Sisterhood: Fire of Anger and Discord. Women Against Patriarchy

01.07.2021 - 16:00 / Festival Tent, ul. Józefa 36 | live: 30.jewishfestival.pl

Activism as a practice of sisterhood. The Women’s Strike, the #metoo movement at Polish universities, menstrual activism and body positive activism all stem from dissent against the established order. Will women’s righteous anger help change the world? In a conversation with Magdalena Kicińska, Agnieszka Glińska, Maria Świetlik, Betty Q, and Iwona Demko will talk about their own experiences and their personal struggle with mansplaning and “dziaderstwo”.

Women’s creativity, activism, entering territories appropriated by men, ability to draw inspiration from the past – all this will be discussed during four panels at the 30th edition of the FKŻ. Among women of Jewish descent, we will talk about women’s belonging and exclusion, about loud and stifled voices. In Polish-language panels, we will look at issues from our own backyard and seek answers to the question: What is the life like for women in Poland and what is the life like for Jewish women here? English-language panels will focus on women’s issues from a global perspective.

As part of the SISTERHOOD series, Marta Majchrzak, (researcher, social psychologist, owner of the research boutique Herstories.pl, and substantive director of Sisters of Europe Poland) curates four mutually complementary panel discussions to practice sisterhood through honest discussion of difficult topics. Shortly before the FKŻ, she will publish a survey on sisterhood in Poland.

Sisterhood is a concept of community, understanding, or solidarity among women. The concept of sisterhood is often used in feminist movements as a counterbalance to the rivalry imposed on women by patriarchal culture.

Just as fraternity refers to the bond between brothers, sisterhood refers to family ties as a model of positive relationships between women. Both concepts usually refer to mutual help and solidarity between unrelated people, and are a kind of demand to be treated “like family” – sincerely and warmly.

Practicing sisterhood among women can be a very positive experience: sharing experiences allows us to see the systemic nature of women’s problems, and mutual help and support strengthen relationships among women.

In feminist movements, sisterhood is both a practice and a goal, a proposal to see the commonality of women’s experiences and an attempt to act across national, racial, class, and other divides.

Sisterhood – a series of discussions curated by Marta Majchrzak, herstories.pl