(in alphabetical order)
Alyssa Ahrabare is a 25-year-old French feminist from Moroccan and Algerian origins. With a Masters in International Law and a specialization in human rights and fundamental liberties, she is now an international consultant on women human rights. Alyssa is a spokeswoman for the French non-profit organization Osez le Féminisme! (“Dare to Be Feminist”). She is a Project Officer for the European Network of Migrant Women, which she represents in the Women in Politics group of the European Women’s Lobby. In addition, she is a co-organizer of Radical Girlsss (Young Women’s Movement for a global radical feminist perspective). Alyssa also founded a theatre company which uses art and pedagogy to promote equality between women and men.
Linda Bellos: I am a proud Black British lesbian feminist who does not think that feminism is only for White women. My mother was Jewish and I have been proud to share her knowledge and culture and my father, a man who came to England during WW2 knowing that if the Nazis won the war Africa would be even more damaged than under British rule. I hope that I reflect my parents. My personal belief remains “Be Bold.”
Samantha Berg is a radical feminist journalist and event organizer focused on ending men's demand for prostitution and pornography. In 2005 Sam created the forum at Genderberg.com where abolitionists contributed to one of the earliest online radical activist communities, and her many published articles about the sex industry are collected at Johnstompers.com. Sam has organized more than a dozen feminist events since 2012 and is a co-founder of WoLF, the Women's Liberation Front.
BigBooButch, a.k.a. Parker Wolf is a butch lesbian blogger and vlogger. She speaks on issues concerning lesbians and women in today’s climate of hatred for women who will not bend to the will of men and transgender activists. She is also a radical feminist who runs several lesbian and radical feminist groups and pages on Facebook. You can see her work at her website, BigBooButch.com, she has also contributed to the anthology, Female Erasure, edited by Ruth Barrett, and she was a presenter at the Women in Media Conference in Chicago in 2018.
Brid is a graduate student living in occupied Mohawk territory in so-called Upstate New York. She is studying the ideologies and structures of Western society with the hopes that by analyzing the particularly devastating destruction wreaked by the West, she might identify the fundamental principles of necrophilia.
Giovanna Capone is a poet, fiction writer, playwright, and editor. She was raised in an Italian American neighborhood in New York, whose strong immigrant influence still resonates in her life. In 2014, Bedazzled Ink published her first book In My Neighborhood: Poetry & Prose from an Italian-American. Giovanna’s play Her Kiss, was produced and performed to sold-out audiences in San Francisco by Luna Sea Women’s Performance Project, in their first Dyke Drama Festival. She also co-edited Hey Paesan! Writing by Lesbians & Gay Men of Italian Descent. Recently she has co-edited an anthology of lesbian authors, entitled: Dispatches from Lesbian America: 42 Short Stories & Memoir by Lesbian Writers. Giovanna lives in Oakland, CA where she has worked as a public librarian. She has also taught poetry to children and teens, through California Poets in the Schools. More recently, Giovanna is working on a documentary film about Italian Americans in Oakland, California. It’s an exciting new direction for her. For further information, please see: www.giovannacapone.com.
Nineveh Cehack (pseudonym) was born and raised in Chicago, Ilinois. She firmly believes that same-sex attraction is real and that raisins do not belong in dolma.
Chicago Feminist Salon is a monthly radical feminist salon in Chicago. They have recently begun writing up some of their discussions as “pamphlets” to continue the tradition of radical feminist pamphleting to disseminate radical feminist theory to women worldwide. The article contained here is their first pamphlet.
Gail Dines, a Professor Emerita of Sociology, has been researching and writing about the porn industry for well over thirty years. She is a recipient of the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights in North America, and author of numerous books and articles. Her latest book, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, has been translated into five languages. Gail is the founding president and CEO of the non-profit, Culture Reframed. Dedicated to building resilience and resistance in children and youth to the harms of a hypersexualized and pornified society, Culture Reframed develops cutting-edge educational programs that promote healthy development, relationships, and sexuality.
Mary Kate (M. K.) Fain is a feminist writer, activist, and engineer. She is the co-founder of Spinster.xyz, Founder and Editor in Chief of 4W, and a volunteer and contributor to multiple other feminist initiatives. She has been published in Feminist Current, Reader’s Digest, and Tenderly, and is a regular contributor on politics to Caracal Reports. You can find her (for now) on Twitter @mkay_fain, or on Spinster @mk.
Melissa Farley is a feminist psychologist who founded the nonprofit organization Prostitution Research & Education in 1995. With many colleagues, she has published 40 articles and book chapters on the sex trade including prostitution, trafficking and pornography.
Tristan Fox is a lesbian radical feminist. She studied radical feminist theory at the University of Toronto and has had her poetry published in some smaller Canadian poetry journals. She lives with her beloved MJ on Canada's beautiful west coast.
