FiLiA Presents the Violence, Abuse and Women’s Citizenship Conference of ‘96

Elana Dorfman: Building Coalitions in the Israeli Feminist Movement

"It is our belief that as long as women aren't full and equal members of society, that the violence against women will continue."
"We have a choice. Do we put this problem away, and only concentrate on our work with women, and perhaps live with the tension beneath the surface? Or open up the subject, not knowing if it will be possible to close it again?"
"Elana Dorfman is a veteran activist of the Israeli feminist movement. In the mid-1970s she participated in one of the first consciousness raising groups on Kibbutz Harel outside of Jerusalem, which was at the core of the emerging feminist movement. In 1981 Elana helped to establish the Rape Crisis Centre in Jerusalem, recruiting and training volunteers to staff the hotline. While temporarily living in Boston in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Elana canvassed for the Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women's Service Groups. Currently, Elana serves as the resource co-ordinator for the Haifa Battered Women's Hotline and is involved in founding Israel's first feminist theatre. Elana holds an MA in Theatre from Emerson College and a BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem."
Elana Dorfman is a writer, storyteller and social activist who lives in Haifa Israel. For over forty-five years she has organized, volunteered and worked to bring about social change around issues of feminism, Jewish renewal, Arab-Jewish shared living and peace. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from Bar Ilan University, 2018. For the past 11 years, she has been leading creative writing workshops. Elana ‘s poems have been published in the Voices Israel Anthology 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. She was a finalist in the Brooklyn Arts and Film Festival Non-fiction writing contest 2021.

Liz Kelly: Sexual Exploitation of Children

“I think we need to look at things separately in order to understand their complexities and all their nuances. But if we forget in the process that what we're talking about is something which is linked, not just at the level of our theory, but also at the level of women's experience and children's experience, then I think we're not going to be able to make the kinds of differences that we need to make in women and children's lives.”
“One of the things that I think is very powerful in all our lives, is whether we can allow ourselves to see and treat mothers as women.”
From 1996:
"Liz Kelly is a feminist researcher and activist, who has worked in the field of violence against women and children for over 20 years. She has been active in establishing and working in a refuge and rape crisis centre, and in local, regional and national campaigning groups. She is the author of Surviving Sexual Violence, and many book chapters and articles. She works at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, University of North London, a small self-financing research centre. She is currently a member of Manchester Justice for Women, a trustee of Zero Tolerance, and chair of the Council of Europe working party on violence against women."
Liz Kelly is a professor of sexualised violence, and director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. She is a former co-chair of the End Violence Against Women Coalition. Kelly has continued to publish on the topic of male violence against women and children, receiving a CBE in 2000 in acknowledgement of her work.

Audrey Mullender: Children Living With Domestic Violence

“Social work has had a lot of things wrong in the past, and in a sense it's not surprising if you look at the conceptual, the theoretical heritage in social work if you look at psychoanalytic theories, if you look at behavioural theories, if you look at certainly systemic theories of family dysfunction that have been mentioned as well. If you look at what heritage we had, it's not surprising we got it horribly wrong.”
“Can we change? Can we take on that challenge? Can we have a new understanding?”
From 1996:
"The issue of children living with domestic violence (defined as men’s abuse of women in intimate relationships) is only now coming to be recognised in the UK as a matter of concern in its own right, as distinct from child abuse. Because widespread concern is so new, there is a risk of unsophisticated or colonizing responses. What is actually needed is constructive work with children and their mothers (as the non-abusing parent), in ways designed to enhance safety whilst assisting women to regain control of their lives.
In this presentation I will discuss the impact on children of the abuse of their mothers, and links between the abuse of women and abuse of children. I will give examples of child- centred responses to the aftermath of living with violence offered by some North American childcare agencies and will describe the twenty year tradition in Britain of work with children by Women’s Aid. I will argue that other agencies urgently need to learn from Women’s Aid, and should help bridge the divide in this country between women’s services and children’s services.
Audrey Mullender is Professor in Social Work at the University of Warwick. Among her many publications are Children Living with Domestic Violence: Putting Men’s Abuse of Women on the Child Care Agenda (London: Whiting & Birch, 1994, co-edited with Rebecca Morley) and Rethinking Domestic Violence: The Social Work and Probation Response (London: Routledge, 1996)."
Audrey Mullender remained Professor of Social Work at the University of Warwick until 2004, when she became Principal of Ruskin College, Oxford, a post she held until 2013. She has published twenty books, as well as various other publications in her field.

