Celebrating BFN - what's happened since 2011

Back in 2011 I wrote something to help celebrate what BFN does with no money and no time because they believe in the importance of feminism and promoting gender equality in our city. 

The info in that post (pasted in below) still stands. But since 2011, so much more has happened that it's worth re-capping on the achievements of the last few years. 

In 2011 we organised a panel discussion called 'Where are the Women' with Bidisha, me, and Dr Sue Tate. We talked about women's media representation and what we could do as activists to improve things. 

That same year we organised two film and panel on FGM - featuring speakers from the Orchid Project, Forward, Equality Now and Daughters of Eve. 

After a workshop BFN put on with the activists from No Women No Peace, the group put on a rally and march through the city centre to stand in solidarity with the women rights activists of Afghanistan, before organising a letter writing campaign to ensure women's presence at peace negotiations. 

2011 also saw our biggest Reclaim the Night ever. It was a fantastic success with around 400 marchers, speakers from No Women No Peace, Daughters of Eve, BDAF, Bristol Rape Crisis, Bristol Fawcett - as well as a fab party featuring bands such as Hysterical Injury. 

Throughout 2011 our discussion groups continued, including a very popular one on Feminism and Eroticism. 

Throughout 2011 our co-ordinators, me and Anna, spoke at three conferences and ran a training workshop for NUS members. 

2012 kicked off with a discussion on sex education. The discussion group programme was packed as always - with events on FGM, sexual harassment and film. 

In May our sold-out panel discussion on The Future of Feminism invited contributors to my book The Light Bulb Moment to reflect on their feminist pasts, before Chitra Nagajaran from GAPs, Zohra Moosa from ActionAid, Mara Clarke from ASN and Finn Mackay from LFN discussed what's next for feminism. 

July 2012 saw another Where are the Women event - this time a mix of talks from women activists as well as music, art and film from women artists. 

July also saw BFN members organise Bristol's third Ladyfest which was a great weekend of music and workshops. 

Bristol Feminist Network teamed up with Bristol Fawcett to run a workshop at UK Feminista summer school. 

In November 2012 we organised an open space planning event on violence against women and girls. This inspiring day of activity was designed to plan future actions and was a great opportunity to meet new activists.

As a result of the open space, we organised an action in solidarity with UK Uncut and leafleted outside Starbucks about cuts to women's services. We also kicked off a letter writing campaign to local councillors to protect domestic abuse support services. And they did! 

And now - it's 2013. You may have noticed that I just put on a two day Women's Literature festival that included a panel on feminism. We danced our way through One Billion Rising. Anna and I went to the City Academy to talk to young women about feminism. We've teamed up with Education for Choice to run a workshop on pro choice issues and coming soon we'll be working on an event with global feminisms. And who knows what else will happen in 2013!

Often BFN is criticised for not doing enough. But considering there is no funding, it's run by a few volunteers and we all work full time and have plenty of other commitments, the achievements we've had are huge. 

We've consistently produced an exciting and innovative programme of events and brought fascinating people and groups to the city. We've networked, discussed, acted and made real change happen. And we do it all because we care. 

I feel proud to be part of BFN. I'm proud of our history and our legacy. And I'm excited about our future. 

Here's the original article recording what we did between 2007-2011. 

With Deborah Orr’s Guardian article on 16^th June 2011 being illustrated by Bristol Feminists, it felt a bit like ‘have a go at feminists day’. So, I have decided to write about the many achievements of BFN, to share with you what we do, what we have done and what we will continue to do in the future.

Discussion groups:

Since we launched in November 2007, we have aimed to have a discussion group at least once a month. Bearing in mind a few breaks, this means we have had nearly fifty discussion meetings.

