the purposes of just testing how typography appears on the page. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated. These are hyperlinks in paragraphs where they're needed the most, right in a demo page.
£2600 is an amount of money that I've wrapped some <strong> tags around, while 4 weeks – a length of time – also has had the same treatment for the purposes of just testing how typography appears on the page. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated. These are hyperlinks in paragraphs where they're needed the most, right in a demo page.
£2600 is an amount of money that I've wrapped some <strong> tags around, while 4 weeks – a length of time – also has had the same treatment for the purposes of just testing how typography appears on the page. Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
These are hyperlinks in paragraphs where they're needed the most, right in a demo page. £2600 is an amount of money that I've wrapped some <strong> tags around, while 4 weeks – a length of time – also has had the same treatment for the purposes of just testing how typography appears on the page.
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
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It is an attack on life itself.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated. It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated. It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
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It is an attack on life itself. Not just on the life of one official, but an attack on the soul, on the spirit of an entire people who feels frustrated.
Anti-rights actors adopt a double strategy. As well as launching outright attacks on the multilateral system, anti-rights actors also undermine human rights from within. Anti-rights actors engage with the aim of co-opting processes, entrenching regressive norms, and undermining accountability.
Anti-rights actors’ engagement in international human rights spaces has a principal purpose: to undermine the system and its ability to respect, protect and fulfill human rights for all people, and to hold member states accountable for violations. Some anti-rights tactics operate from outside the UN and include delegitimization and political pressure to defund the UN, or to withdraw from international human rights agreements. In recent years, anti-rights actors have also gained increasing influence inside the UN. Their inside tactics include training of delegates, distortion of human rights frameworks, watering down human rights agreements, infiltrating NGO committees, applying for ECOSOC status under neutral names, infiltrating youth spaces, and lobbying to place anti-rights actors in key positions.
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Institutionalization of Anti-rights Actors in UN Mechanisms
Tshegofatso Senne is a Black, chronically-ill, genderqueer feminist who does the most. Much of their work is rooted in pleasure, community, and dreaming, while being informed by somatic abolitionism and disability, healing, and transformative justices. Writing, researching, and speaking on issues concerning feminism, community, sexual and reproductive justice, consent, rape culture, and justice, Tshegofatso has 8 years of experience theorising on the ways in which these topics intersect with pleasure. They run their own business, Thembekile Stationery, and their community platform Hedone brings people together to explore and understand the power of trauma-awareness and pleasure in their daily lives. Tshegofatso believes deeply in the individual and collective potential of regenerative and sustainable change, pleasure, and care work.
The body. The most permanent home we have.
The body, not the thinking brain, is where we experience most of our pain, pleasure, and joy, and where we process most of what happens to us. It is also where we do most of our healing, including our emotional and psychological healing. And it is where we experience resilience and a sense of flow.
These words, said by Resmaa Menakem in his book My Grandmother’s Hands, have stayed with me.
The body; it holds our experiences. Our memories. Our resilience. And as Menakem has written, the body also holds our traumas. It responds with spontaneous protective mechanisms to stop or prevent more damage. That is the power of the body. Trauma is not the event; it is how our bodies respond to events that feel dangerous to us. It is often left stuck in the body, until we address it. There’s no talking our body out of this response – it just is.
Using Ling Tan’s Digital Superpower app, I tracked how my body felt as I travelled around different parts of my city, Johannesburg, South Africa. The app is a gesture-driven online platform that allows you to trace your perceptions as you move through locations by logging and recording the data. I used it to track my psychosomatic symptoms – physical reactions connected to a mental cause. Whether that be flashbacks. Panic attacks. Tightness in the chest. A fast heartbeat. Tension headaches. Muscle pain. Insomnia. Struggling to breathe. I tracked these symptoms as I walked and travelled to different areas in Johannesburg. And I asked myself.
Where can we be safe? Can we be safe?
Psychosomatic responses can be caused by a number of things, and some are not as severe as others. After experiencing any kind of trauma you may feel intense distress in similar events or situations. I tracked my sensations, ranked on a scale of 1-5, where 1 were the instances I barely felt any of these symptoms – I felt at ease rather than on-guard and jumpy, my breath and heart rate were stable, I was not looking over my shoulder – and number 5 being the opposite – symptoms that had me close to a panic attack.
