#145

 History and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement

Sally: Hello, Sally Jackson here, one of the volunteers from FiLiA and I'm really delighted today to be joined by Gill Hague, who's a Professor Emerita of Violence Against Women Studies in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. In 1990, she co-founded with Ella Mallos the university’s Violence Against Women Research Group, now the Centre of Gender and Violence Research and has been on activist on gender violence since the early seventies, she's produced around 135 publications and about eight books. She's also published three poetry collections and unsurprisingly received two national awards. And we're speaking with Gill today about her latest book, the History and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement: We've Come Further Than You Think. 

Gill, thanks so much for joining us. I have to say it was a book I really enjoyed reading. 

Gill: Uh, thank you for your kind words about it, Sally. Can I just say to start with that I want to just to say that how proud I am to be a little bit associated with FiLiA and you what an amazing organisation you are and all the solidarity and the campaigning things that you do and the amazing conference so carrying the flame of women's liberation forward. And for me, it's just wonderful to be able to talk about the book with you.  

Sally: That's so lovely to hear and to, you know, thank you so much for that. And in fact, one of the first things that struck me about the book is, at the beginning, you've got a list of sort of acknowledgements of women that you've spoken to in bringing the book together. And it really does read like a who's who of the movement, some fabulous inspiring, wonderful activists, and I'm not going to try and name them all but the likes of Liz Kelly, Jalna Hanmer, Eleri Butler, Harriet Wistrich, Fiona Vera-Gray, Southall Black Sisters, the Seventies Sisters, the Older Feminist Network, I mean, just rich sources of information.

And in some ways I'm surprised the book ever got written because it must have been tempting to just stay chatting with these women about the work they're involved in. 

Gill: Yes, it was fantastic just how many with the older and young activists   helped with the project. 

Sally:  Throughout the book, it's lovely how their work is remembered and recorded. And I suppose I wanted to start by remembering why these wonderful women have spent so much of that their life and their passion, trying to improve things. And that's perhaps summed up in, in the dedication for the book.  Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that.

Gill: Thank you, Sally. Thank you for bringing that up, of course we do the work because we want to try to stop violence against women and the murder of women. The book is dedicated partly dedicated to Ingrid Escamilla Vargas who was a young 25-year-old woman in Mexico, she had a master's degree, she had successful life and she was murdered by her husband in February last year. And her body was dismembered and eviscerated in ways that are too horrible to speak of. But, unfortunately the police attending the murder, took photographs of her body dismembered body, and they went out all over the media across Mexico. And there was a tremendous outcry and amazing demonstrations by women, all over the country. I just would like to say that there are about 10 femicides a day in Mexico and last year there were 3,825 women killed for being women in Mexico. 

So the book is dedicated to survivors of violence and to activists. The cover features a protest, which was on International Women's Day, last year in Mexico City, in memory of Ingrid Escamilla Vargas and also in memory of a seven-year-old girl who was abducted from school and brutally murdered three days later. And it was an amazing demonstration. It was accompanied by a women's strike that involved 50% of the countries women. Women did amazing things like in Guadalajara, they died all the fountains in the city red for blood.

And the image on the cover is of the red shoes, they're red for the colour of blood, each shoe that represents a femicide and they are left and public places. And that was part of this huge demonstration in Mexico City.  So that demonstration was partly in memory of Ingrid Escamilla Vargas and this book also is.

 And I wanted to say that perhaps we can all go on taking forward our work in the memory of victims of femicide and in this case Ingrid Escamilla Vargas.   

Sally: Absolutely so important. Thank you. And I'd like to congratulate you because I do think the book is a wonderful reflection of the contributions from so many of what I would call the sheroes of our movement.

And I was thinking, what made you initially think I want to write this book. I want to put this book together and then how did you go about doing that? 

Gill: Thanks. Well, this is the final book of the books that I've written and the things that I've done. I was asked to write it actually by various women and by quite a few younger activists who asked me to do it, and then I was commissioned to do it by the press.

I’ve been involved in women's movement and fighting domestic violence for 45, nearly 50 years as an insider. And, you know, as a researcher and a refuge worker and a member of collectives and an activist and latterly as a Professor of Violence Against Women Studies, as you said, I'm one of the few women that have got a title like that.