Renée Gerlich is a writer and artist based in the Wellington region, New Zealand. Essays from her blog, reneejg.net, have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Turkish, Norwegian and Serbo-Croatian. Her writing has appeared in Feminist Currentand Rain and Thunder, and she was a panelist at Seeking Feminist Future, an event hosted by Sydney University in February 2020. Her 2019 talk delivered with the International Women’s Day committee in Brisbane, Transgenderism, Neoliberalism and Rape Cuture, can be viewed on YouTube. Renée wishes to thank Deidra Sullivan for her tremendously helpful feedback and suggestions on her chapter.
Genevieve Gluck is a writer and feminist advocate living in Japan. She previously lived in South Korea, where she taught English at a Woman's University. She is the founder of Women's Voices, an audio library featuring feminist speeches, lectures, and book excerpts.
Jamae Hawkins: I’m just an everyday American, Black Woman, law abiding taxpayer, living and working in the DC metropolitan area with 2 children, 3 cats, and a corgi. My professional background is public policy and victims’ advocacy.
Sheila Jeffreys is a lesbian feminist author, academic and activist who has been involved in feminist politics, mainly around violence against women, prostitution, and lesbian feminism, for 47 years. She has written 10 books. She wrote the first two in the UK before moving to Australia in 1991 to teach feminist politics at the University of Melbourne. She retired back to the UK in 2015. Her autobiography, Trigger Warning, was published in September, 2020. She is a member of the Women's Human Rights Campaign and Object UK.
Inge Kleine is a feminist activist in Munich Germany. She is a board member at Kofra (Kommunikationszentrum für Frauen), a women's advocacy center and meeting place in Munich, and has been active in campaigns against sexual violence and prostitution in Germany.
Lisa Marchiano, LCSW, is a clinical social worker, certified Jungian analyst, and a nationally certified psychoanalyst. She co-hosts This Jungian Life, a podcast devoted to exploring current topics through the lens of depth psychology. She lives in Philadelphia.
Ann E. Menasche is a life-long radical lesbian feminist, socialist, writer, and political activist, who has a forty-year career as a civil rights lawyer. She is the author of Leaving the Life: Lesbians, Ex-Lesbians and the Heterosexual Imperative, published in 1999. She is a founding member of Feminists in Struggle (FIST), https://feministstruggle.org/.
Julia Miller is currently a second-year college student studying psychology and literature at Northwestern University. In her free time, she also trains dogs and horses, does art and photography, and enjoys writing.
Natasha Noreen is a 26-year-old feminist and activist advocating for migrant and women’s rights in Italy and Pakistan. She is a member of the European Network of Migrant Women and Radical Girlsss. Natasha volunteers in several local associations that promote the inclusion of economic migrants and asylum seeker migrants within Italian society. She is also the founder of Feminism Pakistan: a Facebook community that promotes feminist discussion in Pakistan.
Nina Paley (https://blog.ninapaley.com/) is the creator of the award-winning animated musical feature films “Sita Sings the Blues” and “Seder-Masochism.” She has been deplatformed, banned, and blacklisted for saying penises are male. You can see her films at https://www.sitasingstheblues.com/ and https://sedermasochism.com/.
Thistle Pettersen: I grew up in a Scandinavian-American nuclear family with parents who continue to be kind-hearted and firm in their resolve to heal, protect and enjoy nature. My songwriting reflects this upbringing along with reflections from riding my bicycle long distances. From September 11th, 2003 - January 2007, I rode my bike across America in groups and in pairs to perform street theater pieces, do community service and resist car culture and the oil and gas economy. It wasn't until 2014 and my interview with Sheila Jeffreys on WORT 89.9 FM community radio station in Madison, that I understood that taking a feminist stance has dire social consequences for public women in patriarchy. I was smeared, harassed, scapegoated, and blacklisted in my hometown by dozens of people who formerly were colleagues and friends. Currently, I am working with Miriam Ben-Shalom to put up a billboard in Milwaukee to inform the public about the harms of the Equality Act as written and also as a reporter and organizer with Women's Liberation Radio News (WLRN).
Janice Raymond: A longtime feminist scholar-activist on violence against women and sexual exploitation, Janice Raymond is the former co-director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW). She is the author of many books and articles, most recently the book Not a Choice, Not a Job: Exposing the Myths about Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade (Potomac Press, US; Spinifex Press, Australia). Dr. Raymond is currently Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies and Medical Ethics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA) where she taught for 28 years. Dr. Raymond was awarded the International Woman Award from the Zero Tolerance Trust in Scotland.
