Good afternoon, everyone.  

Thank you all so much for being here at the FiLiA 2021 Conference. My name is Raquel Rosario Sanchez, and I am the Spokeswoman for FiLiA. All our conferences, as well as every single one of our projects, events, podcasts, and articles are labours of love, from women to each other. But this Conference in particular is an exercise in tenacity, determination, and the sheer efficiency of women.  

I am standing before you as a Spokeswoman and Trustee, but the reality is that FiLiA is all the women who donate their time and their efforts to our charity. Like so many of you, FiLiA volunteers have care responsibilities, are young mothers and older mothers, they have full time jobs and many of them are truly struggling but it is fundamental that the work of the women’s liberation moves forward and that is how the FiLiA team sustains our organisation and put this conference (the largest grassroots feminist conference in Europe), together.  

Can we please give a massive round of applause to the FiLiA Volunteers who have put this fantastic Conference together? 

I would like to say “thank you” to the Portsmouth Guildhall for hosting us. This is the proper and formal thing to do, but as many of you may be aware, there has been considerable pressure to defame women, abuse women and prevent this conference from taking place.

Those efforts to silence, erase and cancel all of us have failed.  

We are here, listening and learning from each other, while also sharing our own experiences and that is in large part because the Portsmouth Guildhall has stood strong. Thank you very much to the Portsmouth Guildhall staff and team for having us in this gorgeous building. 

Despite the absolute chaos that it is to organise an international conference in the aftermath of a global pandemic, we are honoured to have the voices of women from every single region in the United Kingdom and from all over the world. Including global perspectives from women from India, Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan.

This global pandemic has not provided a pause bottom on the patriarchal attacks on women; in almost every context, the pandemic has exacerbated the backlash against women. We are grateful to every single one of our speakers for donating your time, your expertise and the knowledge that makes the FiLiA Conference possible. Thank you! 

FiLiA is not just a conference (a fantastic conference!), but it is not just a conference. We move around the UK and in every town, we contribute to the local feminist grassroots movement by collaborating in the creation of consciousness-raising services, feminist book clubs, sex trade abolitionists networks and more. Much of it runs smoothly but sometimes there is resistance. 

Here in Portsmouth, FiLiA was meant to run a youth group for girls who have been excluded or were at risk of being excluded from school. We are talking about vulnerable girls who oftentimes fall prey to sexual exploitation and abuse, yet they were prevented from accessing support because some people smeared us for being feminists.

Here in Portsmouth, refugee and migrant women have been prevented from participating in the FiLiA Legacy Project and our Book Club, also because people who should know better decided to smear women who want to help other women.  

A century after women in the UK obtained citizenry rights, the local institutions meant to protect and uphold those rights have ignored our voices, when not actively participating in the dehumanisation of feminists. Women in working-class and ethnic minority communities in Portsmouth are being prevented from accessing support.

More than a shame, that is unacceptable.  

But we move forward. The FiLiA Conference 2021 is a story of perseverance, endurance, and strength.  

At our last conference, six out of ten attendees told us that was their first FiLiA conference and we imagine that the same will be true for this conference. This will be their first opportunity to engage with the women’s liberation movement and to connect with fellow feminists.  

To us this is an honour: it is an honour for us to produce a space that is big enough to host a large array of topics that appeals to over 1000 women and still feels inviting enough that it encourages women to engage with each other, to form friendships and to take actions to dismantle patriarchy together.  

Today, we are being reduced to our body parts: called menstruators and people with vaginas. That has not shut us up, instead it has galvanised us! So now we are being equated with other species in the animal kingdom: called dinosaurs and accused of hoarding our rights… And we’ve used that for levity, had a good laugh and last night, I saw no fewer than three different dinosaurs tearing down the dance floor at the FiLiA Party!

This is our 7th Conference and with over 1000 women, it is our biggest FiLiA Conference so far. We don’t feel daunted to surpass our own expectations: we feel emboldened by the buzz… the shimmer and the buzz we see in the eyes of all our attendees.

Those little moments between women catching up with each other between sessions or in the queue waiting for the loo, bumping into each other at the stalls or spotting each other across the room, hugging and wiping tears during the femicide vigil or letting loose and celebrating each other’s womanhood during the FiLiA dance party. Those moments ignite collaboration. Those moments of rage, sadness, outrage but also fun, laughter and joy carry us all forward.  

That is FiLiA: it is the power of women uniting together to dismantle all the horrible patriarchal oppressions and discriminations that our sex-class is subjected to. But like the women’s liberation movement, FiLiA is also those quiet moments between women to let each other know: “You are not alone. I also care about this and I want us to work together to do something about it.”  

That is FiLiA. We are FiLiA and you are FiLiA too. Thank you to all of you, our attendees, for being living, breathing, and roaring examples of the power of women and the reason why we are here doing the work of the feminist movement.  

We look forward to seeing you all on the 22nd and 23rd of October for the FiLiA Conference 2022 in Cardiff, Wales.