It's my final book. And so it's been an emotional journey, really, you know, I'm wanting to record and assess the movement that we all make well at least some of us are still here of the older activists and it also meant recording and assessing my own life and my contribution. So it's been a powerful process.

I was completely thrilled that so many of activists, so many from the very beginning and later have contributed. I mean, it was my honour and I didn't realise so many women would be willing to contribute at the beginning. 

 I did do interviews and I did wide-ranging consultations, I got to talk with lots of amazing women that some of the women you've mentioned, so women like Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sisters and so on too. 

So I think the book is, even though it's not a collectively written book, which is what we really need for our collective movement, it is at least the beginning of one, you know, because it's a beginning of a collective memory of what we all made and our successes and our failures and our moves forward over so many years.

And I am quite proud of it because it draws on interviews. It draws on testimonies from survivors. It draws on memories and memoir, and there's also a few poems in it. And it's a non-academic read. I'm hoping that it will be of use to take our movement forward. 

Sally: I think it definitely will do.

And I was thinking, I really want younger women who are new to working in the violence against women field to pick it up and feel that history and understand, you know, in some ways how they got there, how the movement got to where it is, you know, the point at which they joined it and have that wider concept of the work of the movement.

Gill: And of course, obviously there's so many new movements that go on, Sarah Everard and there are so many younger activists who are now forging their own way forward which is different, but they hopefully would want to learn from the past. 

What the book aimed to do was to record this dynamic history. Which we all made while some of the older activists like myself are still here, but also to record it for the future. 

You know, the women's movement that then erupted with such passion, wasn't it heady passion and change from the 1970s onwards. And what I want is, I hope that the book celebrates everything that we all did and everything that we continue to do. And the quote from the Dobashes for those who don't know it is about the coming of the women's movement was:

‘The great mobilisation of women began with a vision supported by action. The vision was of a world transformed.’

Sally: Absolutely, really powerful. And that's interesting because I liked the way in the book, you take us through to starting on the earlier days and working forward with what was happening in the movement.

So starting back from the sort of sixties and seventies, you talk a bit about the cultural context in which the violence against women and girl’s movement started. Tell us a little bit about what else was going on then, that kind of like gave the space for it to be able to start. 

Gill: It was a time of such political change and transformation really quite different from today, unfortunately.

Change was in the air. And I think that the Women’s Liberation Movement and the women's movement against violence against women came out of that political fervour. There was the black liberation movement, the black power movement. There were some national liberation struggles all over the world.

The flags came down on the Empires. There was the gay liberation movement. There was the anti-Vietnam war struggle, the counterculture, there was all these new ways of living, new poetry, new music. And I was lucky enough to be of that generation, that post-war generation after the horrors of the second world war then we came into this and all these new things seem to open up before us.

And so it was such a passionate and amazing time. And I think the women's movement when it came out of that, especially when women within those movements began to realise that their voices weren't really being heard properly and that they were being over looked, over spoken. And I think as well as I can find out that one of the first times that term was used was in the SNCC, the Student National Coordinating Committee in the states, which was for those listening, who might not know it was totally pioneering and militantly activist, civil rights organization, which embraced black power.

And I think that women like Fannie Lou Hamer, amazing women were some of the first to come forward with this thing that we've got to challenge this, and we've got to perhaps make a movement of our own. And then this women's liberation movement of such passion and verve erupted really in the late sixties, early seventies. 

Sally: And one of the things that was very much part of that movement and the building of that movement, and I would say it's also very precious to FiLiA and something we feel is really important to continue and that's the importance of consciousness raising.

You spoke to who I would say probably is the queen of consciousness raising, a woman I've learned so much from Jalna Hanmer about consciousness raising and its importance in the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Gill: I was close to Jalna really one of our esteemed elders who has given so much to the movement for so long.

There's a quote in the book that she did about what consciousness raising is. And, I don't know if you would agree, but probably everything in the women's liberation movement started from consciousness raising, it was kind of the foundation. That great slogan that we've always had and that others have appropriated, but that ‘the personal is political.’

