Community responses to LGBT+ adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities during the COVID-19 confinement in Madrid

A group of 50 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs) as well as diverse sexualities and gender identities in Madrid participated in a feminist community-based project, which supported them through the first wave of the pandemic. Facilitated by professionals, the project offered online meetings twice a month, helping them to articulate their needs and promote their agency over their choices and experiences. Based on their demands, participants chose the topics they wanted to discuss, proposed activities, and were the center of the program, while facilitators set up and maintained the online space, helping with participation and access to information and resources. Through this transformative experience, the members of the group developed friendship networks and started their activism, making public appearances in video campaigns and mainstream newspapers to make their needs visible to peers, families, social workers, policy makers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). This research is part of a larger project that tackles the psychosocial factors that affected Spanish people with sexual and gender diversity during the first wave of the pandemic.

Stories the mangroves hold: reflections on Indo-Caribbean feminist community archiving

This article invites the reader into conversation about silenced stories, intergenerational connection and what it means to reimagine Indo-Caribbean feminist histories. The authors of this article are coauthors of a digital archive, Ro(u)ted by Our Stories, which centres the stories of Indo-Caribbean women and those of marginalised genders in the US across generations. In this piece, we draw from historical material, our lived experiences as descendants of indenture, and a recorded conversation we had between members of our collective about our experiences working to create a community-owned digital archive. We share our visions for creating the archive and questions we have grappled with throughout the process, including our own limitations and reflections on archives as always unfinished and incomplete. Furthermore, we discuss the ways in which we see storytelling as a healing practice, our efforts to remain grounded in the needs and desires of community members and our hopes for the future of the archive. By including multiple voices in this piece, we hope to lift up the collaboration, interdependence and ‘weaving together’ of stories that informs the lens we bring to this work.

Feminist Theory

This chapter examines Virginia Woolf’s foundational role in the development of feminist theory, placing her theoretical positions on women’s lives and life-writing, privacy, the body, and self-expression in dialogue with a diverse and actively changing continuum of feminist thought. Focusing on the return of rage to the forefront of feminist discourse and social media’s effect upon feminist politics, the chapter chronicles the changing critical responses to Woolf’s feminisms, in relation to her positions on feminist identities and feminist community. The chapter also investigates the ways in which women of colour feminists disclosed Woolf’s racialized self and racist thinking to assess the place of Woolf’s feminism in contemporary political thought. From issues seeking to reconcile and value difference and diversity with the uses of ambivalence and calls for unity and integration, the chapter places the concepts and vocabulary of feminist theory within the context of Virginia Woolf’s work and example.

Feminitives in Russian and French: on the issue of gender connotation

This article is devoted to the problem of feminization of masculine nouns in French and Russian, which is important for achieving gender neutrality, i.e. equality of masculine and feminine words. The relevance of this problem lies in the fact that ambiguous ideas are quite often put into practice through words that are not familiar to our ears. Some examples in Russian are such words as «блогерка» (a female blogger), «авторка» (a female author), «профессорка» (a female professor), and others. And in French, la préfète, la magistrate, la députée and others. The authors of the article touch upon the issue of linguistic political correctness in relation to discriminated communities, or those considered discriminated: women, people of non-traditional sexual orientation, national, racial and religious minorities. There is also much discussion nowadays about people with disabilities The best example of how to erase the boundaries between the sexes in the Russian language is the word comrade. The work draws attention to the fact that the feminist community is not unanimous, since not everyone is in favor of feminitives. On the one hand, there is a group of radical feminists, and on the other, their opponents, who are definitely against innovations. In addition, we should not forget the majority of native speakers who speak at their convenience. The results of the study lead to the conclusion that if feminitives are regularly used, especially in the media and social networks, the society can get used to them very quickly. In other words, feminitives can penetrate the language if our life changes.

It's Like Felting

This is a personal story describing the role and importance of local action whilst reflecting on collective and collaborative feminist community practices. The craft of felting is used as a metaphor for merging feminist social and community work theory and practices that encourage engagement with continuing cycles of activism aimed towards gender equality and Indigenous sovereignty. Following a rough chronology of engagement with movements for social change and respect for human and environmental rights, this chapter points to the value of post modernists' treatise of doubt, tension, and uncertainty. It also contains a plea for a continuation of the modernist social work activism to decrease suffering and inequality. Narrating and evaluating the ideas and actions of real-time practice, the author will demonstrate how knowledge of place, process, and strength in work towards interpersonal peace and planetary survival was achieved.