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The Young Feminists' Network Newsletter- Issue VII 2025
Everystory Sri Lanka
August 28, 2025
Contact us: | The Young Feminist Network was established in July 2020 by Everystory Sri Lanka to bring together people interested in learning more about feminism, particularly from a Sri Lankan and South Asian perspective. This month, our newsletter is curated on the theme of Agency in Constraint. |
LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
Dear Reader,
Feminism is often associated with rebellion and resistance; possibly because ours is a distinctly un-feminist world. But feminism can take many forms, particularly in the global south, to which Sri Lanka and South Asia belong. Every day, women around the world demonstrate ingenuity and tenacity in negotiating with oppressive powers and gaining agency through subtle tactics of negotiation.
In this month’s newsletter, we look at feminists who work within existing norms, structures and systems to empower themselves and others and explore the varied tactics they adopt.
We see, in Iraq’s historic women-only political party, the use of strategic conformity as a means to achieve women’s representation. The women behind Gaza’s Makan Cafe offer a much-needed sanctuary from the precarity of conflict, unforgiving weather, tight living conditions following displacement, and the societal norms around modest dress—a subtle form of embodied resistance. Artist Sara Aslam and architect Marina Tabassum each reinterprets their roles to assume custodianship of heritage. The Accessible Icon Project, spotlighted by New York’s Museum of Modern Art on Instagram, assumes a similar stance, reinterpreting disability as a fact of life rather than a tragedy or liability.
Our reading recommendation this month is a work of non-fiction by feminist writer, scholar, and activist Sara Ahmed that was also previously shared in Everystory’s social media posts. I find it an exceptionally useful guide to applying feminist theory to everyday life, empowering me to grow my own agency in constraint.
We hope that these ideas and stories prompt you to take action of your own, and as always, we are keen to hear your thoughts and feedback - do share them with us at [email protected]!
In solidarity,
Chathuni Uduwela
Guest Editor - 2025 Issue VII
SISTER LIBRARY x SEASISTER
As our traveling feminist library continues its journey across the island, we are delighted to announce our collaboration with SeaSisters who empowers Sri Lankan women through swimming, surfing, and ocean safety. By building confidence in and around the water, SeaSisters challenges gender norms and opens new spaces of freedom, courage, and sisterhood.
We worked with SeaSisters to conduct 2 workshops in Weligama on the 17th of August.
Sister Tea — share stories, ideas, and experiences in a safe, inclusive space
Zine-Making Workshop — create art and words that reflect SeaSisters' vision of equality and freedom
After its first stops at the Lakmahal Community Library in Colombo, the Alliance Française de Kandy and the JDA Perera Gallery in Colombo,the Sister Library is now heading to Jaffna. From 30 August to 27 September 2025, it will be accessible to the public at Kälam - A Space for Cultural Encounters in Jaffna. For the opening weekend, we have planned a range of activities, especially for schoolchildren, along with a workshop at the University and further exciting events, we will share more details soon.
THIS MONTH
WE’RE READING
Living A Feminist Life by Sara Ahmad
Sara Ahmed’s book, Living A Feminist Life, is informed by lived experience and backed by the feminist theories that shaped her scholarship. Drawing on the extensive bodies of work by feminists of color, she offers an account of how one becomes feminist, brings that identity to the work they do, and lives with the consequences of espousing feminist beliefs.
The book isn’t all theory, though: Ahmed’s killjoy survival kit and killjoy manifesto—named after the figure of a feminist killjoy that appears repeatedly in her work—offers readers practical tools for surviving the shattering effects of racism and sexism, while living a life that sustains their feminist beliefs.
Living a feminist life does not mean adopting a set of ideals or norms of conduct, although it might mean asking ethical questions about how to live better in an unjust and unequal world (in a not- feminist and antifeminist world); how to create relationships with others that are more equal; how to find ways to support those who are not supported or are less supported by social systems; how to keep coming up against histories that have become concrete, histories that have become as solid as walls.
Living A Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed
THIS MONTH
WE’RE WATCHING
Joyland (2022)
Haider, an unemployed young man in inner-city Lahore, finds work as a back up dancer to Biba, a trans performer at an erotic dance theatre. As Haider falls in love with Biba and begins to explore his sexuality, his wife Mumtaz begins to quietly reclaim her own life—until mounting tensions at home and in the community they are part of threaten to upend everything.
This film by Saim Sadiq beautifully captures how both Biba and Mumtaz engage with the restrictive societal norms of their communities to reclaim their selfhood and autonomy.
Joyland was the first Pakistani film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize for the Caméra d'Or as well as the Queer Palm. it was also the first Pakistani film to be shortlisted for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.
THIS MONTH
WE’RE DOING
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