And so, meeting together in small groups of women to talk about, to share personal experiences, which is what we all did constantly, and to evolve out of sharing experiences, to evolve new ways of understanding our position as women. And then out of that, new ways of having strategies for change in political campaigns and so on. So all that stuff campaigning rose out of the consciousness raising group, I mean, that was amazing. It was transformative for those of us who were part of it.

And there was still some today, some of them kept on meeting all those years. I talked to Mica Nava, a long-term feminist cultural historian. And she was saying how much being in a long term consciousness raising group for all these years has sustained their lives, even now as they grow older, it continues to do so.

I think consciousness raising is still a little bit used sometimes a little bit in some organisations like extinction rebellion a little bit in some places. And it's something that might be worth returning to within women's activism. 

Sally: Oh, I completely agree. We’re great fans within FiLiA and something that we use with our volunteers.

And I think that the power of the discussion, but also then the practicality of turning that into action, is something that's really quite revolutionary, still and, and that action and that organising of the action, that was something else I think that was a real strength of that time and women deciding as they move forward and they started to react and try and address domestic abuse and violence against women.

They weren’t going to organise in the standard way that they'd seen men do for years with hierarchies and power structures that were so familiar, they wanted to be working very differently. And so the collective was born and the power of organising in that way, but also to be honest, some of the frustrations of working in a collective, perhaps you could talk to us a little bit about that.

Gill:  Just on the consciousness raising thing, what was so great about it was that you felt supported, so you were building actions maybe, but not just building them, but you were doing it from a base of support and warmth together, coming together and actually they were talking about things that none of us had ever talked about before often, now it's fairly common place some of those notions, but then they were brand new, so they were great.

And then they led on, as you say, to collectives. I suppose it's only fair to say that lots of the other social movements also organised in collectives. I’m really in favour of collectives. It was a wonderfully brave way to organise and especially hard when in the violence against women movement, when you were taking on something as distressing as violence against women.

But all of those organisations, campaigning violence against women are beginning to set up refuges work collectives, and they stay collectives for 20 or 30 years, really until the early two thousands. And the women concerned, I think were brilliant in the way they worked out innovative ways forward, in refuges for example.

Some of the early politics were really revolutionary. One thing that we all try to do is to break down power differences between the women providing the service and the women using it, which is not done so much these days. But that involves the women in the refuge being members of the collective, being involved in decision-making at national and local, probably national, but certainly local level and, you know, really brave.

Some might say it is naive to do these things, but it was kind of really brave to try and flatten hierarchies and share power like that. I think it transformed certainly activist women in the movement, but also the survivors who are coming to use the services. It's just so brave and brazenly the audacious looking back.

Sally: Absolutely. I mean only because it just hadn't been done before. So it was really stepping out into the unknown, but also thinking of those women who had come from abusive situations, where they held less power and possibly no power at all, to be valued and listened to and part of that organising structure, it must have been just revolutionary for them 

Gill: Revolutionary for everybody.

Sally: I was struck actually talking about some of the women that you spoke to whose abuse had actually occurred back in the forties and the fifties. And there was a quote from one of the women. If I can just quote from her:

 ‘The way that violence ruined in my life, undermined my whole personality. I'm bitter that my life was gone and wasted. I lost it. It's over and wrecked. I'm so profoundly saddened.’ 

Just such a sad and powerful quote. And of course, really there weren't many options at that time for women.

Gill: There really weren’t. That's why the book is called ‘we've come further than you think,’ because sometimes we all go on about terrible the violence against women is now and terrible it's happening and it's true. They are. But we have come so far from back then. 

 That was from before. In the beginning of the nineties, a small study that Claudia Wilson and I did, interviewing these women who had experienced domestic violence from the second world war onwards and who at the very very end of their lives.

And it was tear jerkingly poignantly that these women, hadn't, it was hard to get them get them to speak, but almost always, they hadn't told anybody before they hadn't spoken at all before about what they had endured. The book is called The Silent Pain. The silence, the pain of it.

And there they were at the very end of their lives speaking sadly about the loss of their right to a happy, fulfilled life, really. And it was intensely powerful doing it really. And many of them died. I mean, that woman died shortly after that interview.

