Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences
Videos from Disabled women’s voices from the Frontline
Here are the videos from the day Disabled Women’s Voices from the Frontline Saturday 9th July, 11am – 4.30pmÂ
Introduction by Annabel Crowley
Simone Aspis
Sophie Partridge and Penny Pepper
Kirsten Hearn
Miss Jacqui
transcript coming soon
Pauline Latchem
Guests speakers – Jagoda and Jasmina Risteska
Many thanks to for funding this event
Photos from the Disabled Women’s Voices
Photos from the Disabled Women’s Voices from the Frontline event taken by Wasi Daniju are now available for viewing. See the full set at her Flickr album.
Here are some of them. Videos coming soon.
Simone Aspis
Kirsten Hearn
Michelle Daley with Jagoda and Jasmina Risteska
Annabel Crowley
Becky Olaniyi and Miss Jacqui
Q&A Panel on Brexit and other questions
Eleanor Lisney
Sophie Partridge and Penny Pepper
some of the participants
Pauline Latchem
Many thanks to Rosa UK for enabling this event
Event: Disabled Women’s Voices from the Frontline Saturday 9th July, 11am – 4.30pm
A Sisters of Frida Event
Please register at Eventbrite
ÂÂÂVenue: Blackfriars Settlement
1 Rushworth Street London, SE1 0RB
Date: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Saturday 9 July 2016
Time:Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 11.00am to 4.30pm
Lunch provided! BSL interpreters provided but please let us know your Access and dietary requirements by 20th June, please!
Disabled women spoke of the barriers in participating in events where organisers seem to think inclusion means that we get access to the event/ if we get access to the event. We need to increase skills, provide capacity so that disabled women will be credible to challenge intersectional inequality.
So come to hear disabled women who are great public speakers/performers
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SPEAKERS
KIRSTEN HEARN is a long time blind lesbian feminist activist. Snarling at the patriarchy and agitating for   inclusion since 1980,; she is founder member of Sisters Against Disablement; Women’s tape over; Feminist audio Books, and an active member of  a raft of other disability, women’s and LGBT rights campaigns.
She seeks to cast all she does in a feminist light, believing that women’s struggle speaks to the experiences of all other marginalised groups. Liberation for one group must not come at the sacrifice of another discriminated against group’s rights,. As best she can, she has applied these principles through singing, songs, writing and performance.
She has been a board member of Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police Authority; EHRC Disability Committee; the chair of Inclusion London and the vice chair of the Consortium of LGBT CVOs. Currently she bends her energies for change as a Haringey Labour Councillor; An Independent Member of the Parole Board; and as a member of the board of Stay Safe East, a pioneering disabled people’s organisation dedicated to campaigning against DV and hate crimes experienced by disabled people. She also speaks a lot.
SIMONE ASPIS is a disabled woman with over 20 years experience of successful campaigning for disabled peoples’ rights.  Her first taste of campaigning was leading People First’s campaign to secure civil rights and direct payments for people with learning difficulties in the Disability Discrimination and Direct Payments legislation.  Thereafter she has taken up campaigns roles with Disabled Peoples Direct Action NetworkI Decide Coalition, Disabled Peoples Equal Rights To Life, United Kingdom’s Disabled People’s Council and Alliance for Inclusive Education working on many issues covering inclusive education, independent living and supported decision making, welfare reform and bioethics. She is a former Green Party’s Disabled Peoples Spokesperson and have stood as Parliamentary Perspective Candidate and Greater London Authority’s elections
BECKY OLANIYI is interested in acting, writing, psychology and neuroscience, but her main goal in doing this is to try to help young disabled women acknowledge and understand themselves as individuals, rather than simply being ‘that disabled girl’, as well as helping people in general to understand that disabled people are whole individuals whose limitations exist on a spectrum and are very different from one another because despite sharing one characteristic, we are all unique, with our own lives, perspectives and experiences.
PERFORMERS
MISS JACQUI came from a extremely creative family; She is fascinated by many different types of artforms. Theatre and music has always been a huge part of Miss Jacqui’s life.
Miss Jacqui’s love for theatre started a little later than most, and it was only when her mother signed Jacqui up to an inclusive drama group when she was 13 to get her out of her introverted shell; and she never looked back. Miss Jacqui’s love for music developed from recording the radio onto cassettes when she was really young, to wanting to know everything about how it all worked.