Louise Armstrong Politics of Child Welfare

“Historically, it has been women who first raised the issues of intimate violence committed by men against wives and children and petitioned for resources that would enable women to maintain themselves after fleeing and for assistance in gaining protection for themselves and their children. Where the state has responded, however, with financial assistance or child welfare intervention, the response has never been informed by feminism.”
“In turning to the state, women have found themselves turning to institutionalized as opposed to private patriarchy.”
From 1996:
"Louise has spoken widely at colleges, conferences and conventions. Kiss Daddy Goodnight, published in 1978, broke the taboo on talking about incest. Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics: What Happened When Women Said Incest, published in 1994, was described as ‘An important, incendiary, unapologetic history written in hope of rekindling the possibility of radical change — nothing less than a redistribution of gender power’. Her most recent publication is Of ‘Sluts’ and ‘Bastards’: A Feminist Decodes the Child Welfare Debate (1995)."
Louise died aged 71 on August 10, 2008. Read this obituary published in the Guardian and written by Julie Bindel: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/sep/24/childprotection

Brighton96 Exhibition Soundscape

Andrea Dworkin: On rape and battery

In the United States, we have an epidemic of battery. And in the context of battery, I don't even understand how sex can be consensual if consent were a standard that we were willing to accept. And I think it's a bad standard. I mean, under the law, a woman can be dead and she's consented because she hasn't resisted.
So consent doesn't really work for us if we're talking about our human rights. Now I know that I'm talking from a Western perspective, but I feel very strongly that the legal change in making marital rape a real crime of rape is significant for women all over the world. I think this is something that must happen everywhere.
In the context of marriage, and in particular in the context of battery, a woman often initiates sex in order not to be beaten. Any woman in a situation in which she's being tortured who wants to stay alive does something to placate the man who is hurting her. Doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's little.
It doesn't matter if it's big. That's why women feel so responsible for battery. It's the very desire to live, to survive, that does actually keep women alive, but makes women feel implicated in the abuse that's happening to them. This is very deep, and it's very terrible, and it's very real. And the only way we're going to deal with it is if we find a way to break down that isolation.
We're a political movement. That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to find a way to stop the batterer, and protect the dignity of the woman's life. We may not accept the social situation the way that it is. We cannot accept the legal system the way that it is. And so we need to understand the reality for women on the ground, in the world, in real life.
And our advocacy of social policy and legal reform has to be based on the experiences of real women. Which is why the research that's been done here is so very, very important.