As a Black person. As a queer person. As a genderqueer person who could be perceived as a woman, depending on what my gender expression is that day.
I asked myself.
Where can we be safe?
Even in neighbourhoods one might consider “safe,” I felt constantly panicked. Looking around me to make sure I wasn’t being followed, adjusting the way my T-shirt sat so my breasts wouldn’t show up as much, looking around to make sure I knew multiple routes to get out of the place I was should I sense danger. An empty road brings anxiety. A packed one does too. Being in an Uber does. Walking on a public road does. Being in my apartment does. So does picking up a delivery from the front of the building.
Can we be safe?
Pumla Dineo Gqola speaks of the Female Fear Factory. It may or may not be familiar, but if you’re someone socialised as a woman, you’ll know this feeling well. The feeling that has you planning every step you take, whether you’re going to work, school, or just running an errand. The feeling that you have to watch how you dress, act, speak in public and private spaces. The feeling in the pit of your stomach if you have to travel at night, get a delivery, or deal with any person who continues to socialise as a cis man. Harassed on the street, always with the threat of violence. Us existing in any space comes with an innate fear.
Fear is both an individual and a socio-political phenomenon. At an individual level, fear can be present as part of a healthy well developing warning system […] When we think about fear, it is important to hold both notions of individual emotional experience and the political ways in which fear has been used in different epochs for control. - Pumla Dineo Gqola, in her book Rape: A South African Nightmare
South African women, femmes, and queers know that every step we take outside – steps to do ordinary things: a walk to the shops, a taxi to work, an Uber from a party – all of these acts are a negotiation with violence. This fear, is part of the trauma. To cope with the trauma we carry in our bodies, we develop responses to detect danger – watching the emotional responses of those around us, reading for “friendliness.” We’re constantly on guard.
Day after day. Year after year. Life after life. Generation after generation.
On the additional challenge of this learned defence system, author of The Body Keeps Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk, has said
It disrupts this ability to accurately read others, rendering the trauma survivor either less able to detect danger or more likely to misperceive danger where there is none. It takes tremendous energy to keep functioning while carrying the memory of terror, and the shame of utter weakness and vulnerability.
As Resmaa Menakem has said, trauma is in everything; it infiltrates the air we breathe, the water we drink, the foods we eat. It is in the systems that govern us, the institutions that teach and also traumatise us, and within the social contracts we enter into with each other. Most importantly, we take it with us everywhere we go, in our bodies, exhausting us and eroding our health and happiness. We carry that truth in our bodies. Generations of us have.
So, as I walk around my city, whether an area is considered “safe” or not, I carry the traumas of generations whose responses are embedded in my body. My heart palpitates, it becomes difficult to breathe, my chest tightens – because my body feels as though the trauma is happening in that very moment. I live hyper vigilant. To the point where one is either too on-guard to mindfully enjoy their life, or too numb to absorb new experiences.
For us to begin to heal, we need to acknowledge these truths.
These truths that live in our bodies.
This trauma is what keeps many of us from living the lives we want. Ask any femme or queer person what safety looks like to them and they’ll mostly share examples that are simple tasks – being able to simply live joyful lives, without the constant threat of violence.
Feelings of safety, of comfort and ease, are spatial. When we embody our trauma, it affects the ways we perceive our own safety, affects the ways we interact with the world, and alters the ways we are able to experience and embody anything pleasurable and joyful.
We have to refuse this burdensome responsibility and fight for a safe world for all of us. Walking wounded as many of us are, we are fighters. Patriarchy may terrorise and brutalise us, but we will not give up the fight. As we repeatedly take to the streets, defying the fear in spectacular and seemingly insignificant ways, we defend ourselves and speak in our own name. - Pumla Dineo Gqola, in her book Rape: A South African Nightmare
Where can we be safe? How do we begin to defend ourselves, not just in the physical sense, but in the emotional, psychological, and spiritual senses?
