How do we imagine a future where gendered violence
doesn't exist? Shouldn't everyone be allowed
to practice their faith in peace? How is the way I address
any of your business? By the time I'd reached adolescence,
I was so insecure that I was vulnerable to abusers. Muslim womanhood is linked with the ideas of submissiveness
and subordination. Influencers saying that they would
rather be dead than look like you. Men trolling you over and over online beauty is seen as our one goal. (music + singin
g) I'm Gina Tonic. I'm a big fat legend from South Wales. About three years ago
I started The Fat Zine, which is a publication by fat people,
for fat people and those that loved them. Growing up and seeing all the
incredible women around me I thought, first of all,
that all women grow up to be fat. All my aunties are fat, my grandma, my mom. So I think they were kind of...
I was kind of right in that one. Fat-phobia is the belief that fat people
are lesser than thin people. Fat-phobia is insipid
. It's everywhere in our society.
It's in the media. It's in when you get on an airplane
and you can't fit in the seat. That's fat-phobia. No one's put the effort into making things
accessible. There's also problems with body image
where we're told we are less beautiful, we're less worthy because we are fat.
And that is fat-phobia as well. When I think of modern
beauty standards... I just think
what a load of crap. The beauty standards are harder than ever
because they've made it seem achievable
. So with it being seen as achievable,
it makes it so much harder when you can't achieve those goals. And even becomes insipid within activism, especially with body positive activism,
where we think the end goal is to feel beautiful. The systems of oppression are banking on
that to distract us from bigger issues. Issues like domestic violence,
issues like not getting the jobs we want. Not getting the medicine we need. We need to rise up against beautiful being the best thing that a woman can be.
My earliest memory of having someone talk
about the way that I look or my body was actually the first week
and then the whole of year seven. My mom gave me a short pixie cut just before I went in and loads of people
just mistook me for a boy. I found that really like...stressful. Really upsetting
because you're being misgendered and you're being viewed in a way that
you're not trying to be seen in the world. But since then, I've always made a point
to be aware of other people's gender, how they
're presenting themselves,
and what they want to be referred to. I think the terms for being a woman
are broader than ever before... But that's a really cool thing. Like anyone gets to join in on the womanhood. Sexism and sexist abuse is different
for plus-sized women compared to our thin counterparts because it's that added layer
of being from a marginalised identity. This happens across all kinds of different
marginalised bodies, from race to queerness, disability to being trans,
where you are
being discriminated against not just for being a woman,
but for being fat or being something else. So when we talk about solidarity
between all women, it has to also work across all marginalised identity
that comes under the label of womanhood. Otherwise, what's the point? I first got involved in Fight Liberation
by being fat. Learning about feminism on Tumblr. Like everyone in my generation learned about feminism,
led me down rabbit holes about fat liberation,
about movements from the seventie
s, the eighties, the nineties, and knowing that not much had changed,
that lots of things had gotten worse. Led to me getting involved in these kind of spaces
and even creating my own called The Fat Zine. I really wanted to create a space
that was specifically just for fat people where fat people can share
their creations, share their experiences just for them. So everyone who works on it is fat. And we feature the work of fat bodies. My general advice for allies and friends
looking to support t
heir fat friends and the fat
community is to educate yourself. Don't put that onus onto your fat friends to tell you things about their experience
and their struggles. You can easily go online and you can access resources
like The Fat Zine that will give you an insight
into the fat experience and the things that we struggle with. It's just once you know what
the struggles are of fat people, it's so much easier
to be accommodating to them. My name is Mariam. I'm a journalist and author
and I'm fr
om the UK. When I was young, looking at my mother,
I saw a strong, independent, really fierce woman. And having grown up, that is my experience of what it is like to be a woman as well. But I don't think
all women in my community were like that. I don't think all women in society
are like that. Growing up, I did think
all Muslim women were the same way. So that's beautiful
for me to know personally. I think often when we talk
about the policing of bodies, specifically Muslim women,
we think abou
t what's happening over there in Middle Eastern countries with stoning
and we think of like autocratic governments. We don't necessarily
look more closer to home. What's happening in the West. We don't look at how things like the
burqa ban that were introduced in France in 2011 have had an impact on Muslim girls
in terms of their education, in terms of work space. And I would argue actually in its own
very specific way, the West has quietly diminished
a lot of Muslim women's rights. Gendered Isl
amophobia is Islamophobia
mixed in with sexism and misogyny. It's as casual as, why do you wear a hijab? The assumption there is, you're
being forced to wear a hijab. But it could also be as drastic as someone
pulling that hijab off of your head because they don't like the fact
that you practice your faith and feel like it's a threat to them. I believe that the quieter version of gendered Islamophobia
is more dangerous because it's this idea
that you don't have intellect, you don't have autonomy
,
you don't have the right to your body that they know better. That will always feel
more threatening to me than an outright attack. My earliest memory of understanding
how I was perceived was when I stood at a bus stop and a White man basically
talked about me as if I wasn't there. He was talking about how stupid I looked. He was talking about
how I probably couldn't speak English. And I did eventually turn around,
even though as I was a teenager, I did turn around and tell the man that I
could
understand everything that he said. It really showed me that his understanding of me
and how I looked was that I was ignorant. I didn't know how to speak. I didn't know
how to communicate for myself. And to him hat made it okay to basically
stand there and talk about me in demeaning way. The representation of Muslim women
in our society is one that has consistently kept Muslim women
in a very specific space. Disenfranchised from politics
not able to take part in society. You know, there's no r
epresentation that
will make someone feel empowered or heard. The breaking point for me
was when David Cameron was reported to have said that Muslim women
are traditionally submissive. And he compared that traditional submissiveness in line
with the radicalisation of Muslim men. And because of that specific thing,
there was a whole backlash. However, that's the thing that triggered my book. It's Not About The Burqa. It was a way for Muslim women
to talk back into this narrative that had been wri
tten about them,
to write back into a space that they'd never been allowed
to have a voice in. That's the thing that has pushed
my activism writing, giving platform to other Muslim women to be their true
selves, to be contradictory. If we're only seen as a monolith,
we can't have rights. We can't have the choices that we want. And that's exactly what I was trying to
tackle. Allyship is really interesting. Whilst bodily autonomy is a cornerstone
of feminism, it doesn't seem to be when Muslim wome
n are involved.