Miss Jacqui’s love for Spoken Word/Poetry only came to light in October 2011, when she joined ‘Poets Platform’ led by Kat Francois.Miss Jacqui honestly believe that creativity is a universal language.
Miss Jacqui is a Spoken Word Artist, Mix Engineer, Facilitator, and An Artist Manager.
SOPHIE PARTRIDGEÂ is a creative practitioner living in London, who trained with Graeae Theatre Co. She has worked extensively since her training, including her performance as Coral in the award winning Graeae play Peeling. Other stage performance includes work with the David Glass Ensemble, TIE in Nottingham, Theatre Resource in Essex and Theatre Workshop, Edinburgh. Her Media work also includes photo modelling, corporate video and radio. Â She is also a campaigner for the right of all Disabled People to live truly independently!
and –
PENNY PEPPER wrote the taboo-breaking book Desires Reborn in 2012 and in 2013 she won a Creative Futures Literary Award. In September 2014 her one-woman spoken word show, Lost in Spaces, premiered to strong reviews at Soho Theatre, and toured the Midlands in 2015. Recently she launched the Quality Writing for All Campaign for The Literary Consultancy at The Free Word Centre to great reviews. As a performance poet, she has performed across the UK,including London, Edinburgh and further afield in New York.
ANNABEL CROWLEY will chair the day. Annabel grew up as a young carer, and started working in the field of disability at the age of 17. She has supported disabled students in FE and HE, and is currently employed by the Disability Service at University of the Arts London. Annabel has also worked in the charity sector, including several years coordinating a user-led, community-based social activities programme at Hammersmith and Fulham Mencap. With experience in designing and delivering training, advocacy work, project management and youth participation.
Guest appearance!
PAULINE LATCHAM is a practicing Counsellor and relationship therapist. Pauline’s background is in community volunteering, particularly youth and mental health work, domestic violence and disability advocacy and activism. She was great speaking at the Wow Festival Chore Wars session as a Deaf woman for Sisters of Frida.
Funded by
Sisters of Frida at #WOWLdn
This year is amazing! so many of us will be at the WoW festival this weekend! do go along and support -if you can get a ticket!
Coming out as disabled: Body Image, labels and denial of disability
One in five of us is disabled – so why do we try to hide it from our friends? How do we ‘come out’ as disabled women?
Zara Todd
Venue Level 4 Blue Bar at Royal Festival Hall
Time 11:15am – 12:15pm
Date Saturday 12 March 2016
One in five of us is disabled – so why do we try to hide it from our friends? How do we ‘come out’ as disabled women? Four women tell their stories. Speakers include Deborah Williams, Diversity Manager BFI; Dieuwertje Dyi Huijg, Visiting Lecturer, Sociology at University of Westminster and Rebecca Bunce, human rights researcher and campaigner.
Chaired by Zara Todd, disability rights campaigner and activist.
In partnership with Sisters of Frida.
Others
Sexism Makes Us Sick Examining Woman’s health
Annabel Crowley
Venue St Paul’s Roof Pavilion at Royal Festival Hall
Time3:45pm – 4:45pm
Date Saturday 12 March 2016
Examining women’s health Heart disease kills more women than men each year, fewer women than men survive a heart attack, so why do we hear so little about it? In mental health, women are more than twice likely than men to have depression and less likely to be taken seriously. How does gender affect physical and mental health care and what can we do to change the status quo? Speakers include Bridget Hargreaves, author of post natal depression memoir Fine Not Fine; Dr Victoria Showunmi, lecturer on migraines at the UCL Institute of Education.
Chaired by Annabel Crowley.
Toilets are a Feminist Issue
Sarah Rennie
Venue St Paul’s Roof Pavilion at Royal Festival HallÂ
Time2:15pm – 3:15pm
Date Saturday 12 March 2016
Come and find out why you should give a shit about toilets. From women always having to queue, to the lack of toilet facilities in the developing world having a devastating effect on women’s safety, what can toilet provision tell us about gender equality? Come and join the grand doyenne of public toilets Prof. Clara Greed; award winning writer and feminist Beatrix Campbell; Changing Places campaigner and disabled feminist Sarah Rennie and periods activist and founder of #periodpostive Chella Quint to discuss. Beware – there may be toilet humour.
