What does freedom look like to you? What does it feel like? Are you fighting to achieve it in your home, career, or sense of self? Have you already claimed it as yours, walking in light and inviting others to join in your liberty?
Wherever you are on that spectrum, you are not alone, and this weekend brings an incredible opportunity to join, learn from, and bask in an amazing community of women of color with the inaugural Women’s Freedom Conference.
The Women’s Freedom Conference, or WFC, is the first-ever digital conference organized by and intended for women of color on a global scale. The idea of women’s liberation is not at all a new one, and we in the developed world certainly enjoy literal freedoms that our ancestors and certain women today exist(ed) without. We don’t take that for granted, and yet when we look at the current landscape in which we operate, women of color are not often the voices that are centered or amplified in mainstream feminism.
Thus, there is a need for us to come together to honor and elevate, as the WFC organizers say, “the unique voices and experiences of underrepresented women who have been disenfranchised beyond gender alone– women of color whose identities are intersectional and whose womanhood is shaped and defined along those intersections.”
Some of you are already familiar with the WFC through the PSAs on YouTube, or the Twitter account and #WFC2015, where women have already been sharing information and experiences, and others of you might be wondering what exactly a “digital conference” is. Essentially, anyone with internet access can take part in this informative and educational global conference call of sisterhood.
Through partnership with digital media and education company BlackStar Media, WFC will be streamed online this Sunday, October 25, 2015, with 12 continuous hours of scheduled content. Whatever your time zone, WFC states that you will be able to log on and “access presentations from women of color discussing topics including diversity in technology fields, sustainability, art as activism, mental health, movement-building, and the impact of colonization on women of color around the world. (Content will be transcribed for the hearing-impaired and translated into Spanish, French, and Chinese.)”
Through the generosity of sponsors, including SheKnows Media, digitalundivided, Revision Path, and individual donations, almost all of the WFC content is free, with registration details here.
Initially conceived as a physical gathering or a march of some kind, it was decided (wisely) that travel alone is prohibitive for many, and choosing one location can be an inherently unfair and unsuccessful endeavor. The digital platform of the WFC means that you can cozy up in your pajamas and glean expertise on being a Black woman in political spaces from national political strategist and President of the Brooklyn NAACP L. Joy Williams or discuss single motherhood with Laneè Bridewell, creator of OneParentWonder.
The WFC has an incredible roster of scheduled presenters representing five continents and diverse backgrounds and topics, but the aim is singular: to recognize the diversity within our community and the value we bring to our areas of expertise and the world at large. To center our experiences in community and solidarity, and to claim our space in the liberation of women with the full force of our humanity.
I asked some of the WFC organizers and featured speakers what freedom means to them.
WFC Advisory Board member Jamie Broadnax is the creator of Black Girl Nerds, the award-winning BGN podcast, and even Shonda Rhimes is a fan. Jamie told me that yearning for “the freedom to be comfortable with my identity and to find a safe space where others like me can also share that same kind of comfort” is part of why she creates the online spaces that she does.
She says, “Freedom means you know no limits, that you set no boundaries, and that you don’t place yourself in a box based on who society expects you to be. In mainstream pop culture, Black women are marginalized so much, we rarely see images of ourselves that do not fit the negative tropes we see of ourselves in media. The ‘geek girl’ archetype is accepted and common among white women, but somehow an anomaly to Black women and other women of color. I finally have the freedom to be who I want to be and crush any and all stereotypes, and live in my truth as a Black woman who loves nearly everything associated with geek culture.
I’m finally at peace with being comfortable in my own skin, and I get the opportunity to share that each and every day with a large community of supporters who feel the same way about themselves. It’s rewarding and it is exactly how freedom should feel.”
WFC Organizer and Keynote Presenter Feminista Jones has a powerful online presence as an activist, mental health social worker, public speaker, writer, and creator of #NMOS14 and #YouOKSis. For Feminista, “Freedom is the ability to reach one’s fullest potential without impediments implemented and sustained by oppression.”
Underscoring another element to this multi-layered conversation, Feminista asserts that “it is hard to think of oneself as free when there are others who are not. I believe in the collective liberation of all oppressed people, so if even one of us is in bondage, we all are.”
She continues, “I’m not sure I can conceive of freedom, truly, as I don’t believe any member of any oppressed group has ever really experienced it or achieved liberation. When we can begin to conceive of liberation as something other than the opposite of oppression, perhaps we can then work toward achieving that standard.”
WFC Volunteer Coordinator and Director of Administration Melanie Dione is a writer and one-half of the Good & Terrible Show on CSPN, for which she also serves as Director of Operations. Melanie says, “Freedom, to me, means being able to express oneself fully, in confidence and fearlessness. That includes not only passions, but struggles. Voltaire says ‘Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.’ I say once a woman says she’s free, that’s what the hell it is. So yes, I consider myself free.”