 But basically up until the women's liberation movement came along there was no counselling, there weren't any housing options really I mean, the police didn't take the issue seriously. They regarded a man's home as totally his castle. Totally. Nobody talked about it very much. It was hidden. It was silenced. There were no refuges of course.

For women in that situation it was really hard to leave a marriage as well. What were you going to do where were you going to go? What money would you have? None. So there were no services at all, nowhere to go, no one to help. And then the women's liberation women, activists changed that. 

Sally: I think, as you say, we’ve come further than you think, but it also reminded me, quicker than you think, as well, because you know, actually that's quite a short time for so much change to have occurred it's astonishing really.

And you mentioned just now about some of the organising of the refuges. I wondered if we could talk a little bit about the early refuges and even the very start of that movement and what that meant for women escaping. What would a refuge have been like for her?

Gill: You might have to stop me because I've got too much to say and will go on talking too much. 

As the women's movement developed some books developed to talk about violence against women and to share experiences, to discuss them. And then there began to be women's centres set up in towns, which would kind of coordinate the feminist activities in the area.

And then it began to be the women who had suffered violence would start to turn up at these women's centres. And that was certainly the case that Ellen mentioned, my colleague, and the first women's centre was in the basement of her house and women would appear and no one knew what to do. So what they decided to do is to take the women and children in and have them stay there and those types of things were happening everywhere, all over the country, which was incredibly brave.

These women who had experienced violence, had somehow heard somehow that there were these places you might go to where women might help. And so they got their children and they came. incredibly, incredibly brave. They didn't know what was going to happen. And neither did the women opening their doors.

And of course, furious husbands were likely to arrive. So it was quite, quite dangerous. And perhaps foolhardy, but from those acts, I think then women's groups started to think, well, we better set up proper projects and safe houses or refuges. That idea, I think there had been some, there's always been some safe places that women set up for each other all over the world. And there have been some in the 19th century but not many. 

So it was more or less a new idea. And, as you say, it develops so quickly, this passion. I mean, one minute there was no refuges. And then six months later there was like 80 and then six months after that, there was a hundred and then 150 in it.

So by 1974, there was enough the refuges to set up the National Federation for the first time, which later divided into four federations, one for each of the UKs countries. They were totally brave initiatives, usually short life houses and the women concerned, cobbled them together with no money. Nobody had any money, nobody was being paid and somehow they did it. And these places came into existence. 

And as soon as they came into existence, women and children arrived at the door immediately. I mean, how have they heard about them? Where did they come from? But immediately, they threw their fates to the winds to try and get help.

And I mean, thinking back on it, it was extraordinarily brave for everybody. I don't know. Can I say a bit more? Should I stop? 

Sally: Now we kind of have the idea of the refuge movement and people, you know, will know that in their towns and cities, there's likely to be a refuge that's accessible.

But we are talking about some buildings that were nearly derelict. The house that the council really didn't know what to do with that was donated and women just kind of like moving in and sorting out the heating and painting it a bit and making it more comfy and getting some furniture together.

And as you say, women would arrive with nothing but the love and care of their sisters to help them start to move forward. Please do say some more. 

Gill: I have to say probably the health and safety issues weren't well addressed. Oh my God. When I think about some of the things that we did, but anyway, it all worked out Okay. Mainly. 

Yeah. I mean, so the, these collectives of women would suddenly be finding themselves, doing the painting or unblocking the drains or something, and they had short life properties, conditions weren't very good, but they were such brave initiatives. I mean, so everybody was being so great, the women in the collective doing it, and then the women coming to live there were so incredibly brave.

If you think that refuges and now commonplace and we all know about them and they’re even on soap operas and stuff, but then there was nothing. It really confronted in a clearly visible way, men's power within the nuclear family, because previously women found it hard to leave. And now suddenly women were walking out of their marriages out of their relationships when they found somewhere safe to go it didn't take them long to decide that they were going, and then not only were they go doing that, but then they were going to live in houses run by other women. It was just amazing.