Chaired by New Statesman Deputy Editor, Helen Lewis.
- Type of event
- Talks and debates
- Running Time
- 60 mins
Chores Wars and Domestic Lives
Pauline Latchem (photo from Eleanor Lisney)
Venue The Clore Ballroom at Royal Festival HallÂ
Time1:15pm – 2:15pm
Date Sunday 13 March 2016
Studies show that women still do twice as many chores as male partners, even when they work full-time. From housework to ‘emotional labour’, is this one of the last frontiers of normalised gender inequality? And how can we level the playing field? Speakers include counseller and lifelong feminist Pauline Latchem, and teacher and writer Lola Okolosie.
Chaired by Laura Bates, founder Everyday Sexism Project.
Black Feminisms/Black Women Pop Culture
Becky Olaniyi
Venue Level 3 Foyer (Green Side) at Royal Festival HallÂ
Time4:00pm – 5:00pm
Date Sunday 13 March 2016
What does the portrayal of black women in popular culture tell us about race, sex and power? Join journalist and campaigner Reni Eddo Lodge, visual sociologist Emma Dabiri, activist Becky Olaniyi and playwrite Adura Onashile as they discuss the joys and challenges of being a black feminist.
Chaired by Senior Programmer, Contemporary Culture and journalist Hannah Azieb Pool
Rebecca and Zara at Youth Action Festival, Dec 2015
We were asked if Sisters of Frida works with young people and yes, we do. Becky Olaniyi was very much in the picture as part of the Steering Group until she rolled into university and have too much on with university work and getting used to campus life.
And we recently had a thank you note to Zara Todd for Rebecca’s and their  workshop ‘Gender and Disability Discrimination’  at the Youth Action Festival
“... but I wanted to say a huge thank you for everything you did for the Youth Action Festival in December. I wanted to thank you and your colleague for giving up your Saturday and providing such a meaningful contribution to the day. We really could not have made the event the success it was without you.
Overall the event was a huge success. Please do have a look at the quotes from evaluation forms on the attached letter that give a flavour of what an incredible impact the day had on participants.
We also used the solutions that young people put forward during the day and the learning from the day to shape the policy and ideas for our Learn Without Fear UK campaign this year. You can see our campaign and policy content on our web pages and in articles in the press Daily Telegraph Wonder Women section, Metro.co.uk, Huffington Post, Good Housekeeping and the Daily Express.
Thank you Zara and Rebecca!
Rebecca
Zara
Photo Credit: Plan International//Jessica McDermott
Disabled women at Feminism in London 2015
We were asked to organise a disabled women’s panel at this year’s Feminism in London Conference in October.
A big thank you to Lisa-Marie Taylor, FIL’s organiser, for inviting us!
We did some publicity by having a stall and we ‘re grateful to Annabel, Zara, Jacqueline and Sophie for helping us with the stall!
(Click on photos to get a bigger photo)
Real Media came to do do a short video feature on it – many thanks!
transcript FIL SOF panel (Word doc)
Frances Ryan also wrote a piece for the Guardian on the event A Disabled Woman’s struggle is any woman’s struggle
Obi was kind enough to video the whole event – if you wish to follow it in its entirety
great additions from Nidhi Goyal and Asha Hans Part 1
http://bambuser.com/v/5878073
with Q&A from audience
Individual videos
Asha Hans video
TRANSCRIPT Asha Hans (Word doc)
Nidhi Goyal’s video
TRANSCRIPT Nidhi Goyal (Word doc)
Frances Ryan’s video
TRANSCRIPT Frances Ryan (Word doc)
Becky Olaniyi s video
TRANSCRIPT Becky Olaniyi (Word doc)
Rebecca Bunce’s video
TRANSCRIPT Rebecca Bunce (Word doc)
Kirsten Hearn’s video
TRANSCRIPT Kirsten Hearn (Word doc)
Thank you all for having taken part in the event!
Disability is not our only identity: An interview with Becky Olaniyi
Becky Olaniyi
In anticipation of this year’s Feminism In London conference (October 24-25), Alicen Grey talks with Becky Olaniyi about disability, feminism, and the challenges and lessons of being an activist at the intersection of identities.
See the rest of the interview at the Feminist Curent.