The voices that are the loudest for movement like #MeToo or the right to my body,
they're the quietest when it comes to whether a Muslim woman
should be allowed to dictate how she dresses her body.
To be the best ally to Muslim women... you have to believe them at face value. You have to believe that they have
the intellect to make the decisions. You have to believe that the way that they choose to dress
their bodies is their choice. You have to believe that they can still be
a e
mpowered person or woman with autonomy,
even if their feminism or their practice of womanhood
is different to yours. My name's Evie Muir. My pronouns are she and her. I'm a domestic abuse specialist, freelance writer and founder of Peaks of Colour,
which is a Peak District based nature for healing collective by
and for People of Colour. The definition of domestic abuse
has evolved. It's no longer recognised
as this outdated form of abuse perpetrated by a man against a woman. That has to be physi
cal. That has to cause a mark. We're now evolving in our understanding of it. That it's a pattern, a series of acts that completely crush your sense of self. There are laws and policies
that are supposed to protect survivors. But we know they don't work. To say what a woman is, is impossible. If we were to apply an intersectional lens
to our understanding of gender and femininity and womanhood,
there is no one way of experiencing this because there's
no one way of experiencing life. And I don't
think that's a bad thing. I find it really difficult
to answer any questions about what I thought of when I was little,
who I was when I was little. And that's because of trauma. What I do remember, however, is
the contentment of my mum and my grandma. That's something as White,
working class women that I always aspire to be
and something that I still aspire to... access... Contentment. My childhood is a bit of a blur, due
to the trauma. Despite all of that,
what sticks in my mind is the racism
that I experienced from White girls who were meant to be
my peers, meant to be my friends, who had internalised and were regurgitating racism from the age of four, up. And that came in the form of what we now have the language
to describe as microaggressions. It was everything
from commenting about my hair, how much prettier I'd
look if I straightened it. I internalised that myself. And that turned to insecurity. It turned to self-loathing. And what's really interesting about that
is that White
women speak the loudest about violence against women and girls, they said to themselves,
and that victimhood. But I truly believe
that one of the biggest contributing factors
to my own victimhood was the racism I experienced by White girls
from the age of four upwards. Here in the U.K. ... If you are Black and queer,
you have experience of accessing support, healing and justice
is going to be vastly different than if you were a White,
cisgender, heterosexual woman. It's likely that the support w
orker you have won't understand
your lived experience. They may physically not have the systems
in place to support you. For example, if you don't have recourse
to public funds, or you have insecure immigration status. It's going to be extremely scary
to navigate the criminal justice system, and it's unlikely that you'll be able
to access therapy from someone who looks like you and can support you
in the way that is culturally competent. Abolitionist feminist practice
really underpins the work t
hat I do elsewhere with Peaks of Colour,
which is a Peak District based nature for healing community club by
and for People of Colour. We have monthly hikes
and regular walk-shops which are creative and holistic workshops
set in nature. That are led collaboratively
by facilitators of Colour and explore alternative routes
for healing and justice... but in nature. I always say that
nature is just as important, equally as potent to my own
healing as talking therapy. The traditional forms of support
. I think if I didn't have the nature of
it's on my doorstep, I would be in a very different place
to where I am now. Nature's offered me an escape. It's offered me peace.
And Peaks of Colour is my informal, intimate invitation
for people to experience that with me. For me,
looking towards nature now as an option of exploration, of experimentation,
of how we can find healing outside of these carceral feminist
models, is what brings me hope... what brings me joy. If your feminism isn't intersecti
onal, if it isn't also advocating for the removal of White supremacy
from trans misogyny, from ableism... It's not enough. The fight for gender equality is ongoing, but the good news is
that the world is becoming more and more aware of our need
for radical change. Get involved. Notice signs of violence and abuse
and learn where to reach out for help. Call out and reject chauvinistic
sizeist and racist attitudes. Support women seeking leadership roles. Listen. Listen. Listen. Hands off. My body.
My rights. My future. My choice.
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