What About The Older Women

Hina Simisamar: WVAWG in Pakistan and Afghanistan

“Violence against women in its many forms is one of the sure indicators of the subordinate position of women in the society. Violence exists in different forms, in different levels, from personal to structural violence, justified by religion, culture, and law.”
“But now a new form of menace threatens the women of Afghanistan in the forms of ultra fundamentalist movements, which has now grown to dominate nearly two thirds of the country. The Taliban, the new group, literally meaning religious students, stepped into the congested and unstable political scenario of the country nearly two years ago… They have issued a strict order that women should not venture out of their home without the cover of the veil, and under no circumstance they may  be allowed to participate in jobs. Education and institutions for girls have been closed. And admission of female students is prohibited in any institution irrespective of the level. These measures are intended for limiting the activities of the women inside the walls of their homes. The women of Afghanistan on various instances have expressed their dissatisfaction at the social oblivion to which they are being subjected. In return, the Taliban have resorted to verbal abuse and have even been documented to physically beating and torturing the women in the street. Women are banned from walking on the road without a male company. They are not allowed to attend schools and the entrance of women in the workplace is totally banned.”
“International militarization, exploitation,  and patriotical power struggle has prepared a situation where some new puppet can utilize the subordination of women to increase their own power.”
“Now we need your support and sisterhood more than ever. Please do not withhold your support, for it is vital to us that we fight off this threat before it becomes so deep-rooted in the social soul of Afghanistan, that it may outgrow  to other countries and societies, especially the Islamic countries. As history has proven many times, ignorance has a heavy price, and I believe that we have to fight for our rights. The right is not given by men as a present to us.”
Abstract: unknown
Summary:
Hina presents on the issues faced by Afghani women in 1996, between the Soviet-Afghan war and the imminent USA-Afghan war. The content of her speech hauntingly parallels current events in the region, while summarising the elements contributing to the rise of religious fundamentalism affecting the women of Afghanistan to this day.
Since 1996: unknown

Hillary McCollum: A Survivor’s View

“We learn that we are to blame for the abuse, and it's up to us to prevent it from happening. This is how we are socialised from girls to women. And as women too, it is up to us to prevent men from abusing us. Don't wear a short skirt, that might provoke a rape. Don't go out at night or you'll be attacked. Don't ask your husband for support. That's nagging, and it justifies him hitting you.”
“Mental health services, at least in this country, largely ignore sexual abuse as a cause of mental health problems. They are much more interested in diagnosing physiological causes, in labelling neuroses, schizophrenia and personality disorders, in prescribing drugs and ECT, than they are in helping a woman deal with the effects of sexual violence.”
“We mustn't forget the importance of women's testimony.”
“I don't want to be silenced. I had enough of that during the abuse, but I don't want to be stigmatised either. A whole generation of young women are missing out on the feminist analysis and feminist support because of the way our movement currently responds to women who are open about being abused. We must work to change this situation.”
Abstract:
Hilary addressed the conference on her experiences of surviving child sexual abuse. 
Hilary is an Irish feminist who grew up in the Six Counties and now lives and works in London. She has been an activist for over 10 years, campaigning primarily on the issue of violence against women. She has been involved in initiatives on domestic violence, and was a founder member of Justice For Women; she has also been involved in campaigning against pornography, rape and child sexual abuse. Hilary is Head of Hackney Women's Unit, one, of the supporting organisations of this Conference and she is currently involved in Action Against Child Sexual Abuse. 
Since 1996:
Hilary has continued her activism, chairing and writing for domestic homicide reviews, and contributing to policy around child sexual abuse. She is a trustee of the domestic abuse charity Respect. She is also a successful author, and is a member of the Society for Authors.

Beatrix Campbell: Child Protection – Keynote Address

"What the judicial inquiry was supposed to ask itself was not “what's happened here, what might be happening to these children.” But, “how have professionals responded to this blankety blank, this thing that has no name that we are not allowed to think about?”"
"We will spend a fortune finding out what ‘blank’ didn't happen. What has not happened. What we are not allowed to know."
"That's the voice of the adult survivor. She, of course, is not a new voice. She's an old voice. She's been trying for a millennium to tell her story."
Abstract:
The last decade can be characterised as a decade of discovery and demise. This session will map the volatile politics of child protection since 1987 and the Cleveland crisis. 
Beatrix is a writer, journalist and activist. Her books include Goliath, Iron Ladies and Wigan Pier Revisited as well as Unofficial Secrets, a book on the child abuse controversy in Cleveland, UK. She writes regularly for The New Statesman, The Guardian, The Scotsman and others, and is a regular guest on many television programmes. Beatrix has also conducted research around the satanic ritual abuse of children. 
Since 1996:
Beatrix has continued her journalism and activism, receiving an OBE in recognition of her work in 2009. She has written several books, the most recent of which, ‘Secrets and Silence’, revisits the Cleveland Case discussed in this recording.