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Sisters of Frida at : Woman Up! London, in association with Conway Hall Ethical Society (Saturday 29th Auguest)

Eleanor, Rebecca and Zara

Eleanor, Rebecca and Zara

Sisters of Frida were at the Woman Up event August bank holiday weekend. 29th/30th August
Conway Hall
25 Red Lion Square
WC1R 4RL London
United Kingdom

Saturday

Panel: The politics of women’s bodies: sexuality, porn and nudity
Collette Nolan – Doodle Your Down There
Jane Fae – Journalist and campaigner
Zara Todd – Sisters of Frida
Rebecca Ryce – Sexpression
Chella Quint – Period Positive
Pandora Blake – feminist porn maker

(see transcript below)

Sunday
Panel – Preventing violence against women and girls, and supporting survivors
Rebecca Bunce – ICchange
Chris Green – White Ribbon campaign
Tamara-Jade Kaz – feminist campaigner

Full progamme at From Woman Up eventbrite

transcript of video clip

Zara:

….seen as innocent vessels (?) that are then corrupted by the world.. And yes, there are some horrific stats about disabled womens’ experience.

We are 4 times more likely to be the victims of domestic abuse and violence. The sexual exploitation of disabled children is massive.

But for me I can’t help but question whether those stats in part, are partly because we de-sexualise disabled women.

Because if by de-sexualising them it means that if they do go to the police and say that they’ve had an experience they can be disbelieved because disabled people don’t have sex.

What is really strange to me is that, despite the de-sexualisation of disabled people and disabled women, it is seen as perfectly acceptable for a stranger to approach me and ask how I have sex, or do I have sex. And they are questions that non-disabled women don’t get asked very often.

And I think that to me is where disabled women need to be represented in discussions in Feminism, about sexuality, about porn because a lot of disabled women have hidden impairments and actually a lot of the women that are being exploited and are experiencing sexual violence are probably disabled women. They might not realise it, you might not realise it, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t experiencing those kinds of barriers. So it’s really important that we’re being open and honest about disabled women and how they fit into this kind of environment.

Now I’ve been a Disability rights activist for quite a long time, probably longer than some of the panel members have been alive! – in that I started being involved in Disability rights at the age of 10.

I didn’t get involved in the Feminist movement until my mid-20s. The reason for that was that I didn’t feel like I belonged in the feminist movement. I have spent a large proportion of my life trying to be seen as a sexual entity, as a sexual being, whereas a lot of the messages that I’ve received from the Feminist movement over that same period of time have been telling me that I don’t want to be ‘objectified. Actually, as a disabled woman who is told that I don’t have a sexuality, repeatedly by society, the idea of being sexualised and objectified – sounds pretty good to me!

Anyway, on that note I’ll hand over…

END 3:07

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