Discussion is and always has been part of feminist activism. They are educational, consciousness raising, inspiring. They allow us to hear one another’s stories and one another’s truths. We have had discussion groups on the women’s body, FGM, forced marriage, women and prison, intersectionality, porn, rape, street harassment, body image, relationships, education, men – so many subjects and this is just a tiny sample. Discussion groups are led by members, and the subjects are chosen by members. This means that we talk about what the BFN community want to talk about. If you want to set up a discussion group to talk about the issues that matter to you, then you can. Get in touch and we can book a date, sort out the venue and spread the word. Discussion groups are for all members to say what they want to say. Book Group is also a great place to start discussion, share thoughts and experiences and read a good book.

Events:

Since we launched in 2007, BFN have put on a whole host of events, including two Reclaim the Nights, four film nights and one gig in collaboration with Indymedia, a pro choice protest, panel discussions, guest speaker events, flashmob activity, research projects and more. We helped organise the council’s International Woman’s Day event and have worked closely with other organisations to support their campaigning activity. We have also worked on public art projects and one member last year organised a series of workshop for survivors of violence.

Other activism:

BFN have organised letter writing campaigns, petitions, attended council meetings to protest licensing decisions, supported and raised awareness of other women’s campaigns, lobbied for parliamentary change etc. It has always been our policy to provide members with the resources they need (online or at organised activist meetings) to ensure that everyone is empowered to take action on campaigns that matter to them. Our members also blog, organise their own activist conferences and events or actions, which we advertise and do what we can to support.

Networking and outreach:

BFN stands for Bristol Feminist Network. Therefore it is vital for us that we work with other community groups, women’s services and public service providers.

Examples of our networking include working with the city council, the women’s forum, being part of the consultation process with the Women’s Voice strategy, Safer Bristol, the police, the Fire and Rescue service, The Bridge (SARC), Bristol Fawcett, the Bristol Uni Centre for gender violence research, Bristol Rape Crisis, One25, Bristol Indymedia, EVAW Coalition, various political parties, UWE Gender Research group, the Domestic Abuse Forum, local media, Daughters of Eve, the Watershed, the PCT and NHS, UK Feminista, Women’s Aid, V Day, Amnesty International, No Women No Peace, Victim Support, the NUJ and many, many more. We do our best to alert men and women in Bristol to the many services and community groups in the city via the links page on the website:http://www.bristolfeministnetwork.com/links.html

We currently have representatives of BFN sitting on the council’s committee that is looking at education and how we can improve PSHE around issues of intimate partner violence. We are really excited about the work this strategy group are doing and the impact it could have on encouraging work in schools on this vital issue. Members have also worked closely with the anti-violence groups to try and ensure that the impact of media imagery on levels of sexism and violence are considered and tackled.

In 2009 we sat on the city council’s steering committee for International Women’s Day, working with a range of organisations including SPAN and Silai for Skills.

We will shortly be showing a film about FGM at the Watershed. We have been in touch with women who work in sexual health and education to ensure that teaching professionals come to the event. The day will include speakers and a panel discussion from Daughters of Eve, the Orchid project and the PCT.

Despite being continually attacked in the local press (!) we believe it is important to keep them informed of BFN’s activities. Talking to the local press (be that radio, TV or print) allows us to reach and speak to people who may not have heard of BFN, may not consider themselves to be feminists, but who may then feel interested or inspired by the campaigns we run.

When we organise Reclaim the Night we make sure that we consult a number of organisations and community groups in the city to ensure that our aims reflect what they want from the march. One member produced an extensive database of contacts of women’s groups in the city to ensure that our marches are as inclusive and representative as we can make them.

We also support activism outside of Bristol. We are members of Object and UK Feminista for example, so we are connected to campaign activity all over the country. Our current featured campaign is regarding asylum seekers’ rights and homophobic persecution. We try and ensure that our work and campaigning focuses both on Bristol and beyond.

At BFN, we believe that education is vital to tackling violence against women and girls. We have historically tried to get in touch with schools with the aims of going in and working with teachers to encourage them to talk about consent and respect, media literacy and other feminist issues. We didn’t have any response from the schools so we are now trying new ways to engage. We helped disseminate the Women’s Aid ‘Expect Respect’ teaching pack to schools in Bristol and North Somerset. As mentioned before, members are involved at a strategic council level at looking at what we can do to encourage education around consent and respect. We try and do what we can to engage with educators, be that at school, management or HE level.

