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Programme of the 10th Women’s Congress in Brussels

Programme of the 10th Women’s Congress in Brussels

10th Anniversary Women’s Congress in Brussels

ON LOVE AND ANGER (or “The Best of”… our topics)

Saturday, 8 February 2025, K1 KANAL Centre Pompidou, Brussels

1, av. Du Port, 1000 Brussels

  • 10:45 Doors open

Throughout the Congress, the following works by Zuzanna Hertzberg will be on display in the upstairs room:

Lilith, Patron Saint of Abortion, 2023, textile, embroidery, collage

Tribute to Gisèle Halimi / Zeiza Gisèle Élise Taïeb, 2023, two-winged wooden box, collages, painting, 57 × 49 × 7 cm

Pro-choice Plants, 2023, installation, three textiles/flags

In the downstairs room: “Why do we need herstory?”, an exhibition by the Women’s History Museum Foundation from Poznań

  • 12:00 Opening

Women’s Congress anthem: Malika El Barkani

Opening address: Minister for Equality Katarzyna Kotula (video)

Welcome and thanks: Kasia Redzisz (Director of KANAL Centre Pompidou), Agata Araszkiewicz and Anna Kiejna (Elles sans frontières)

Host: Renata Dancewicz

  • 12:15–13:45 The right to sex – the culture of intimacy and changing the world

Participants: Agata Araszkiewicz, Alicja Długołęcka, Voca Ilnicka, Marta Stoces, Agnieszka Szpila, Aga Szreder

Moderators: Natalia Broniarczyk and Agata Czarnacka

We will refer to British philosopher Amia Srinivasan’s celebrated book “The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century”, which reinforces a central feminist insight: the body, sexuality and intimacy are among the last bastions of entrenched power structures that need to be redefined. What does this shift mean for thinking, art and literature? How does it affect social patterns and our individual lives? Sexuality remains one of the most taboo-laden areas, still used to judge and discipline. How can we value intimacy differently and develop ethical ways of being intimate together — a genuine “right to sex”? What kind of sexual revolution do we really need?

14:00–14:45 Intermezzo

14:00–14:20 Why do we need courage? Michał Bomastyk in conversation with Tomasz Wolszczak (presentation of books by Michał Bomastyk and Wojciech Śmieja)

14:20–14:40 “Abortion stories” – Beata Rojek and Sonia Sobiech in conversation with Anna Kiejna (comic-book presentation)

15:00 Dance: One Billion Rising

Video: Olena Apchel, director and Ukrainian soldier

  • 15:10–16:40 Consent and rape: gender-based violence and how can we think differently?

Participants: Ana Cuesta, Elsa Ercoli, Anita Kucharska-Dziedzic, Joanna Gzyra-Iskander, Violaine Lucas, Sarah Schlitz, Danuta Wawrowska

Moderators: Anna Kiejna and Katarzyna Szkuta

Today’s legal and political debates on sexual violence are bringing new standards of thinking and legislative solutions. Yet words such as “consent” and “rape culture” still provoke strong feelings and controversy. Feminist thought has developed ways of understanding violence that bring social change. How effective are they, and what resistance do they face? How do different international approaches relate to each other? As we build a shared Europe, how can we overcome differences in the pace at which legal solutions are implemented?

17:00–17:45 Intermezzo

17:00–17:30 Women’s anger: how to say no? Natalia Waloch, Aleksandra Nowak and Basia Śliwińska in conversation with Katarzyna Milewska-Dworaczyk (book presentation)

17:30–17:45 Polish feminism in France: Mateusz Chmurski and Hélène Martinelli in conversation with Agata Araszkiewicz (presentation of “Devenir-soeur. Repères dans un siècle des féminismes polonais”)

Song: “Where Have All the Boys from Those Years Gone?”, Marlene Dietrich

  • 17:50–19:20 Lesbian genius – queer art, culture and politics

Participants: Magdalena Baryła-Klimek (Madlen), Marie-Jo Bonnet, Silvia Casalino, Alice Coffin, Katarzyna Klimek, Renata Lis, Jolanta Niezgodzka

Moderators: Ewa Graczyk and Irmina Kotiuk

The authors of books reclaiming lesbians’ rights and their rightful place in the history of culture, literature, art and political rights will explore both the richness of historically marginalised creative work by women who love women and its contemporary recognition amid the political complexities surrounding these rights. This panel will feature histories and testimonies, confessional literature and social criticism, desires and survival strategies, and political analysis of LGBT+ rights.

