Mary Rivera
Young Feminist Activism
Organizing creatively, facing an increasing threat
Young feminist activists play a critical role in women’s rights organizations and movements worldwide by bringing up new issues that feminists face today. Their strength, creativity and adaptability are vital to the sustainability of feminist organizing.
At the same time, they face specific impediments to their activism such as limited access to funding and support, lack of capacity-building opportunities, and a significant increase of attacks on young women human rights defenders. This creates a lack of visibility that makes more difficult their inclusion and effective participation within women’s rights movements.
A multigenerational approach
AWID’s young feminist activism program was created to make sure the voices of young women are heard and reflected in feminist discourse. We want to ensure that young feminists have better access to funding, capacity-building opportunities and international processes. In addition to supporting young feminists directly, we are also working with women’s rights activists of all ages on practical models and strategies for effective multigenerational organizing.
Our Actions
We want young feminist activists to play a role in decision-making affecting their rights by:
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Fostering community and sharing information through the Young Feminist Wire. Recognizing the importance of online media for the work of young feminists, our team launched the Young Feminist Wire in May 2010 to share information, build capacity through online webinars and e-discussions, and encourage community building.
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Researching and building knowledge on young feminist activism, to increase the visibility and impact of young feminist activism within and across women’s rights movements and other key actors such as donors.
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Promoting more effective multigenerational organizing, exploring better ways to work together.
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Supporting young feminists to engage in global development processes such as those within the United Nations
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Collaboration across all of AWID’s priority areas, including the Forum, to ensure young feminists’ key contributions, perspectives, needs and activism are reflected in debates, policies and programs affecting them.
Related Content
Comic: Feminist Superhero Busts Anti-Rights Myths
Comic:
Feminist Superhero Busts Anti-Rights Myths
Follow our feminist superhero as she reclaims the narrative from anti-rights actors across the globe and saves the day, in this comic by illustrator Sophia Andreazza.
متى وأين سيكون المنتدى؟
2-5 ديسمبر 2024، بانكوك، تايلاند! سنجتمع في مركز الملكة سيريكيت الوطني للمؤتمرات (QSNCC) وكذلك افتراضيا عبر
Love letter to Feminist Movements #9
The body is a powerful entity. As women, our bodies are controlled, oppressed and policed from the womb. The way we look, move, dress, walk, speak, gesture, laugh. I often wondered at what drives patriarchal fears around the power of female bodies. Where I come from sex work and sex workers were whispered of with simultaneous contempt, disgust, fascination, pity and condemnation.
Where I come from sex work and sex workers were whispered of with simultaneous contempt, disgust, fascination, pity and condemnation.
I first encountered sex work and sex workers at age 22. Simple conversations, sitting in circles, chatting over coffee and tea, we explored each other’s lives, experiences, thoughts and feelings.
For sex workers, sex work was the most worthwhile choice out of all other options to pay bills, to support family, to have more flexible working hours, to have sex. Just as I chose my job as the most worthwhile, to pay bills, to support family, to have more flexible working hours.
These individuals, women and men, taught me that I made my own decisions about my body… where I focus its life and energy, whether I use it for pleasure or pain, whether I trade it in or give it freely, and how I want to feel about my body. The awareness was as exciting as it was empowering.
Crear | Résister | Transform: a festival for feminist movements – 2021… you accompanied me through a series of life-changing moments (!!!)
We call these ‘events,’ though in truth, to me, your feminist learning spaces are, where I take a little of what’s inside me, a little of what your speakers say and some from the discussions to go deeper into our understanding.
Sharing… Partaking… Immersing…
in strength, in vulnerability, in pleasure.
Simply being the transformative feminist that I am, without pretentions, without misgivings…
Welcoming the transformative feminist that I have always been, without even knowing the term or acknowledging it in such a manner or in such terms…
Finding home for the fiercely transformative feminist living within me…
Despite the anger, rage and frustration of not being treated as equals and being treated with ‘less __ than,’
I did not always consider myself a feminist nor did I recognise myself within the feminist movement or discourse… Truly, I appreciate doors being held open, chairs being pulled out to be seated, acknowledgement as a woman, of my femininity.
At times I dismissed the patriarchy with annoyance, at times, I responded with frustration and anger but I did not address it… I did not notice its sinister, insidious toxicity… I was privileged enough to be able to work through it, to survive it, to overcome it, to excel in spite of it… I did not question enough, challenge enough, push my boundaries enough… I did not do enough…
connecting with sex workers, exploring sexuality, and the women for peace and security...
Until I became fully aware and understood the implications of both privilege and oppression that was intersectional.
Until I realised what it meant to fight for gender justice and not simply ‘equality for all.’
Practitioner and facilitator no longer, I am a transformative feminist practitioner and facilitator.
Being a feminist means that I will act
- – through my daily activities: the way I live, the work that I do, the processes that I am invited to lead, the workshops and lectures that I am invited to give –
- to push back against patriarchal toxicity, to dismantle patriarchal structures and systems,
- to work to decolonise values, beliefs, thoughts, to smash the myths of gender norms and expectations,
- to address power imbalances imposed by patriarchal beliefs and socialisation,
- to foster relationships built on inclusion, holism, equity, care, reciprocity, accountability and justice,
- to stand and act in solidarity in the frontlines of the fight towards inclusion, equity and justice.
Plunging into uncertain, fragile, complex (and possibly quite violent) future…
- I want to discover myself and be myself more intimately, authentically and deeply through the movement…
- I want to be more actively involved in and interconnected through this love relationship.
I am deeply grateful for you and I promise to remain fierce in addressing and redressing problematic issues around gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation and ability, and remain present and faithful to the struggle for inclusion, equity and justice.
Khin Khin
Mon groupe ou moi-même devions participer au Forum qui a été annulé en raison de la pandémie, comment puis-je participer à ce Forum ?
Nous reprendrons contact avec les anciens partenaires pour nous assurer que les efforts passés sont honorés. Si vos coordonnées ont changé depuis le dernier Forum, merci de nous les communiquer afin que nous puissions vous joindre.
Nota de lxs editorxs | Sin palabras
Nota de lxs editorxs
Sin palabras
Cuando el trabajo de nuestros cuerpos se convierte en ganancias en las manos de los sistemas que buscamos desmantelar, no sorprende que nuestras sexualidades y placeres queden relegados una vez más a las márgenes, especialmente cuando no son lo suficientemente rentables. En muchos momentos durante la producción de este número, nos preguntamos qué sucedería si nos negáramos a dar cabida a los servicios esenciales del capitalismo.
Eden Marcellana
ويخطط عدد من الأشخاص من منظمتي لحضور المنتدى. هل يوجد خصم جماعي للمنتدى؟
لا تقدم جمعية حقوق المرأة في التنمية خصومات جماعية، ولكننا نقدم خصومات التسجيل للأعضاء/ العضوات. (انقر هنا لمعرفة المزيد عن كيفية الانضمام)
El mundo en mi casa: La historia de Tidinha
¿Cómo reaccionas cuando parece que el mundo desciende sobre ti? Tidinha se encontró en una situación en la que logró ser escuchada al cuestionar la elección de la sede, y al mismo tiempo descubrió visiones y sueños compartidos y se dio cuenta de que no está sola.
En su propia voz: mira la entrevista con Sara Abu Ghazal
Snippet Intro GV EN
We have partnered with Global Voices for a special series of pieces for Pride Month 2023 (include music, video, and stories!) engaging with the intersectional issues that queer individuals and communities face around the world.
Snippet Kohl - Panel | El placer más allá de las fronteras
con Vandana Shiva, Dilar Dirik y Nana Akosua Hanson