198 episodes

FiLiA is a UK-based feminist charity, platforming and connecting women through our annual conference, blog posts, and podcasts. Listen to women sharing stories, wisdom, experience, feminism, sisterhood and solidarity. Find us at: www.filia.org.uk
The opinions expressed here represent the views of each woman. FiLiA does not necessarily endorse or support every woman's opinion, but we uphold women's rights to freedom of belief, thought and expression.

FiLiA FiLiA

    • Society & Culture
    • 5.0 • 23 Ratings

FiLiA is a UK-based feminist charity, platforming and connecting women through our annual conference, blog posts, and podcasts. Listen to women sharing stories, wisdom, experience, feminism, sisterhood and solidarity. Find us at: www.filia.org.uk
The opinions expressed here represent the views of each woman. FiLiA does not necessarily endorse or support every woman's opinion, but we uphold women's rights to freedom of belief, thought and expression.

    #201 Sarah Ditum Exposes the ‘TOXIC’ Nature of Pop Culture and Charts A Way Forward

    #201 Sarah Ditum Exposes the ‘TOXIC’ Nature of Pop Culture and Charts A Way Forward

    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

    • 1 hr 20 min
    #200 Palestine and Israel: Women and the movement for peace

    #200 Palestine and Israel: Women and the movement for peace

    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.

    • 1 hr 9 min
    #199 Widows for Peace with Margaret Owen OBE

    #199 Widows for Peace with Margaret Owen OBE

    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.

    • 1 hr 1 min
    #198 Speak Out Survivors

    #198 Speak Out Survivors

    "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. 

    • 52 min
    #197 Live From FiLiA 2023 Glasgow

    #197 Live From FiLiA 2023 Glasgow

    "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

    • 50 min
    #196 Hadley Freeman On Life Beyond Anorexia

    #196 Hadley Freeman On Life Beyond Anorexia

    Hadley Freeman On Life Beyond Anorexia and Breaking Out of the Good Girl Socialisation

    In this episode, Hadley Freeman discusses her latest book 'Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia' with FiLiA spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez,  in which she shares a harrowing first-person account of her decades-long struggle with mental illness. She addresses the broader, structural issues driving disordered eating among girls and young women and what society can do to improve the situation. Freeman also discusses her writing career and offers advice to young women struggling with anorexia and mental illness in similar situations to those she has lived through.

    Hadley Freeman was born in New York and read English Literature at the University of Oxford. She is the author of The Meaning of Sunglasses published by Penguin in 2009, Be Awesome: Modern Essays for Modern Ladies, Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned from 80s Movies, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia.
    She was a columnist and staff writer for The Guardian for over twenty years, and she is now a staff writer at The Sunday Times. Her work has appeared in Vogue US and Vogue UK, New York Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and many other publications. Her bestselling family memoir, House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family, was published in 2020 and the paperback was Waterstone's Book of the Month in 2021.  Her most recent book is Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, published in 2023.
    You can find her on Twitter and you can purchase Good Girls at the FiLiA feminist library.

    • 56 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
23 Ratings

23 Ratings

Linda G79 ,

International Grassroots Feminism

I am inspired by Radical Feminists’ courage and dedication all over the world. Filia podcast gives me the rare chance to hear many of these women’s voices and to learn about their thoughts and projects. I especially loved the coverage of the 2023 Glasgow Filia gathering.

HUMAN_ME_123 ,

Share Filia

Such a thoughtful and important podcast. It’s full of insight and reflection on studies. So good! Give a listen

Gnome chopper ,

Helen Joyce

I am a man and a huge fan of Helen Joyce. Loved her interview and the book looks amazing. Humans can’t change sex😊

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