Towanda Rebels: A FiLiA International Women’s Day interview
The 8th of March commemorated International Women’s Day. It provides a moment for society to reflect on the struggles, the advances and the continued fight for the liberation of women and girls around the world. At FiLiA, we marked this date by highlighting the work of feminist campaigners or organisations around the world who dedicate their lives to tackling structural discrimination and oppression against women.
In this interview, FiLiA Spokeswoman Raquel Rosario Sánchez interviews Spanish feminist campaigners Towanda Rebels: a dynamic duo made up of Zua Méndez and Teresa Lozano. Their work as writers, artists and activists through the use of social media, in an accessible and approachable manner, brings feminist analysis to younger generation of emerging feminists.
Raquel Rosario Sanchez: You are women’s rights advocate. When and how did you personally decide that this was a struggle you wanted to dedicate your life to?
Towanda Rebels: We never really made that decision. Our project started because we had the need to speak up about women’s issues and one day we just started to talk about feminism and to raise our voices. Looking back, it is kind of funny because we could have never imagined the impact our work was going to have.
Three years later we can say that, without a doubt, this is the fight of our lives and nothing will change that. Feminism is a way of life. It is so liberating that there is no way back. Once you leave the cage you cannot even think of returning to it.
RRS: How and why did Towanda Rebels start? Tell us about the moment when you had the vision to create this women’s rights organisation.
Zua Méndez and Teresa Lozano
TR: In 2017, we were both going through drastic changes in our lives (professionally speaking). We realized that we could no longer abide inequality or discrimination towards women since we had become completely aware of the many ways in which patriarchy operates, after so many years of studying feminism. We finally felt we were strong enough to speak up for our rights as long as we did it together.
First of all, we were friends, we were waking up to this patriarchal reality together and we knew we had to fight for our rights as women. Secondly, we were communicators, so we decided to start a platform for radical feminist discourse in Spanish. One step at a time, we managed to create a space in social media to discuss male violence against women; including sexual violence, prostitution, surrogacy, pornography ... and, of course, gender and sex-based rights.
RRS: From your point of view, what are the top three priorities that we should all be advocating for right now when it comes to women’s rights?
TR: We usually say that feminism has an agenda. And this agenda is particularly huge if we have a global vision about women’s rights. We have to keep in mind that we are in 2021, and we still need to fight against all kinds of terrible violence that women and girls are subjected to, such as; female genital mutilation, child marriage, “honour crimes” or male guardianship.
For us, a crucial part of this struggle is about fighting against all sorts of commodification of women’s bodies. That fight includes pornography, prostitution (and any kind of sexual abuse or exploitation) and what neoliberalism calls “surrogacy” which we prefer to call “reproductive exploitation”.
RRS: At the moment, there is a lot of movement worldwide when it comes to women’s rights. What is your opinion regarding the state of women’s rights in Spain right now?
TR: Two years ago, the Spanish feminist movement was well-known internationally. We went out on two powerful strikes to make clear that: “If we, as women, decide to stop, we are able to stop the world”. Millions of women of all generations marched together on May 8th reclaiming our agenda. We were fiercely fighting against sexual violence, demanding a change in our institutions, from the justice system to politics and education.
The (prostitution) abolitionist movement had gained mass media attention and an abolitionist law in our country seemed to be closer than ever. But we are fighting against extremely powerful industries. Feminist revolution has the disruptive potential to change everything, both capitalism and patriarchy. And the people in power knew it. So, quietly, they started what in Spanish feminist theory we call “the patriarchal backlash”, by introducing extremely damaging ideas within our movement with a very specific goal: depoliticise feminism.
Vacuous concepts like “diversity”, “multiculturalism” (as a form of cultural relativism) and “gender identity”, were presented to us as new, inclusive and intersectional terms, when they are, in fact, part of a now predominant ideology that compromises our agenda, blurs the boundaries of the political subject of our movement (women) and robs our power to claim our rights. These ideas are being instilled all around the world through mass media and global culture, and they strongly rely on individualism.