The very fabric of marriage and so on was being challenged. People just couldn't believe it was happening, but it really was. And I think that it was looking back, it was so great, so brazen at the time, and I think the establishing of refuges is something we really do need to celebrate and remember, and not forget.

And that one of the points really is to honour the women involved in the pure audacity, what they all did really at the beginning, particularly. I mean, it's just absolutely mind blowing. 

Sally: Absolutely. And we've talked obviously around refuges and women escaping domestic abuse, but also, often as a result of consciousness raising, women were recognising the impact of sexual violence and rape and starting as well to provide support and services for women who had experienced rape and sexual violence.

Could you talk to us a little bit about the start of that movement and how that occurred? 

Gill: The idea really was that the book would have covered the sexual violence with detail but it had to be hacked. It could only be a short book because there wasn't the space. But I like to say that that it's really important not to minimise the importance of struggling against sexual violence, or it's really important to be sure that sexual violence doesn't get subsumed under the rubric of domestic violence.

But yeah, there were these women's groups that were suddenly also talking about sexual violence, and they were again, part of the women’s liberation movement and I think also a leap of faith into the unknown conducted with massive commitment by the, mainly young women at the time, concern. and it just took off like wildfire.

There was what was called incest survivors groups at the time, women talking about their experiences of sexual violence in the family, maybe their original families, and mainly about rape and giving each other support.

 And then came up the idea very much like for refuges, the idea of, okay, well set up projects or mainly telephone helplines to begin with. And later some concrete projects and they were really brave, these organisations, these projects suddenly taking on rape in a really direct way, providing support, campaigning. The first rape crisis centre there might've been as early as, maybe, 1973, I think. And women started phoning and phoning and phoning. They made crisis headlines all over the country. 

And that again was a wonderful move forward. And the women in the London Rape Crisis Centre at the beginning, just amazing militant, powerful women who dealt with this terrible subject and offered each other support and help and offered services to other women or maybe to each other.

Rape crisis centres continue to struggle often for funding, but still exists. What a step forward. 

Sally: Yeah. It was just amazing what women were able to achieve. I want to talk about the involvement of black women in the movement because often the second wave is reflected to us as a very white middle class movement and of course, black women were also doing a lot of work. 

Gill: Yeah. often there was in the black liberation movement if you like the I think black women started to form autonomous groups and autonomous black women's movement in the early seventies, as a result of dissatisfaction with the women's liberation movement and feeling they didn't fit in it perhaps. And I think some groups did take on these issues, but not all of them did. And some of them were a bit oblivious, in that sense of white entitlement and that extended to other kinds of oppression as well, certainly in the violence against women movement, I have to say there were attempt to approach to deal with those issues in some refuge organisations and in Women's Aid and the development of anti-racism policies and multi-racial staff groups and providing support to women from different cultural backgrounds and so on, and there were strong attempts to do that, but it didn't go far enough. And as a result, the independent black women's movement began to establish their own services and also to work together, to try and make change. And then I suppose, organizations like Southall Black Sisters established 1979, the London Black Women's project, which was Newham Monitoring project at the time. The fantastic Asian Women's Resource Centre in Brent. And so on. And they began then to establish specific refuges for those black and minority women who wanted it. The South Asian Women's Network, for example, crisscrossed the country with specialist projects also projects for black women from Africa and African Caribbean women.

Now we have Jewish Women's Aid. We have Latin American Women's Aid. We have Chinese women's projects, some of them are set up as part of Women's Aid, which is the umbrella organisation, but some weren't and they were set up entirely due to the resilience and passion of those women challenging white women.

And they still have to, you know, I mean, it's still the case that the majority of white women's domestic violence organisations, often don’t take on issues of racism or disability issues or whatever it might be as they should. 

Sally: A lot to learn and still some way to travel, certainly around that.

And one of the other things that you talked about I thought was really interesting was the campaigning work, because as well as obviously directly providing services for women, women were getting involved in campaigning and in local and national ways. And you talk about the zero tolerance.

 One of my memories are these fantastic posters that the campaigns t did from Scotland, but also, so that was kind of like awareness raising.