BFN is and always has been run by a skeletal staff of volunteers who have full time jobs, lives and other responsibilities. We do what we do because we believe passionately in liberation from patriarchal oppression. We are time poor, financially poor and resource poor. We give up our annual leave, our spare time, our evenings and lunch breaks to make sure BFN is what it is today. There are so many more things we would love to do, love to achieve and I hope that one day we will do. But in the meantime, I am so proud of what we have achieved. We are a respected organisation that has made a lot of things happen. We are able to talk to people high up in the city about what they are doing to tackle gender inequality. We are listened to and consulted on issues in the city about gender inequality. And I am proud that when women and men come to feminism, they can come to us. Lets celebrate what BFN have achieved, what we continue to achieve, and what we will achieve in the future.

Greta and Boris: a daring rescue - excerpt

My publisher, Our Street Books, have posted an excerpt from my book 'Greta and Boris: a daring rescue'.

You can read it here.

Booking tickets for the Bristol Women's Literature Festival

The festival is less than two weeks away so if you haven’t booked your tickets yet – now’s the time to do it!

You can book your tickets by calling 0117 927 5100 or going online to Watershed. 

Book for Feminism on the Small Screen

Book for Women Writing Today

Book for Bluestockings and Muses

Book for Out of the Ivory Tower

So, what will you be booking?

A weekend ticket is available if you want to catch all four fascinating talks – to order yours just call  Watershed on 0117 927 5100 or go directly to the Box Office.

If you would like to hear renowned screenwriter Emilia di Girolamo talk about her career writing for Law and Order:UK and dramas like The Poison Tree, and how she brings women’s issues to a primetime audience you can book online now. Her talk takes place on 16 March, 11am along with a screening of Line Up.

To hear Stella Duffy, Helen Dunmore, Beatrice Hitchman and Selma Dabbagh read from their work and talk about Women Writing Today with Bidisha, you canbook online now. They’ll be on at 3.30pm on Saturday 16th March.

Then, there’s Sunday. To book your tickets to discover the fascinating and often hidden history of women’s literature with Kate Williams, Dr Charlotte Crofts, Dr Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Professor Joan Adim-Addo and Professor Helen Taylor, you can go online now. This talk is happening at 2pm on Sunday 17 March.

And the festival finishes with a discussion on how writers today are bringing feminism to a new audience with Kristin Aune, Debi Withers and Josephine Tsui.Book your ticket now for 4pm on Sunday 17 March.

Individual tickets are £7/£6 and weekend tickets are £25/20. You can book viaWatershed website or by calling the Box Office on 0117 927 5100

Book for Feminism on the Small Screen

Book for Women Writing Today

Book for Bluestockings and Muses

Book for Out of the Ivory Tower

Just over two weeks to go until the first ever Bristol Women's Literature Festival!

Join Bidisha, Stella Duffy, Helen Dunmore, Selma Dabbagh, Professor Joan Adim-Addo and more for the first ever Bristol Women’s Literature Festival. 

In just a couple of weeks from now, some of the UK’s most celebrated writers and academics will be arriving in Bristol to celebrate their love of books with you. 

The first ever Bristol Women’s Literature Festival aims to celebrate the work of women writers working today and throughout history. It brings together the diverse and exciting talent of women writers, academics and activists to showcase our fantastic literary heritage. 

Chaired by Bidisha, the programme includes TV screenwriter Emilia di Girolamo whose suspenseful and chilling crime dramas include Law and Order UK and The Poison Tree and keep viewers at the edge of their seats. Playwright, novelist and twice winner of Stonewall Writer of the Year Stella Duffy, Orange-prize winning writer Helen Dunmore, first time novelist Beatrice Hitchman and novelist and short story writer Selma Dabbagh will be talking and reading from their work. Taking us through the fascinating and often hidden history of women’s writing will be celebrated academics Professor Helen Taylor, Professor Joan Adim-Addo, Doctor Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Dr Charlotte Crofts and the historian Kate Williams. The festival closes with a discussion on feminist publishing, featuring co-author of Reclaiming the F Word, Kristin Aune, writer and publisher Debi Withers and blogger and writer Josephine Tsui. 