Becky is the youngest member of our steering group but she’s a brilliant speaker. Its not too late to get tickets for the workshop. And if you have difficulties paying, just let them know.
Sisters of Frida at : Woman Up! London, in association with Conway Hall Ethical Society (Saturday 29th Auguest)
Eleanor, Rebecca and Zara
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
Screening AccSex: Disabled Women Sexuality and Solidarity 16 Saturday 1 pm.
Accsex
Please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-accsex-disabled-women-sexuality-and-solidarity-tickets-16811051307 Details are on the eventbrite.
Confirmed BSL for discussion!!
Laki Kaur
We ‘ re also very pleased that Laki Kaur will be joining us and co chairing the discussion with Becky.
Laki is a 25 year old disabled woman , she describes herself as ‘outspoken, positive and love to try new things who loves traveling ‘. She works as a receptionist and loves her job.
Event Details
Sisters of Frida is happy to host AccSex in London. Shweta Ghosh will be there to answer questions co chaired by Lucia Bellini and Becky Olaniyi from Sisters of Frida
Within stifling dichotomies of normal and abnormal, lie millions of women, negotiating with their identities. Accsex explores notions of beauty, the ‘ideal body’ and sexuality through four storytellers; four women who happen to be persons with disability. Through the lives of Natasha, Sonali, Kanti and Abha, this film brings to fore questions of acceptance, confidence and resistance to the normative. As it turns out, these questions are not too removed from everyday realities of several others, deemed ‘imperfect’ and ‘monstrous’ for not fitting in.Accsex traces the journey of the storytellers as they reclaim agency and the right to unapologetic confidence, sexual expression and happiness.
The experience of minority genders with disability largely reflects double discrimination. In the Indian context, identities and stories are further layered by virtue of diversities in caste, class, ethnic and religious backgrounds. The issues of persons with disabilities are often seen through a welfare approach in laws, programmes and policies. A similar charity-tinted lens is employed by educational books and media texts and a basic reading of these shows how the mildest physical and psycho-social disabilities are viewed as ‘abnormal’.
Accsex has won a number of awards and been part of several festival selections. It has also been used as a strong advocacy and educational material by activists in the field of disability and gender rights. It has been incorporated into the CREA Disability and Sexuality Rights online institute in 2015.
Shweta Ghosh is a documentary filmmaker and researcher. A silver medalist from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (SMCS, TISS), Mumbai, she has explored her interest in disability, cuisine, travel and music through research and film projects.
Shweta’s debut documentary Accsex, a film exploring notions of beauty, body, sexuality and disability was awarded Special Mention at the 61st Indian National Film Awards 2014 and has been screened across India and abroad. The film has been appreciated for its rights-based approach to disability and sexuality and has been used widely as advocacy and training material by NGOs and academic institutions.
Lucia Bellini works for StaySafe East to tackle violence and abuse against disabled and Deaf people. She spoke for disabled women at Million Women Rise at Trafalgar Square this year.
Becki Olaniyi is a young disabled women. She was on a panel on disability, race and gender at the WOW Festival at the South Bank this year.
We will also be discussing setting up a disabled women group on sexuality, relationships and intimacy.
This event is a women only event intended as a safe space for women to discuss sexuality and disability issues.
Nearest Tube stations
Waterloo Station | Bakerloo, Jubilee, (accessible for wheelchair users)
Lambeth North Station | Bakerloo line
Kennington Station | Northern line
Elephant & Castle | Northern line
Northern, Waterloo & City lines
Buses
3, 59, 159, 360
Sisters of Frida at the WOW Festival Sat 7th March, 12-1pm, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank
A panel (Disability and Feminism) of campaigners will be asking at the WOW Festival whether the resurgence of mainstream feminism ignores the voices of disabled women and discuss what happens when gender, race and disability collide. Speakers include Becky Olaniyi and Michelle Daley of Sisters of Frida. Chaired by Eleanor Lisney.
The Woman of the World Festival is a festival of talks, workshops and performances celebrating women and girls held at the South Bank.
This follows the disabled performance artist and choreographer Claire Cunningham who offers a provocation on the widely held assumption that disability is a negative state in which to exist, and asks whether dance by only non-disabled people is actually… a bit boring?
Please do come and say hello! You do have to get a ticket but there are limited half price concessions for the day available.