  • 19:20 Closing of the Congress: Magdalena Środa, Ewa Rumińska-Zimny

THREE TOASTS WILL BE INTERWOVEN INTO THE PROGRAMME:

  • QUEER (QUEER COLLECTIVE KOLONIA)

ACCOMPANYING EVENT:

11:00 – fifth birthday of the anti-violence platform “Elles pour elles”

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME:

  • 6 February (Thursday), 12:00–14:00

Les Midis de la recherche : Histoires de féminismes (polonais) en traduction, Brussels, Solbosch Campus, Building U (level 6), Room U.D.6.102

  • 6 February (Thursday), 18:00

Reception marking the 10th anniversary of the Women’s Congress in Brussels at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Belgium

ACCOMPANYING EXHIBITION

“From abortion comes revolution. The Polish dream of democracy”

More details about the exhibition: exhibition page

Exhibition events:

  • 16:30–18:30 Round table: “Abortion and democracy in Poland and around the world. Intersecting perspectives from art, theory and activism” (in English), in Louvain-la-Neuve, Room AGORA13

Participants: Agata Araszkiewicz (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Elles sans frontières ASBL), Natalia Broniarczyk (Abortion Dream Team), Caroline Kempeneers (artist), Zofia Reznik (Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław), Christelle Savall (President of the Young European Federalists, JEF), Katarzyna Szkuta (former European and international affairs adviser to the State Secretary for Gender Equality, Equal Opportunities and Diversity). Moderators: Julie Hermesse (UCLouvain) and Julia Laureau (UCLouvain). Preceded by “Walking on Eggshells”, a performance by Beata Rojek and Zofia Reznik.

In March, for International Women’s Day

  • 7 March (Friday), 15:00 – screening of Anna Baumgart’s video “Wanda” (2023), followed by a conversation between Anna Baumgart (director) and Alžbeta Kuchtová (Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences / Paris VIII) with Agata Araszkiewicz (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Elles sans frontières ASBL)

The video by one of Poland’s most important contemporary feminist artists engages with symbolic death in the culture of teenage girls. A true post-war tragedy at a scouting camp allows the artist to examine how symbols of the struggle for women’s and LGBT rights are consolidated. Slavic folk legends and the philosophy of French transgender thinker Paul B. Preciado create unexpected links between folklore and queerness; resisting the cultural silencing of women and sexual minorities and contemporary philosophies of new materialism and alliances with the elements and non-human beings. Created amid intensified protests in Poland for abortion rights, women’s rights and LGBT rights, the film seeks to open up new alternative imaginaries.

  • 7 March (Friday) – performance: Nieme Szaty Królowej

The performance by a collective spontaneously formed in October 2020 by Chi Chi Ude, Julia Bui-Ngoc, Magdalena Karłowicz, Gabriela Wilczyńska and Anna Juniewicz was a striking visual intervention in urban space following the ruling of the body the organisers describe as a “pseudo-Constitutional Tribunal”. On 11 November, Polish Independence Day, more than 20 women in white robes marched silently through central Warsaw. As they walked, their dresses began to bleed. Poland’s national colours, white and red, became symbols of the political wounding of women and sentencing them to suffering through what the organisers describe as nationalist and misogynistic domination. At the same time, the red blood, like the red lightning bolt of the Black Protests, also became a symbol of resistance. A new vision of patriotism emerges here, embracing women’s full citizenship and rights.

On 25 November of the same year, at the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Polish diaspora association Elles sans frontières repeated the performance in front of the European Parliament in tribute to activists in Poland and invited several Members of the European Parliament to speak in support of abortion rights. Transnational feminist activism thus strengthened solidarity across borders. Alluding to the widely discussed slogan of the Black Protests, Elles sans frontières posted on Facebook: “Our dream is for the victims’ blood to give women political agency! Get the fuck out!!!”

  • 8 March 2025 (Saturday)

Curator-led tours of the exhibition