“Trauma makes weapons out of us all,” adrienne maree brown has said in an interview conducted by Justin Scott Campbell. And her work, Pleasure Activism, offers us multiple methodologies to heal that trauma and ground ourselves in the understanding that healing, justice, and liberation can also be pleasurable experiences. Especially those of us who are the most marginalised, who may have been raised to equate suffering with “The Work.” The Work that so many of us have gone into as activists, community builders and workers, those serving the most marginalised, The Work that we struggle in order to do, burning ourselves out and rarely caring for our minds and bodies. The alternative is becoming more informed about our trauma, able to identify our own needs, and becoming deeply embodied. That embodiment means we are simply more able to experience the world through the senses and sensations in our bodies, acknowledging what they tell us rather than suppressing and ignoring the information it is communicating with us.
Being constantly in conversation with our living body and intentionally practising those conversations connects us to embodiment more deeply; it allows us to make tangible the emotions we feel as we interact with the world, befriend our bodies, and understand all that they try to teach us. When understanding trauma and embodiment paired, we can begin to start the healing and access pleasure more holistically, healthily, and in our daily lives without shame and guilt. We can begin to access pleasure as a tool for individual and social change, tapping into the power of the erotic as Audre Lorde described it. A power that allows us to share the joy we access and experience, expanding our capacity for happiness and understanding that we are deserving of it, even with our trauma.
Tapping into pleasure and embodying the erotic gives us the expansion of being deliberately alive, feeling grounded and stable and understanding our nervous systems. It allows us to understand and shed the generational baggage we’ve been carrying without realising; we can be empowered with the knowledge that even as traumatised as we are, as traumatised as we potentially could be in the future, we are still deserving of pleasurable and joyful lives, that we can share that power with our people. It is the community aspect that is missing from the ways we care for ourselves; self-care cannot exist without community care. We are able to feel a deeper internal trust, safety, and power of ourselves, especially in the face of future traumas that will trigger us, knowing how to soothe and stabilise ourselves. All this understanding leads us to a deep internal power that is resourced to meet any challenges that come your way.
As those living with deep generational traumas, we have come to distrust and perhaps think we are incapable of containing and accessing the power we have. In “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” Lorde teaches us that the erotic offers a source of replenishment, a way to demand better for ourselves and our lives.
For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours brings us closest to that fullness.
I don’t say any of this lightly – I know that this is easier said than done. I know that many of us are prevented from understanding these truths, from internalising or even healing them. Resistance comes with acts of feeling unsafe, but is not impossible. Resisting power structures that keep the most powerful safe will always endanger those of us shoved to the margins. Acknowledging the traumas you’ve faced is a reclamation of your lived experiences, those that have passed and those that will follow; it is resistance that embodies that knowledge that we are deserving of more than the breadcrumbs these systems have forced us to lap up. It is a resistance that understands that pleasure is complicated by trauma, but it can be accessed in arbitrary and powerful ways. It is a resistance that acknowledges that our trauma is a resource that connects us to each other, and can allow us to keep each other safe. It is a resistance that understands that even with pleasure and joy, this is not a utopia; we will still harm and be harmed, but we will be better equipped for survival and thrive in a community of diverse care and kindness. A resistance that makes way for healing and connecting to our full human selves.
Healing will never be an easy and rosy journey, but it begins with the acknowledgment of the possibility. When oppression makes us believe that pleasure is not something that we all have equal access to, one of the ways that we start doing the work of reclaiming our full selves — our whole liberated, free selves — is by reclaiming our access to pleasure.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha has said in her article in Pleasure Activism (to which she contributed),
I know that for most people, the words “care” and “pleasure” can’t even be in the same sentence. We’re all soaking in ableism’s hatred of bodies that have needs, and we’re given a really shitty choice: either have no needs and get to have autonomy, dignity, and control over your life or admit you need care and lose all of the above.
The power that this has? We understand our traumas, so we understand those of others; we embody the sensations we experience and tend to them rather than distract and avoid. We access pleasure in ways that make us want to share that joy with those in our communities. When we are trauma-informed, we give ourselves more room to experience all this and give ourselves, and others, permission to heal. Imagine, a community in which everyone has access, resources, and time to live pleasurable lives, in whichever way they want and deserve. In which spatial traumas are lessened because the people that occupy them are trauma-aware, are filled with a tender care. Isn’t that healing? Is that not working through generational traumas? Does that not build and sustain healthier futures for us all?