 But then organisations like Justice for Women that were looking for changes in law and supporting women who've been imprisoned after experiencing years and years of abuse. And of course today we've got wonderful organisations, again, like EVAW that campaign and work with government around policies and still the brilliant grassroots movements like Million Women Rises that galvanize so many women every year, even this year virtually to still have an event and to remind women of that sense of sisterhood and solidarity that the movement brings.

Gill: Yeah, absolutely the whole thing about the women's movement then and now is actually about political action and making change and so on. So, I mean, service provision is important. Action and change and activism is really the root of it. 

And I remember I think it was 1992 Zero Tolerance in Edinburgh and they had these great big posters all the way down that I think it's called the Royal Mile. It's just astonishing, these posters all the way down. It was just extraordinary.

Organizations like EVAW you know, they've been around for 50 years or so. Endlessly limitlessly, campaigning, campaigning. I think it's chaired now by Aisha Gill and Huda Jawad but it was previously chaired by Marai Larasi. Amazing, amazing women and they've done so much over the years working as with the government, and I think that it's also worth mentioning organisations like the Femicide Census and the Counting Dead Women Campaign that Karen Ingala Smith and nia have been fronting and, um, some of the anti-rape campaigns have been going on for so many years. 

And then as you say, the wonderful things that the Million Women Rise marches led by black women. Also the metoo movement, which I mean basically it wasn't quite the same grassroots thing. It was only possible because all of us had been working with violence against women for all those years that it could then come forward. So now we have things that all the campaigns around Sarah Everard and so on. 

So, campaigning is ongoing and that's what we need to be sure we don't lose as time goes on.

Sally: Absolutely. And I think the sensitivity and the generosity of the women's movement has been powerful, but so is the anger and we must not lose that anger and that passion to change and to fight back.

 We talked a little bit earlier about some of the specialist services run by black and minoritised women like Southall Black Sisters, the Asian Network.

I'm really aware that we're at a pivotal time, it feels at the moment because as important as they are, and the wonderful work that they do, we're seeing in a time of austerity generically us losing funding across the women's sector, but disproportionately, our black and minoritised sisters and their services being hit even more.

What can we learn that might help them from our history and that might help us to preserve some of these really important services? 

Gill: Yeah. I think it's also worth mentioning perhaps as well, that in recent years, the last 10, 15 years, whatever, there's been this emphasis now on, competitive commissioning frameworks to get money where obviously the smaller organisations maybe can't necessarily compete with the big ones or there's been empire building by some organisations and so on.

And then of course we've had since 2010 the austerity thing and of course, as you say, black and minority ethnic projects of all types of have been disproportionately affected really. There has been a change with equality policies now, meant to be generic, or there was a move in that direction.

So that instead of specialist groups dealing with specialist issues, they would be coming under a generic framework. And I think Southall Black Sisters really took on that policy in 2008 or nine, with their campaign to survive, which they were victorious in. And they really did it to support other black and minority ethnic women's projects as well.

So campaigning can help. There's been big campaigns around the London Black Women’s Project, losing its funding and then managing to be more or less saved, for now, so campaigning can help and you have to watch them because they're so sneaky the way they do these things, you know.

Meanwhile, you know, the organization run by black women are working to produce a service, often they haven't got the energy to do all this as well, you know, and then the funding's cut more and then you've got even this money. So we've got this new domestic abuse act but without proper funding what does it mean?

Sally: Yeah. So it seems, that is one of the battles that we continue to fight around resourcing. I think we've learned, thanks to sisters that have gone before us, some of the things that we need in place and what works as such, but we just need the resourcing and the capacity to get on and be able to deliver it.

And some of the things that are supposed to help us with that across different nations to make sure that the basic provisions are there. There are some of the, the legal instruments that have been introduced over the years. Things like CEDAW and the Istanbul Convention. Do you think they've made a lot of difference?

Gill: Yeah, I think we need legal change and obviously feminists are fought for legal change. I just mentioned in this country that new domestic abuse Act which is an improvement in some ways completely leaves out migrant women and proper funding. So legal change I guess, is necessary and we've all fought for it.