If you try to think of societies conceived from this neoliberal point of view, it becomes nearly impossible to identify the forces or the hierarchical system that lay the foundations for the inequality growing within them. As a strategy, this is perfect: the existence of patriarchy virtually disappears and injustice becomes a matter of casual discrimination with no structural analysis. Unfortunately, we are currently seeing how left-wing political parties in Spain have devoted themselves to this atrocity. For example, our minister of equality, Ms. Irene Montero, has put aside the feminist agenda to embrace queer ideology, instead of women’s rights.
RRS: On March 8th, 2020 the world was about to enter a global pandemic that has had a distinct impact on women and girls lives. One year later, what has COVID-19 taught us about women’s status in society?
TR: Nothing that feminists didn’t know already. In the past century, Simone de Beauvoir wrote: “Never forget that a political, economical or religious crisis will be enough to cast doubt on women’s rights. These rights will never be vested. You’ll have to stay vigilant your whole life”.
The Covid-19 crisis has caused a serious backtrack in women’s rights. We know that violence against women has increased all over the world, but especially in those countries or cultures in which we haven’t achieved legal equality (those “extreme” or “hard” patriarchies). For example, young girls are forced into marriage or sexual exploitation, leaving school at a younger age than in 2018.
RRS: How has Towanda Rebels coped with the pandemic?
TR: When the pandemic started, we were immersed in a tour with our theatre play titled “Sex Toy: The Dolls’ Rebellion”, and we unfortunately had to stop it. In the midst of pandemic uncertainty, Spanish people were locked down in our homes so we decided to overcome the quarantine by spreading radical feminist theory through social media.
We created the first online prostitution abolition sessions, hosted on Instagram Live, with well-known feminist advocates in Spain. Also, after thorough research, we produced a series of videos about the pornography industry to draw attention to the dramatic increase in adolescents and children (some as young as eight years old) watching porn, and the rampant violence and degrading humiliation women are subjected to for the pleasure of men.
Lately, we have been organising different talks with fantastic experts to develop a critical analysis on the proposed bills on “gender identity” and “self-ID”, which our current government is determined to enshrine in law. In Spain, we are still a few steps back from our sisters in the United Kingdom and Canada fighting for our sex-based rights and against the erasure of women in law and in public space. We are paying close attention to what is happening in the UK and we feel really proud of British feminists and their great success in stopping the reform of the Gender Recognition Act that sought to erase women’s legal advancements. We definitely look up to our British sisters!
RRS: What does International Women’s Day mean for your organization?
TR: For us, International Women’s Day means the same as for most feminists. We are completely aware that this is not a celebration or a party, although capitalism and neoliberalism are trying to make people think it is. But we must be realistic: we are far from achieving equality and this is a day to speak out against the multiple forms of violence that we – girls and women- still suffer.
It is also a day to honor and remember our ancestors and our feminist genealogy as many of these women lost their lives fighting for the rights that we currently enjoy. In this regard, we think that our job is also to show respect and continue with their legacy. This of course doesn’t mean that International Women’s Day has to be a sad day, but we must fight against the depoliticisation of our movement.
RRS: Do you have any projects around International Women’s Day, or this year, that you would like to share with our audience?
TR: We are very happy to say that we just launched our first children’s story book titled We Are Not Princesses, We Are Warriors: Tales for a New World. It has been an amazing project! We have coordinated an anthology with 11 stories about topics that we are really concerned about regarding women rights and that we would have loved to read when we were little girls. We are so honoured to have written this book together with our amazing feminist friends.
We usually say that feminism makes you question all aspects of your life and your relationships. But on the other hand, it also gives you the most beautiful and brave fighting partners. This year, once again, we will continue to fight and to speak up for all the women that are not allowed to. This March 8th we cannot forget our agenda: women’s liberation throughout the world.
You can learn more about the work of Towanda Rebels by visiting their website. Or follow them on their social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.