Melanie says, “As someone who works in media, my motto is consistent: Let’s change the conversation. That goes beyond pseudo-polite tolerance, and into the core of how we choose to address one another and how we choose to walk away with a level of understanding. Maybe you don’t ‘get’ someone’s culture or orientation, but you understand that those differences don’t allow you to take potshots at their humanity. I believe that’s what this conference will have a major hand in doing, which is why I’m all in.”
Bassey Ipki is an internationally acclaimed writer and poet who will be speaking and sharing her poetry for WFC. Her production company, Bassey World Unlimited, produces works “from a uniquely diasporan perspective,” she’s toured the country with Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, and, as an avid mental health awareness advocate, she founded the brilliant non-profit organization The Siwe Project.
Bassey says, “Freedom is the ability to live an unobstructed life. In some aspects, I am free. I am able to craft the life that I want in a way that makes sense to my abilities and flaws. I exist within myself as a whole person– not as an infallible person, but as a person who is able to exist as cracked glass and still allow myself beautiful.
But by that same token, I was born Black and Woman and ‘foreign’ in this world, and those are things that are absolutely beautiful and freeing for me, but you can only be so free when the world insists that you remain tethered. It’s a constant battle to accept your freedom in this world.
That’s difficult and exhausting, but I have a saying; ‘allow yourself morning’ and to me that means, even if I go to bed exhausted and world weary, there is a sun and a morning and another chance to feel like freedom is the first time. It helps when my brain is lying to me. My brain will lie about a lot of things, but the truth is the sun. It’s there. Nobody can convince me that the sun doesn’t exist, so that is a truth I can hold on to. So I see myself as the sun. No matter what, I show up. I show up behind clouds and despite rain. You may not always see me but you know I’m there. That’s freedom to me.”
Bassey being wonderful Bassey, she then added, “that’s also really corny but… whatevs.”
We can be corny sometimes, and that’s OK. We can be silly and sincere and hilarious and stone-cold serious. We can be anything we want, and without the permission of gatekeepers or establishments that we may find waiting for us when we arrive at wherever we want to be.
Writer and WFC speaker Mikki Kendall recently expanded her professional output and is now firmly entrenched in an additional branch of writing, having had her comic book Miss Fury vs. Lady Rawhide published as part of the all-female-created Swords of Sorrow series.
I spoke with Mikki specifically about the WFC mission, which states in part, “The Women’s Freedom Conference is open to all who wish to engage in the conversations and access the content, however, we are limiting the lead organizing, presentations, and speeches to women of color. We ask that people respect the need for this space and support us, amplify us, and encourage us as we work to accomplish our goals.”
Thankfully, the organizers as a whole have not been met with significant pushback on that idea, but Mikki has been experiencing a unique strain of incredulity at what she’s achieved as a Black Woman in comics. Feelings in that universe seem especially sensitive (GamerGate, anyone?), and Mikki says, “there’s a lot of how very dare you happening on that side,” and that the straightforward story of having her writing recognized and published in that world lacks a “rescue story,” so people think she’s “making it up.”
Black female success that is free of the framework of a White Savior Narrative is, unfortunately, indigestible to many, which is exactly why WFC is happening. Speaking directly to our need for this space, Mikki adds, “I feel like some people are going to feel some kind of way about the fact that it primarily focuses on women color, but obviously anyone can tune in to watch it. No one’s really excluding you; we’re just trying to make sure that the people who are the audience get to be in the front row for once.”
Indeed, there is that knee-jerk #ALLLivesMatter response to alleged exclusion that is more often than not only imagined, and Mikki plainly states that those types of people are just “gonna be mad forever.”
Mikki’s Hood Feminism partner in brilliance and shenanigans Jamie Nesbitt Golden will be presenting with her, and Jamie defines freedom as “the ability to live [her] life unfettered by -isms and the myopia of others.” She also lauds the digital platform for the conference, echoing the cost-efficiency and ease of access.
Feminista Jones says directly, “My primary concern was about access. Having attended and presented at many conferences, I’m well aware of how cost-prohibitive they are, with attendance fees and travel and accommodation costs. Many people want to attend but simply cannot afford to. And then there are physical and psychiatric disabilities and limitations that prevent people from attending these conferences, so we wanted to bring the conference directly to the people and meet them where they are.”
WFC is here to do just that. Check out the #WomensFreedomFriday chats that have been happening for weeks, join in one today, and register to learn and commune this Sunday.
Whether you feel free already, or think that your personal liberation is not to be claimed until it is more unilaterally accessible, or feel, as Jamie Nesbitt Golden poignantly says, “I might not ever get there, but I hope to ease the way for the next generation,” you are a part of the movement and the movement is here.
Get free.