Raquel Rosario Sánchez is a writer, campaigner and researcher from the Dominican Republic. Her campaigning specialises in ending male violence against girls and women. Raquel is a featured writer at Dominican newspaper El Caribe and Spanish platform Tribuna Feminista. As a researcher, she is currently pursuing a PhD with the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol. Her MA and PhD work focuses on online communities for men who pay for sex.
Sekhmet She Owl is a radical lesbian feminist and female separatist. She lives in the deserts of the United States, where she was born. She has been a member of Women’s Liberation Radio News since 2016. You can listen to her feminist thoughts on her eponymous YouTube channel and on the WLRN podcast.
Cherry Smiley is a feminist from the Nlaka’pamux and Diné Nations. She is proud to work with feminists as part of the women’s liberation movement. She is the founder of Women’s Studies Online. She’s not so good at being on time or doing what she’s told.
Dr Jessica Taylor is a feminist psychologist specialising in violence committed against women and girls, and the psychology of victim blaming and self blame of women and girls subjected to male violence. Jessica is the director of VictimFocus, an independent research, consultancy and training company dedicated to changing the way the world responds to abuse, violence, and trauma victims.
Adriana Thiago is a 27-year-old Portuguese-Brazilian feminist and graduated in International Relations. Born in Luxembourg to Portuguese and Brazilian parents, she currently lives in Belgium. She studied in Madrid and has lived in Rio de Janeiro to reconnect to her culture of origin. Adriana has worked both as an activist in civil society associations and governmental organizations within the migration sector in Europe and Latin America. She now works for the European Network of Migrant Women and is a co-convenor of its Young Women's Movement, RadicalGirlsss, where she strives for a global radical feminist perspective and the end of sexual exploitation.
Tamarack Verrall has been active in the women's movement since the 1960's. Her focus has been the empowerment of women through hearing their stories. Currently her home base is Montreal, Canada. Her political base is World Pulse, a global network of 70,000 women from 190 countries. Her life's work is to see women and girls free of violence, to end poverty and to protect our Earth.
Yağmur Uygarkızı is a 24-year-old feminist who was born in Turkey, grew up in Italy and France, and studied in the UK. She is interested in male violence or discriminatory practices against women that are not commonly perceived as such, specifically prostitution-pornography and veiling. She has translated, written, and spoken on those issues and she’s always more than happy to sneak into random people’s casual conversations about those practices if she senses nonsense. She is the co-creatress of Radical Girlsss, the young women’s movement of the European Network of Migrant Women.
Dana Vitálošová: I am a 35-year-old feminist based in Slovakia, excited to be published in a real book for the first time! So far, my writing has appeared mostly online or in zines. As a convert to the concept of words on paper, I've made it my goal to bring back book reading and book (and journal and zine) writing into our movement. Critical towards the Internet which I see as the supreme tool of patriarchy, I am close to becoming a Luddite. Also, a big Mary Daly fan!
Agnes Wade: I found it nearly impossible to make the argument that women's liberation is intrinsically linked to the fight to defend the living planet succinctly. There is just so much to cover. As I wrote, it became clear that I would have to develop and support these ideas further into a book which is... forthcoming.
Rebecca Whisnant is professor and chair of the philosophy department at the University of Dayton. She is co-editor of Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography and Global Feminist Ethics, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. A longtime activist and public speaker on the harms of pornography, she serves on the board of Culture Reframed, a nonprofit organization addressing pornography as the public health crisis of the digital age.
Danielle Whitaker is a U.S. based writer and radical feminist. An unapologetic fighter for women's liberation, she has been fiercely supporting lesbian rights for the past two decades. She is also a passionate advocate for animal welfare and environmentalism. Dani lives with her two partners and travels as often as life permits.
Angéla C. Wild is a political artist, a Lesbian feminist activist, and a writer. Her work focuses on challenging compulsory heterosexuality in all its forms, understanding the nature of male sexual violence and its impact on women’s lives, as well as promoting uncompromising Lesbian visibility and creating women-only spaces, women’s art, and culture. She is a founding member of Get The L Out UK Lesbian activist group, and writer of the only research on the cotton ceiling: “Lesbians at Ground Zero,” available at http://www.gettheloutuk.com/blog/category/research/lesbians-at-ground-zero.html. As an artist she has organised several feminist /lesbian art exhibitions and is the creator of Wild Womyn Workshop, a shop for radical feminist activists.
Bec Wonders is a Ph.D. scholar at the Glasgow School of Art, currently researching the history of feminist publishing during the Women's Liberation Movement. Bec co-founded the Vancouver Women’s Library in 2017 while pursuing a Masters in Publishing. She also founded the Frauenkultur Archive: an online repository of second-wave feminist book titles. More information about ongoing projects can be found at www.becwonders.com.
Spinning and Weaving is now available for purchase at https://www.tidaltimepublishing.com/.