These women are, without doubt, some of the most influential and vibrant writers working today.  

The programme in a nutshell:

Saturday 16^th March

11am – 1pm: Feminism on the Small Screen

TV writer Emilia di Girolamo discusses her work writing successful crime dramas and how she uses her work to bring women’s issues to a primetime audience. Her talk will be accompanied by a screening of her Law and Order UK episode, Line Up.

3.30pm – 5pm: Women Writing Today

Stella Duffy, Helen Dunmore, Selma Dabbagh and Beatrice Hitchman discuss and read from their work. 

Sunday 17^th March

2pm – 3.30pm: Bluestockings and Muses

Professor Helen Taylor, Professor Joan Adim-Addo, Dr Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Dr Charlotte Crofts and Kate Williams discuss the history of women’s literature. This talk is a must for English literature students. 

4pm – 5.30pm: Out of the Ivory Tower

Kristin Aune, Debi Withers and Josephine Tsui discuss feminist publishing and how we bring feminist issues to a new audience. 

Why do we need a women’s literature festival?

Although women have always written and always read, the UK literature scene continues to be very male dominated. Research conducted by UK Feminista in 2010 found that only 38% of the writers nominated for the Booker were women, and, despite women’s success in the prize this year, by 2010, 70% of the winners of the Costa Novel of the Year have been men.  A survey by For Books’ Sake revealed that at Manchester Literature festival, only 20 out of 74 speakers were women, whilst at the Latitude Literary Area, women made up 15 of 53 performers.

The festival’s founder, Siân Norris, explains:

‘I’m so excited to be inviting such an inspiring and interesting line-up to the first ever Bristol Women’s Literature Festival. There really is a talk here for everyone – from those who want to learn more about women’s literary history, to fans of TV drama and lovers of literary fiction. We have historical novelists, contemporary novelists, feminists, historians and specialists in romantic, gothic, modernist and black women’s writing. So whoever your favourite writer is or whatever your bookish interests are, this festival is for you!’

The festival is supported by Watershed, Foyles and The Bristol Festival of Ideas. 

Buy tickets online or call the Watershed on 0117 927 5100

Festival logo designed by Robert Griggs

On the Oscars: How can you be the supporting actress when you're the only actress?

Riddle me this, Bafta and the Academy. How can you be the supporting actress when you are, in fact, the main actress in a movie? 

I ask this because I cannot understand how the brilliant, sublime and wonderful Amy Adams was nominated in the ‘supporting actress’ category of both BAFTA and Oscar lists when in fact she was the lead actress in The Master. Laura Dern was the supporting actress. Amy Adams is the main actress. 

Similarly, how is Anne Hathaway a supporting actress in Les Miserables when clearly she is the best thing about that otherwise rather baggy and boring film? She is the main actress! She is the star. Who is the main actress in Les Mis if not her? Amanda-staring-across-a-square-Seyfried? If anything Eponine is the supporting actress to Fantine’s star. 

I can’t help feel that there is a relationship between the Bechdel test and this odd categorising of women’s roles in movies. All of the supporting actor roles as far as I could tell were actually supporting roles – i.e. there was a main male protagonist and another man performed in the film but in a supporting role. 

But as we all know from the Bechdel test, there is a dearth of films with two women in it at all – let alone films where there are two named women who have lines and actually get to do stuff - let alone stuff that might garner an award nomination. 

So, in The Master, there are two main actors – Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. One can be nominated for a best actor BAFTA and one for best supporting. Then you have Amy Adams and Laura Dern. But Amy Adams’ role, although the dominant female role in the film, is still seen as supporting to the two male protagonists. So she is deemed to be supporting even though she is the leading actress in the film. The male actors are seen in relation to each other. Amy Adams is then seen in relation to the men too. 