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What does freedom look like to you? What does it feel like? Are you fighting to achieve it in your home, career, or sense of self? Have you already claimed it as yours, walking in light and inviting others to join in your liberty?
Wherever you are on that spectrum, you are not alone, and this weekend brings an incredible opportunity to join, learn from, and bask in an amazing community of women of color with the inaugural Women’s Freedom Conference.
The Women’s Freedom Conference, or WFC, is the first-ever digital conference organized by and intended for women of color on a global scale. The idea of women’s liberation is not at all a new one, and we in the developed world certainly enjoy literal freedoms that our ancestors and certain women today exist(ed) without. We don’t take that for granted, and yet when we look at the current landscape in which we operate, women of color are not often the voices that are centered or amplified in mainstream feminism.
Thus, there is a need for us to come together to honor and elevate, as the WFC organizers say, “the unique voices and experiences of underrepresented women who have been disenfranchised beyond gender alone– women of color whose identities are intersectional and whose womanhood is shaped and defined along those intersections.”
Some of you are already familiar with the WFC through the PSAs on YouTube, or the Twitter account and #WFC2015, where women have already been sharing information and experiences, and others of you might be wondering what exactly a “digital conference” is. Essentially, anyone with internet access can take part in this informative and educational global conference call of sisterhood.
Through partnership with digital media and education company BlackStar Media, WFC will be streamed online this Sunday, October 25, 2015, with 12 continuous hours of scheduled content. Whatever your time zone, WFC states that you will be able to log on and “access presentations from women of color discussing topics including diversity in technology fields, sustainability, art as activism, mental health, movement-building, and the impact of colonization on women of color around the world. (Content will be transcribed for the hearing-impaired and translated into Spanish, French, and Chinese.)”
Through the generosity of sponsors, including SheKnows Media, digitalundivided, Revision Path, and individual donations, almost all of the WFC content is free, with registration details here.
Initially conceived as a physical gathering or a march of some kind, it was decided (wisely) that travel alone is prohibitive for many, and choosing one location can be an inherently unfair and unsuccessful endeavor. The digital platform of the WFC means that you can cozy up in your pajamas and glean expertise on being a Black woman in political spaces from national political strategist and President of the Brooklyn NAACP L. Joy Williams or discuss single motherhood with Laneè Bridewell, creator of OneParentWonder.
The WFC has an incredible roster of scheduled presenters representing five continents and diverse backgrounds and topics, but the aim is singular: to recognize the diversity within our community and the value we bring to our areas of expertise and the world at large. To center our experiences in community and solidarity, and to claim our space in the liberation of women with the full force of our humanity.
I asked some of the WFC organizers and featured speakers what freedom means to them.
WFC Advisory Board member Jamie Broadnax is the creator of Black Girl Nerds, the award-winning BGN podcast, and even Shonda Rhimes is a fan. Jamie told me that yearning for “the freedom to be comfortable with my identity and to find a safe space where others like me can also share that same kind of comfort” is part of why she creates the online spaces that she does.
She says, “Freedom means you know no limits, that you set no boundaries, and that you don’t place yourself in a box based on who society expects you to be. In mainstream pop culture, Black women are marginalized so much, we rarely see images of ourselves that do not fit the negative tropes we see of ourselves in media. The ‘geek girl’ archetype is accepted and common among white women, but somehow an anomaly to Black women and other women of color. I finally have the freedom to be who I want to be and crush any and all stereotypes, and live in my truth as a Black woman who loves nearly everything associated with geek culture.
I’m finally at peace with being comfortable in my own skin, and I get the opportunity to share that each and every day with a large community of supporters who feel the same way about themselves. It’s rewarding and it is exactly how freedom should feel.”
WFC Organizer and Keynote Presenter Feminista Jones has a powerful online presence as an activist, mental health social worker, public speaker, writer, and creator of #NMOS14 and #YouOKSis. For Feminista, “Freedom is the ability to reach one’s fullest potential without impediments implemented and sustained by oppression.”
Underscoring another element to this multi-layered conversation, Feminista asserts that “it is hard to think of oneself as free when there are others who are not. I believe in the collective liberation of all oppressed people, so if even one of us is in bondage, we all are.”
She continues, “I’m not sure I can conceive of freedom, truly, as I don’t believe any member of any oppressed group has ever really experienced it or achieved liberation. When we can begin to conceive of liberation as something other than the opposite of oppression, perhaps we can then work toward achieving that standard.”
WFC Volunteer Coordinator and Director of Administration Melanie Dione is a writer and one-half of the Good & Terrible Show on CSPN, for which she also serves as Director of Operations. Melanie says, “Freedom, to me, means being able to express oneself fully, in confidence and fearlessness. That includes not only passions, but struggles. Voltaire says ‘Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.’ I say once a woman says she’s free, that’s what the hell it is. So yes, I consider myself free.”
