Lily Chen

“It’s that feeling you get when you're a woman, that the world is unequal and the inherent biases against you.”

“In high school, I led the feminist club and was casually involved in RainbowYOUTH and Shakti. I wanted that safe space for me to share my ideas and engage with people who are more knowledgeable than me and who are able to articulate my oppression in ways I haven’t learnt how to yet. I was quite shocked because no one in my life ever spoke about their oppression so candidly! We had discussions about catcalling, sexual harassment, and how we experience it differently because of each individual race in class. It’s so insidious about society that we whisper about sexism all the time that we never give it a name because doing so is confrontational as if pulling out misogyny or triggering male tears. That was very eye-opening for me and what I managed to do is carry a legacy onto my final two years of high school where my campaign was mainly rooted in educating the younger generation on what I learned from my predecessors. I was creating materials and powerpoints for those weekly meetings, advertising to the whole school to begin the conversations that we weren’t having. Starting early, my first ever protest was: take back the night ( campaign against sexual violence). I recognized the power of protesting and how liberating you feel afterwards when you’re shouting towards a collective and banding together for that common cause. I don’t ever see myself leaving the activist scene, this is where I belong.

Last year, I was elected as the chairwoman of the campus feminist collective at the University of Auckland. We’ve written submissions on abortion clinic safe zones, image-based sexual abuse and banning conversion therapy. We write these submissions as a group and are usually contacted by parliament to give our verbal spew on why all this is necessary. I am also the co-chair of Thursdays in Black ( UoA), the equity officer of young greens on campus and the welfare officer of the Chinese law club.

I believe in in order to be a feminist you need to be someone who is politically committed to female liberation. Being a feminist isn’t necessarily the last step, this is why we can shift the dialogue from I am a feminist to I advocate for feminism. What you call yourself is a lot less important than what you do. Be the change you want to see in the world, I was just so frustrated that after years of experiencing senseless structural oppression, I decided one day that enough is enough, I have to do something about it!”

--

On the 29th of January, I was honoured to interview our first speaker Lily Chen. Lily started early in her life educating herself about feminism, realizing the unequal world we live in. From listening to conversations, creating PowerPoints, attending protests to being the chairwoman of the campus feminist collective at the University of Auckland, Lily is an inspiration to all!