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 “Girlhood"

Dear Reader,

We are excited to bring you this month’s Newsletter, curated around the theme of “Girlhood.”

When I reflect on the word “girlhood,” I think of my girlfriends sitting in a circle on a Saturday night, cackling with laughter. I feel the thrill of sneaking into my mother’s locker to lift her new lipstick and my sister’s wardrobe to grab her crop top before heading out the door. I recall Christmas parties with my feminist pals, exchanging gifts and hugs.

That is, till I remember the mess and horror that was “girlhood.” The vicious words teachers hurled across the classroom about the way I sat, the dread of someone seeing my unshaven armpits when I raised my hand, and the anxiety of a big red stain on my uniform flashing everyone as I walked down the corridor.

Whether you’re still in the trenches, climbing out, or looking back, what it meant to be a girl—and to feel like a girl—is something we will all unpack, revisit, and reopen time and time again. While every woman’s experience of girlhood is starkly different, I truly believe we’re all connected by our shared feelings of frustration, bitterness, and anger at the world—but most importantly, by the joy and hope that accompanied it all.

I hope the little girl in each of us will heal and rest as we grow older, yet never lose the fighting spirit and fiery passion that carried us through girlhood.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter as much as I did on putting it together. As always, we love to hear your thoughts and feedback. We value the complementary and the critical equally, so please share! You can email us at [email protected]

In solidarity,
Dulandi Gunasekera,
YFN Program Manager & Newsletter Editor - 2024 Issue I

The Reading List explores girlhood as a transformative period where girls step out “of the frame of infancy and childhood, and into girlhood“; “a fascinating and momentous time for adolescent girls as they begin to develop their own independent ideas, a sense of the world, and begin to experience first-hand how injustice and patriarchy have a direct impact on their lives.”

Explore the milestones of girlhood, from menstruation and puberty to finding community, building friendship, and solidarity in the process of navigating shared experiences, while tracing what moves girls to organize, fight back, and resist the stones and boulders thrown at them.

In the past few months, we’ve been tracing the history of the Women’s Movements of Sri Lanka. We sat down with Hafsah Muheed, an intersectional feminist and human rights advocate from Sri Lanka with 10 years of grassroots experience specializing in cross-sectoral solutions as a part of this journey.

ALSO EXPLORE!

The Feminist Voice in Parliament: Dr Harini Amarasuriya

The story of Dr. Harini Amarasuriya was a part of our first thirty stories from our flagship work - Stories of Sri Lankan Women, an ongoing effort to create a compendium of Sri Lankan women’s stories — featuring those whose lives, work, and experiences have shaped and are shaped by Sri Lanka’s social, political, and cultural contexts.

Unpacking The Politics Of Femininity: Gender Eligibility Tests, 'Transvestigation’ And What It Means For Women Of Colour

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games was a groundbreaking year for women in sports, achieving full-gender parity for the first time in Olympic history, with our favorite athletes dominating the headlines. However, conversations about the inclusivity and safety of BIPOC, and queer women should be our key takeaway from this year’s games.

The dehumanization and abuse of Algerian boxer, Imane Khelif is a definitive example of how systems of oppression are interwoven, and the importance of integrating an intersectional approach to our feminist politics.

How reliable are ‘Gender Eligibility Tests’? Who decides “who is woman enough” to compete in women’s sports? 

The Swaddle traces back the origins of Gender Eligibility Tests to the 1936 Olympic Games held in Nazi Germany where racial identity and gender purity shaped Nazi beliefs, influencing the International Olympic Committee into surveilling gender.

2024 is the Year of Sapphic Pop!

For a 2010s queer girl, exploring and coming to terms with your sexuality through music meant spending days and nights exploring niche corners of the internet to put together a 10-20 song playlist. In most cases, queer artists had to struggle with a binary choice of becoming a mainstream artist at the cost of being vague, and suggestive of queer themes in their music or being explicit with their lyrics and limiting themselves to a small fanbase.

However, for anyone on the internet, the chances of being unfamiliar with Chappell Roan’s Hit Single “Good Luck, Babe!” are fairly slim. 2024 has been a year of milestones and transformation for the sapphic pop landscape with the likes of Chappel, Reneé Rapp, and Kehlani dominating pop charts worldwide.

Read about “The Rise and Revitalization of Gay Pop, and why it matters so much”

This is not to forget the artists who paved the way for this phenomenon. Check out the history of the history of “the lesbian music scene”

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

“The Poisonwood Bible is a story narrated by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture - is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over three decades in postcolonial Africa.” - Goodreads

Derry Girls

Our team recommends the Netflix Television Series, “Derry Girls.”

Derry Girls is a comedic coming-of-age sitcom set in Northern Ireland, amidst the backdrop of political conflict. The show centers on Erin Quinn, a 16-year-old girl, following her and her group of friends as they navigate family, school, and life in the 90s, before the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

We’re looking for a Program Manager for our Young Feminists’ Network Program!

Everystory Sri Lanka is looking for a Program Manager to help us develop, manage, and run the Young Feminists’ Network.

Send us your CV, portfolios, writing samples, or other copies of your work to [email protected]. We’re always on the lookout for creative, passionate, and curious feminists. Women identifying, transgender, non-binary, and other queer-identifying people are encouraged to apply.

Shanthi Maargam is hiring a Center Manager!

Applicants from all backgrounds, including people with disabilities, non-binary, LGBTQI+, and those from diverse ethnic and religious communities.

The job description is attached here: https://bit.ly/4gvXEEx

Deadline: 10th of October

“Politicising the Personal”: A Free Self-Paced Course

“In this course, you will learn:

• Learn about personal, social, and group identities, power, and privilege

• Identify how their intersecting identities are linked to power and politics

• Engage with the history of the term 'personal is political'

• Reflect on finding one's own politics - learning, listening, reflecting, and practising it sustainably day-to-day

• Explore anti-oppressive practice in structural approaches and everyday interactions”

Sign up here!

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