In Les Mis, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Eddie Redmayne are the main protagonists. So even though Anne Hathaway is the star woman, her role is still supporting the men in the film. She doesn’t make it into ‘best actress’ because although she is the best actress in the film, the prominence of her role is seen only in relation to the male characters. 

Men are very rarely seen in relation to women characters these days. It seems to me that because there is such a lack of films in Hollywood where women take on a leading role, or any role at all, the awards are always going to struggle to fill the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress category. And because so many Hollywood films present the male as the hero, and feature men as the main protagonist, women are all too often relegated to a supporting role even when they are the main female protagonist. So unless it’s really bloody obvious that the woman is the main character – like in Zero Dark Thirty – or the woman’s character is on an equal screen time footing with a man – like in Amour – then women are almost always seen as supporting. I mean, I haven’t seen Lincoln but from what I can tell, Sally Field is the lead actress she is not the supporting actress. She, Amy Adams and Anne Hathaway will always be supporting when we choose to see the actress role only how it exists in relation to men, rather than in relation to other women. 

And anyway, when all is said and done, Amy Adams should just win everything. As should The Master. It was absolutely the best film of last year and everyone in it should win every award. 

I wrote a book

A couple of years ago, well, rather more than a couple, I started writing a children's book about cats. I entered it into a competition and sent it to some publishers and then forgot about it for a few years.

Then, when I decided to publish The Lightbulb Moment, I dug Greta and Boris out again to do a trial run of self publishing. There were quite a lot of things wrong with it, so I set about re-writing and was soon once more immersed in Greta's magical adventures.

I sent a copy to Bidisha who had expressed an interest in reading it, and her review convinced me to try and get the thing published.

So I contacted John Hunt publishers who I knew had published Laurie Penny and Nina Power, and hurrah! They liked it and accepted it. There was some more editing to do, and my friend Rob Griggs worked on the illustrations - including the beautiful cover.

And today, in the post, this arrived.

Not ashamed to say there were tears in my eyes when I opened the box. I love writing and having a book published has been my ambition ever since I wrote a book about a duck when I was five.

I'm now working on a grown up novel but I feel that Greta, Boris and Kyrie will be going on some more adventures soon.

You can pre-order Greta and Boris: a daring rescue on Amazon and it will be published on 29 March 2013.

If you are an agent and would like to represent me, please get in touch. As I say, I'm working on another book and will be writing a sequel for G&B soon so give me a shout!

Anonymity for rape defendants - bad idea in 1975, 2010 and now

Anonymity for rape defendants is a bad idea that benefits one key group of people – rapists.

It was a bad idea in 1975, when it was how rape cases were conducted. In 1975, lest we forget, men still had the legal right to rape their wives (they had this right until 1990). It was a bad idea in 2010 when the new coalition government tried to bring it back into law. And it will be a bad idea now, as the Chair of the Bar Council in England argues for it again.

Anonymity for rape defendants, and only for rape defendants, is a policy that has its roots solely in misogyny. It is a policy based on the belief that women routinely and maliciously lie about rape in a way that no other crime gets lied about. But this belief is entirely false.

The idea is justified by its supporters because of the stigma of a rape accusation. But if that was really the case, then anonymity would apply to all violent crime. There is stigma attached to an accusation of murder. No crime carries more stigma than child abuse (I’ll argue later as to why all these crimes should carry a stigma). The only reason rape is singled out is because of this pernicious belief that women are just making it up in order to hurt men.

But we know this isn’t true. Earlier this year the latest stats on rape and sexual violence were released. They found that 500,000 people had experienced sexual violence, including 69,000 women raped. They also found that only 2910 incidents were reported and only 1070 led to conviction. We also know that false accusations of rape make up about 3% of reported rapes. This number is no more than false accusations of any other crime.

So the facts tell us that rape is a huge problem affecting tens of thousands of women every year, and that, whilst awful, false accusations are a small problem affecting a handful of men each year.