I think. some women will disagree, but I think the global organisations are really important. Grassroots activists often criticise them as being remote from real change or being Western, having a Western gaze but those things can be used strategically to pressurise your own government or whatever it might be. And what I’ve experienced with international statutes and global frameworks only come about because of dedicated feminists who work inside those organisations and get almost no recognition even from the women’s movement they get almost no support, working tirelessly to get these things passed.

CEDAW 1979, the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women is massively important across the world. And so it was the 1993, the international Declaration for the Elimination of Violence against Women, it is quite a feminist statement really and then the Istanbul Convention which is amazing.

And of course we know that countries like Poland trying to leave yet, these right-wing Hungry, Turkey has left it. You know, these right wing governments are trying to get out of it. The Istanbul Convention is pretty amazing. It's put in place by the Council of Europe. So it's a wider remit than the EU.

And it's fantastic saying that States, governments have a duty to protect women from violence. So I think they can be used strategically even though they're not the be all and end all.

Sally: Sadly, we may not be so much part of it going forward, but also out of some of those institutions, set up because of CEDAW because of the Istanbul Convention there's then access to wider European funding either for delivery of services. Also really importantly, just sharing our knowledge and research, which has been really helpful. 

You do in the book as well talk about the wider impact and learning from different countries across the world, some of which, of course you've been involved in and I wondered what lessons you've learned from our sisters abroad?

Gill: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's really important to remember that these women’s struggles are not just in the west. Every country of the world has activists in it now, even if they're being defeated and it's quite difficult for them, but then there are women's activists in every country of the world.

I think it's also just worth quickly saying that there has been for some women in other parts of the world have not thought that refuges were the main way forward for domestic violence work and that you needed to do more strengthening and community work and have seen refuges as being of rather a Western and individualistic response.

Although now I think most countries would agree you need some refuges and there is now the world conference of Shelters Internationally that meets. 

In my international work, I've done is transnational work, but trying to avoid dominance from the Western really which is incredibly hard to do, and it demands all your humanity.

But in those projects that I've been lucky enough to be part of participating action projects. For example, just learn so much from women in those other countries. And I suppose the thing about it is that, the Western way forward may not be appropriate. And that what's important is what is done is culturally appropriate, specific, and societally specific to whatever the struggle might be in the context where you are in the countries that you are.

And sometimes the things from the west can help, in which case it's great to offer them. And sometimes they really are no help whatsoever. So I have been so privileged to learn from amazing women's activists all over the world, it’s incredibly humbling. 

Sally: And part of that work was involved in Iraqi Kurdistan. And there's a wonderful poem in the book that reflects around the lives of the women.

I think it spoke to me because we have some wonderful connections with the women through FiLiA. And we've been privileged to talk to them and work with them. So I wondered, would you mind reading from the poem, it would be lovely to hear you read it. 

Gill: Kurdish women have been absolutely extraordinary both in this country and in the different countries that make up the sort of disparate from Syria to Iraq and so on.

 I was lucky enough to work on a project which developed the first action plan on violence in the name of honour in that part of the middle east. Not in Syria, but more in Iraqi Kurdistan. The women I worked with were just extraordinary there including my colleague, Nazand Begikhani such an honour to work with them, so brave and made me feel so amazing. 

So this poem is to honour them and it's called A Girl and A Boy, and it does contain distressing images and it is quite long. But it is set in a Middle Eastern country. It's not actually named as Kurdistan in this poem, but it does relate to Iraqi Kurdistan but of course, I think we have to say, don't be violent in the name of honour, honour based violence doesn't just occur in the middle east or whatever. It occurs widely across the world in different contexts. And it's never confined to a specific religion like Islam or whatever. It's a much wider thing than that. And it's important to remember that. But anyway, the poem is dedicated to all the survivors and victims of violence in the name of honour. And to the brave women, activists working to combat it.

 a girl and a boy, 

she leads the play in a sweet way. 

He follows her with adulation in his eyes,

 giggling and tumbling together. 

They don't know yet. 

They don't know that in the future

 she will probably have to obey him. 

her younger male relative

 rarely enter public spaces.

Uphold family honour

 at all costs 

never go out at night

 unless with male kin

 Do whatever, whatever 

her husband demands. 

