Gurls Talk empowers women to speak out

With pressure to change Northern Ireland abortion laws building, and females worldwide uniting against Donald Trump on the Women’s March, it is clear that women won’t sit still and be quiet as their rights come under scrutiny.

At 180 The Strand in London, a group of high-profile women came together on Saturday to advocate for speaking out and standing up for their communities. Gurls Talk, founded by model Adwoa Aboah, is an online platform which helps young girls open up about topics such as sex, body image and mental health, and this weekend it hosted a free, one-day festival in partnership with fashion company Coach, supported by Dazed magazine. Hundreds queued for hours to get in to listen to empowering talks, take part in yoga and bag embellishment workshops, and buy feminist fashion and goods from the many pop-up shops.

The event’s purpose, unifying women in honest discussion, was most clear in the refreshing, personal – and often hilarious – panel conversation on sexuality led by Olivia Singer from AnOther magazine. Taking part was writer Reba Maybury, who finished off her impressive list of roles and descriptors with “dominatrix”; Hanne Gaby Odiele, a Belgian intersex model; feminist journalist Laurie Penny; and Adwoa herself.

Discussing what it means to be a woman, Reba said: “It is about understanding the power of the patriarchy in society and how we can destroy it.” Hanne added that it is not just biological, and explained being intersex, which 1.7 per cent of the population are, as having sex characteristics that don’t fit in with the typical definition of male or female. She said: “In olden days we would have called it… I shouldn’t say it…,” and whispered, “Hermaphrodite”. She identifies as female, declaring that being a woman is something you decide for yourself.

Olivia Singer, left, with Reba Maybury

Laurie expanded on this: “Being a woman is a political experience – whether you’re assigned the gender or come to it later – to live in a set of expectations, regarding what you should do and who you should be, that you didn’t choose.” She came out as genderqueer last year but said: “I am a genderqueer woman because I am wedded to the politics of being female. However I express my gender identity, I play for the girls’ team; it’s about how my identity relates to others.”

Hanne was the first high profile person to come out as intersex, and knows that opening up about it is important. “Our group is forgotten,” she said. “I want to speak out for my people because we go through intersex genital mutilation as children – doctors come together and decide our gender for us. They took away my natural hormones, my testes. This is harmful and invasive. I hope in the future we can live in a non-binary society and just be like, ‘I am a human, this is what I want to bring to the table’.”

The women demonstrated the importance of standing up for others, in a community – not against them. As Madeleine Albright said, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women. “Comrades are important,” said Laurie. “I have interviewed fascist politicians and been in riots but I have never been more anxious than before this event full of models. I emailed a friend and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry, you’re probably going to be much cleverer than everyone there’. Women are set up to be divided.” In the days where Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry-style feuds are rife, understanding this has never been more crucial. “Don’t compete with other women – they are your allies,” said Reba. “Stand against the men, that’s what they are really f****** scared of!”

Laurie also urged the audience to push back against problematic scenarios and sexism in the workplace, as “a service to other women”, telling them: “Don’t participate in shaming.” Adwoa agreed: “It starts at school, when the boys tease the girls. It’s easier to just join in, but it’s important to show camaraderie.”

This sense of solidarity is vital. Hanne said: “The intersex community helped me so much. I found out I was intersex when I was 17 and two weeks later I was discovered for modelling because my confidence exploded.” Reba noted: “There’s no social progression if you do something by yourself. Sitting in your bedroom is only going to do so much,” but Laurie interjected: “I’m a big fan of sitting in my bedroom – as long as I can do activism sitting in my pants, I’m good!”

Many young girls came to listen to the speakers

The group also want to spark conversation about aspects of life deemed as “shameful”. Adwoa said: “I talked about my abortion earlier this year, and I felt so much shame. I’ve always spoken out to challenge myself. I spent so long sitting in my fear; I wanted to do something.”

“Shame is a powerful form of social control,” said Laurie. “We have to speak about things we are taught are disgusting or dirty.” Talking about her experience as a sex worker, Reba suggested the real danger of shame. “Shame does kill people. One root cause of sexual violence is people’s shame of their own sexuality.” She added: “It depends how many orgasms you want to be having. You have to talk about it or it is not going to happen. In consent culture, the baseline of not raping someone is the standard we’ve got. We can be so much better than that.

“Think of the quality of your grandmother’s sex life – it probably wasn’t that good. Before the Pill was introduced in the Sixties people were terrified of having sex – and that wasn’t that long ago. Sexual freedom is still complicated; the Pill can have an adverse affect on mental health, and the implant can make you angry. We need to have this conversation.”

From left: Reba, Hanne, Laurie and Adwoa

“What’s going on in America and Northern Ireland with regards to abortion rights is key,” said Laurie. “Without them we don’t have control over our own bodies. Everybody leaves the desire aspect out of it. Shame holds us back. We need to insert desire into politics.

“Pleasure is still taboo. We’re never told what we can say yes to. Five years ago I shared my story of rape, but I realised that I felt able to talk about that experience but not about positive, adventurous sex experiences. I was worried if I talked about it I would find it harder to get laid.”

She told her own stories of sex to highlight how people are fearful of desire. “One guy said ‘My goodness, I’m so taken aback by how much you enjoyed that’. And this is a man in his early 30s. Is women’s pleasure shocking to you? Is it a novel thing? It makes me upset that it hadn’t been a part of that person’s calculations before.”

Adwoa shared this feeling. “I need to start talking about what I want…” She glanced around nervously: “Where are my parents? They were sitting right there. With the anti-depression medication I take, there’s a one in a million chance of having a bloody orgasm – good job my boyfriend is not here either.” She spoke fondly of the girls who have come to her while at school, looking for advice on sex. “I love how unapologetically open the youth is. I was never like that at school.” Adwoa, who calls the girls of Gurls Talk her “tribe”, went around the event hugging the young attendees, reassuring them that they are not alone.

However, despite lauding this honesty, she added: “You have to protect yourself. When I was doing interviews on my mental health, it was cathartic and beautiful but I was exhausting myself. Sometimes I do just want to be in my room in my pants on the computer!”

Originally published: PA Diploma News