But our perception is very different. The perception – fuelled by media reporting and a terribly low conviction rate – is that women routinely lie about rape and therefore something must be done to punish women. When instead, I believe we need to be taking steps to encourage a higher reporting rate and a higher conviction rate.

The evidence is there to prove that naming rape defendants is a sensible policy that encourages reporting and that leads to convictions. We can see from the statistics that rape reporting is low. However, when a prolific rapist is named, like John Worboys, it helps women who have been attacked by him feel confident to come forward. Once his identity was known, around 70 women came forward reporting attacks – reports that helped convict him. These women might have come forward before and not been believed, or they might have not come forward for all the reasons why women don’t feel able to report rape. Many of us don’t always realise that rapists might rape more than once. Therefore victims might feel alone, isolated and, thanks to rape culture, start blaming themselves. Understanding that he was attacking other women, that he was a serial rapist helped women feel able to go to the police and report it. Naming Worboys meant that he was finally, after years of terrorising women, convicted.

If he hadn’t been named, he might still be attacking women today. The police might still be dismissing reports – which they did at the time.

Worboys is just one example – there are many, many more. But if anonymity for rape defendants had been in place in 2007 the simple truth is it would have benefited him and it would have harmed the tens of women he attacked.

The argument that we should have anonymity because there is a ‘stigma’ attached to an accusation of rape is quite frankly stupid. Of course there should be a stigma attached to an accusation of rape – just as there should be a stigma attached to all the crimes I’ve mentioned. Rape is a horrible, violent crime deliberately committed against another person. It is a crime that can lead to PTSD, serious mental and physical health problems and much more. It is a crime that can lead to suicide, as we have so tragically seen over the last few weeks.

One would hope that attaching a stigma to such a terrible crime would reduce offending rates. However as the rape stats show, we all too often let rapists attack women with impunity. We let rapists get away with it more than 90% of the time. How else was Unilad able to write that rape made ‘pretty good odds’ when the reporting rate was so low?

We need to make sure there is more of a stigma attached to rape, not less. Anonymity suggests that it’s more important to protect the reputation of rapists than it is to protect the lives of women. I know that it is “justified” in order to protect the falsely accused men but the fact is there are far, far more rapists and far, far more rape victims than there are men who are falsely accused.

If we were really concerned about the rights of the false accused (as of course we should be – that is why it is recognised as a serious crime), then we wouldn’t be singling out rape. The only reason rape is singled out is the simple, misogynistic belief that women lie. That women just make this stuff up. And we know that this is untrue.

The other argument is that because we allow anonymity for victims and survivors of rape, defendants should get the same. But this is simply ridiculous. A victim has not been accused of any crime. Naming her will not help convict her rapist. And if we think there’s a stigma attached to the accused, then god knows we’ve seen what the impact of naming a victim can have. When the woman who was raped by Ched Evans was named online she was eventually forced to flee from her home after being bombarded with death threats. She was twice victimised because quite frankly, in that case, there seemed to be no stigma at all attached to being a convicted rapist.

This is a proposal that panders to the tabloid press who gleefully report failed convictions as ‘false accusations’ (even when the women has not been charged or convicted with that crime – e.g. Diallo). It’s a proposal that upholds misogynistic beliefs that rape isn’t that common and that what is common is women lying about rape. All the evidence, all the statistics show this to be factually incorrect. So much of the evidence proves that naming rape defendants helps encourage reporting and leads to convictions.

We cannot propose or make laws based on women-hating myths. We’re in a real crisis of violence against women in this country. There are 500,000 sexual assaults every year including 69,000 women raped and yet there are only 1070 convictions. Only 2910 reported. This is not the time to be making laws that protect alleged rapists. This is the time to be doing everything we can possibly do to end violence against women and girls. This is the time to be doing everything we can to create an environment where women and girls feel confident reporting rape to the police – confident that they will be listened to, believed and that their rapist will go to jail.

In 2010 Parliament threw out the bill that proposed anonymity for rape defendants based on all the ideas I talk about here.

Let’s keep it that way.


Rape Crisis Helpline: 0808 802 9999
National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247