He, the little boy 

will probably have free range. 

Things are better 

in the cities, 

but in some places 

she could still be killed in the name of honour, 

young girls burned to death by their families.

 We met a wife 

whose nose 

had been cut off. 

We spoke with women mutilated 

imprisoned, or unable to walk after attack by beloved

brothers

forced to marry 

and serve

 their rapist

 not any more

though

The things are on the move. 

A new type of woman 

won't 

stand for it. 

Old ways are being challenged 

through the courage, 

the vigilance 

of the fine women, activists. 

Many have fought as freedom fighters 

for the liberation of their Homeland 

exposed war 

genocides.

Gassings 

now they challenge honour killings. 

They have to keep going. 

Despite death threats, 

despite public dishonouring 

by name in their traumatised country 

sprouting anew 

despite religious fatwas against them, 

but they have pushed through a change in the law 

that used to say 

murder of women for honour was not murder.

Now, they make progress. 

They campaign.

Against the beatings and shaming’s,

 they set up some services. 

A few shelters with armed guards 

Are opened. 

The government says it will make changes. 

The TV calls honour violence dishonourable. 

The authorities are forced 

to act 

a new consensus begins to emerge. 

The courageous women stand firm as tigers.

Sometimes they cry 

in the night,

but they are making something fresh. 

A curve of change that can't be stopped now. 

Perhaps that girl and that little boy 

will be able to walk free. 

Hope has arrived

for now

She leads the play in a sweet way. 

He follows her with adulation in his eyes, 

giggling and tumbling 

together.

Sally: That's beautiful. Thank you so much and captures so much of the innocence of children through to the reality of what some women experience. 

It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you Gill and I'm thinking of a final quote that you have in the book, from our friend Jalna.

And she says:

‘we thought that we were the first women to discover violence against women. Then when we learned something about women's history, the questions became, how did we forget? And will we forget again?’ 

And I wondered what you think is going to happen next in the movement? 

 Gill: Well, I just want to say my hope is that this book will help us remember, asset as this generation of activists like myself, are no longer with us, to pass on that need for activism and social change for women, it won't happen. It won't happen obviously unless women campaign and force it to happen. 

And I suppose what we need to see is spreading more awareness, more services around the world. We need to see more challenges to the men of the world. To look at the power of men over women and work towards a society where everybody knows that violence against women must stop.

What I think now after all these years is that it is such a long struggle and there are activist, as I said in every country, but we are in the process of change and it's a long-term historical change. It will take many, many years, but we're on that road, moving forward on that long road so that we can't go completely backwards. We go back a bit with back lashes and cutbacks and threats and attacks, but in the end it will go forward. The cusp of change on violence against women is there and it's up to further generations to continue work.

It's a huge historical development, I mean, the violence against women is such a catastrophe. This is huge. Never throughout human history has it been challenged in the way it's being challenged now and so that's hugely important. 

We only have one human life and I feel honoured that I’ve have spent mine fighting violence against women. And that now it's time for all of us to pass the baton on to the new women coming. And FiLiA is so wonderful at doing that. And I guess we've come so far, but we've got so far to go. It's such a long struggle, but I think we have come further than you think.

For anybody thinking of spending their life, working on violence against women, it's a wonderful way to spend a human life to make change in this historical tapestry that we’re involved with. 

It's been great to talk about it as well, and I hope the book will contribute to, to that process.

Sally:  I'm absolutely sure that it will. And, and I'd like to thank you, Gill, for all the work that you've done for women over that period as well as also bringing the book together so that we can all read about it and find out and just to remind women: The Histories and Memories of the Domestic Violence Movement: We’ve come further than you think.

It's available now, and there'll be details at the end of this podcast where you can order it from, and I guarantee you, it’s the sort of book that will be interesting to anybody but if you work in the sector or have ever worked in the sector, it will be an absolute joy. 

I felt kind of wrapped in the movement reading it, it was a wonderful experience. And I'm so pleased too not just read the book, but to have the opportunity to talk about it with you Gill and even more pleased that we'll have the opportunity to speak about it again at conference this year. 

Gill: Thank you so much.