It is time we reconnected with the ancestral knowledge that we deserve to live full lives. We need to get back in touch with our natural right to joy and existing for ourselves. To feel pleasure simply for the sake of it. To not live lives of terror. It sounds radical; it feels radical. In a world where we have been socialised and traumatised to numb, to fear, to feel and remain powerless, to be greedy and live with structural issues that lead to mental illness, what a gift and wonder it is to begin to feel, to be in community with those who feel, to be healthily interdependent in, to love each other boldly. Feeling is radical. Pleasure is radical. Healing is radical.
You have permission to feel pleasure. You have permission to dance, create, make love to yourself and others, celebrate and cultivate joy. You are encouraged to do so. You have permission to heal. Don’t bottle it up inside, don’t try to move through this time alone. You have permission to grieve. And you have permission to live. - adrienne maree brown, “You Have Permission”
Somatic embodiment allows us to explore our trauma, work through it and make meaningful connections to ourselves and the collective. Doing this over time sustains our healing; just like trauma, healing is not a one-time only event. This healing helps move us toward individual and collective liberation.
In “A Queer Politics of Pleasure,” Andy Johnson speaks about the ways in which the queering of pleasure offers us sources of healing, acceptance, release, playfulness, wholeness, defiance, subversion, and freedom. How expansive! When we embody pleasure in ways that are this holistic, this queer, we are able to acknowledge the limitation.
Queering pleasure also asks us the questions that intersect our dreaming with our lived realities.
Who is free or deemed worthy enough to feel pleasure? When is one allowed to feel pleasure or pleased? With whom can one experience pleasure? What kind of pleasure is accessible? What limits one from accessing their full erotic and pleased potential? - Andy Johnson, “A Queer Politics
of Pleasure”
When our trauma-informed pleasure practices are grounded in community care, we begin to answer some of these questions. We begin to understand the liberating potential. As pleasure activists, this is the reality we ground ourselves within. The reality that says, my pleasure may be fractal, but it has the potential to heal not only me and my community, but future bloodlines.
I am a whole system; we are whole systems. We are not just our pains, not just our fears, and not just our thoughts. We are entire systems wired for pleasure, and we can learn how to say yes from the inside out. - Prentis Hemphill, interviewed by Shar Jossell
There’s a world of pleasure that allows us to begin to understand ourselves holistically, in ways that give us room to rebuild the realities that affirm that we are capable and deserving of daily pleasure. BDSM, one of my deepest pleasures, allows me a glimpse into these realities where I can both feel and heal my trauma, as well as feel immeasurable opportunities to say yes from the inside out. While trauma keeps me stuck in a cycle of fight or flight, bondage, kneeling, impact, and breath play encourage me to stay grounded and connected, reconnecting to restoration. Pleasure that is playful allows me to heal, to identify where traumatic energy is stored in my body and focus my energy there. It allows me to express the sensations my body feels through screams of pain and delight, to express my no with no fear and revel in the fuck yes. With a safety plan, aftercare, and a deeper understanding of trauma, kink offers a place of pleasure and healing that is invaluable.
So whether your pleasure looks like cooking a meal at your leisure, engaging in sex, having bed days with your people, participating in disability care collectives, having someone spit in your mouth, going on accessible outings, having cuddle dates, attending an online dance party, spending time in your garden, being choked out in a dungeon,
I hope you take pleasure with you wherever you go. I hope it heals you and your people.
Recognising the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world. - Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”
ExploreTransnational Embodiments
This journal edition in partnership with Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, will explore feminist solutions, proposals and realities for transforming our current world, our bodies and our sexualities.
نصدر النسخة هذه من المجلة بالشراكة مع «كحل: مجلة لأبحاث الجسد والجندر»، وسنستكشف عبرها الحلول والاقتراحات وأنواع الواقع النسوية لتغيير عالمنا الحالي وكذلك أجسادنا وجنسانياتنا.