Melanie says, “As someone who works in media, my motto is consistent: Let’s change the conversation. That goes beyond pseudo-polite tolerance, and into the core of how we choose to address one another and how we choose to walk away with a level of understanding. Maybe you don’t ‘get’ someone’s culture or orientation, but you understand that those differences don’t allow you to take potshots at their humanity. I believe that’s what this conference will have a major hand in doing, which is why I’m all in.”
Bassey Ipki is an internationally acclaimed writer and poet who will be speaking and sharing her poetry for WFC. Her production company, Bassey World Unlimited, produces works “from a uniquely diasporan perspective,” she’s toured the country with Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, and, as an avid mental health awareness advocate, she founded the brilliant non-profit organization The Siwe Project.
Bassey says, “Freedom is the ability to live an unobstructed life. In some aspects, I am free. I am able to craft the life that I want in a way that makes sense to my abilities and flaws. I exist within myself as a whole person– not as an infallible person, but as a person who is able to exist as cracked glass and still allow myself beautiful.
But by that same token, I was born Black and Woman and ‘foreign’ in this world, and those are things that are absolutely beautiful and freeing for me, but you can only be so free when the world insists that you remain tethered. It’s a constant battle to accept your freedom in this world.
That’s difficult and exhausting, but I have a saying; ‘allow yourself morning’ and to me that means, even if I go to bed exhausted and world weary, there is a sun and a morning and another chance to feel like freedom is the first time. It helps when my brain is lying to me. My brain will lie about a lot of things, but the truth is the sun. It’s there. Nobody can convince me that the sun doesn’t exist, so that is a truth I can hold on to. So I see myself as the sun. No matter what, I show up. I show up behind clouds and despite rain. You may not always see me but you know I’m there. That’s freedom to me.”
Bassey being wonderful Bassey, she then added, “that’s also really corny but… whatevs.”
We can be corny sometimes, and that’s OK. We can be silly and sincere and hilarious and stone-cold serious. We can be anything we want, and without the permission of gatekeepers or establishments that we may find waiting for us when we arrive at wherever we want to be.
Writer and WFC speaker Mikki Kendall recently expanded her professional output and is now firmly entrenched in an additional branch of writing, having had her comic book Miss Fury vs. Lady Rawhide published as part of the all-female-created Swords of Sorrow series.
I spoke with Mikki specifically about the WFC mission, which states in part, “The Women’s Freedom Conference is open to all who wish to engage in the conversations and access the content, however, we are limiting the lead organizing, presentations, and speeches to women of color. We ask that people respect the need for this space and support us, amplify us, and encourage us as we work to accomplish our goals.”
Thankfully, the organizers as a whole have not been met with significant pushback on that idea, but Mikki has been experiencing a unique strain of incredulity at what she’s achieved as a Black Woman in comics. Feelings in that universe seem especially sensitive (GamerGate, anyone?), and Mikki says, “there’s a lot of how very dare you happening on that side,” and that the straightforward story of having her writing recognized and published in that world lacks a “rescue story,” so people think she’s “making it up.”
Black female success that is free of the framework of a White Savior Narrative is, unfortunately, indigestible to many, which is exactly why WFC is happening. Speaking directly to our need for this space, Mikki adds, “I feel like some people are going to feel some kind of way about the fact that it primarily focuses on women color, but obviously anyone can tune in to watch it. No one’s really excluding you; we’re just trying to make sure that the people who are the audience get to be in the front row for once.”
Indeed, there is that knee-jerk #ALLLivesMatter response to alleged exclusion that is more often than not only imagined, and Mikki plainly states that those types of people are just “gonna be mad forever.”
Mikki’s Hood Feminism partner in brilliance and shenanigans Jamie Nesbitt Golden will be presenting with her, and Jamie defines freedom as “the ability to live [her] life unfettered by -isms and the myopia of others.” She also lauds the digital platform for the conference, echoing the cost-efficiency and ease of access.
Feminista Jones says directly, “My primary concern was about access. Having attended and presented at many conferences, I’m well aware of how cost-prohibitive they are, with attendance fees and travel and accommodation costs. Many people want to attend but simply cannot afford to. And then there are physical and psychiatric disabilities and limitations that prevent people from attending these conferences, so we wanted to bring the conference directly to the people and meet them where they are.”
WFC is here to do just that. Check out the #WomensFreedomFriday chats that have been happening for weeks, join in one today, and register to learn and commune this Sunday.
Whether you feel free already, or think that your personal liberation is not to be claimed until it is more unilaterally accessible, or feel, as Jamie Nesbitt Golden poignantly says, “I might not ever get there, but I hope to ease the way for the next generation,” you are a part of the movement and the movement is here.
Get free.
