Should you leave your boyfriend if he is flirting online with another woman? Where can a single mother leave her children when she has to appear in court? Should we ban headscarves in Malta? Can you be a feminist and be pro-choice? What kind of homework should children be given? Who can help you with a career change?
Welcome to ‘Women for Women’, a social media community in which over 16,000 members discuss women’s issues – reproductive health, freedom of speech, childminding, legal rights and more – on a platform of heated debate, sane advice, furious rants and occasional quips and banter.
The founder of this online group is an outspoken, fiery, feminist lioness: Francesca Fenech Conti.
She is often the one who instigates the Facebook debates, who flags issues, who has made the group grow into one which can influence the country’s agenda.
Online, she comes across as a passionate suffragette. Had she been born in another era, and born across the continent, she would have been Emily Pankhurst’s right-hand woman.
We meet at her favourite coffee shop in Ibraġ, a few minutes away from her house. There is no bra-burning, men-are-the-enemy aura around her, just sheer determination. She is simply on a mission to make women’s lives in Malta better, and she does it with zest and vigour.
Before we even sit down, she tells me that she doesn’t mind whatever I write about her but pleads with me not to “trash” Women for Women. “It’s my baby,” she says softly.
I needed space to vent my concerns, but then it kept growing and growing, and it took on a life of its own
Approximately 11 minutes into the chat, it feels like I’m hanging out with an old girlfriend. Ms Fenech Conti is affable, speaks her mind and is absolutely up front about her approach: “I criticise because I want things to improve.”
But she also has no qualms about sharing her insecurities. “I was always very protective of my son,” she tells me, shoulders slumped. “When last year he told me he wanted to go to university abroad, I was surprised but in a sense relieved. ‘Phew, I thought, he can let go of the apron strings, even though I’ve mollycoddled him’,” she quips.
Ms Fenech Conti, 48, is married and has one son and three stepchildren. Her “extremely supportive” husband, Joe, works from home and is “the chef at home”. She runs her own business, Plan H, which delivers quality meals to the door and is also reading for a degree in Social Policy at the University of Malta.
Her debut on social media was thanks to the Eurovision Song Contest five years ago. Just for that night she set up a gossip group, Eurobitchin’, and that is where she and Moira Palmier – “who was so funny with her comments” – gelled.
Right after that, they came up with the idea to set up a group for restaurant recommendations and complaints, and the Facebook group Are you being served was born.
“But over time, people started discussing all sorts of things, not just shops and food, and we’d have these long threads, say, about 50 Shades of Grey,” Ms Fenech Conti says.
“Moira would get really flustered trying to keep everyone on the topic. ‘They should go and chat in the living room’, she’d tell me”. Which was how the idea of The Salott, another hugely popular Facebook group, came about.
Then, in 2015, Ms Fenech Conti had a hysterectomy, and during the long weeks of housebound recovery she felt the need to discuss her predicament with female friends.
“I didn’t feel comfortable doing it on The Salott,” she says. “So I set up the Women for Women group. It sort of stemmed from a rather selfish aspect – I needed space to vent my concerns, but then it kept growing and growing, and it took on a life of its own.”
The group is open only to women. “We’ve had some infiltrations with fake profiles, but we usually catch them out… but if we don’t, it doesn’t matter – men can only learn from us,” she quips.
Among the thousands of members, there are women from all walks of life, including academics, doctors, teachers, lawyers – all expressing themselves in a safe environment without the risk of feeling judged.
The most pressing issue in the group is domestic violence. “I get messages all the time from women who want to stay anonymous, who are being abused and who believe that it’s their fault, it’s terrible,” she says. Women only speak publicly after they have managed to extricate themselves from a situation of domestic violence. “But they are scared to speak up when they are in it, scared that the rest of the world will judge them.”
She thinks that many find it difficult to understand why women in abusive situations don’t just up and leave. “It is easier said than done: even when there’s no abuse, it is difficult to leave a relationship, let alone when there are other constraints, such as children, having nowhere to go, and no financial independence.”
Unfortunately there’s this idea that feminists are anti-men. It’s not the case at all: feminism promotes gender equality, the same rights for men and women
She can see from the stories shared in the community that domestic abuse comes in varying forms but usually starts with the eating away of self-esteem.
“They start checking your phone, or stopping you from seeing your friends, or telling you not to work, to the point where the woman then ends up feeling a complete failure.”
This has spurred her on to do voluntary work for the YMCA and Dar Merħba Bik and to become a member of the NGO Women’s Rights Foundation, which offers free legal advice and guidance to victims.
Only now is she seeing the stark realities of life: “When we’re younger we get lost in ċuċati – nicer house, more expensive bag, designer clothes. I look back and I see how fickle I was. It’s the people you meet and experiences you live which make you a better person.”
She believes WfW changed her, jolted her out of her comfort zone and sparked her sense of duty and her wanting to do something – even if small – to change the lives of women undergoing hardships.
Prior to the establishment of WfW, women’s issues were not really much discussed on local social media, she says. “Ours is still a Mediterranean and Catholic culture, in which men are raised to be the breadwinners and women are socially nurtured to be mothers… and to be meek.”
The new generations need to be bolder and more independent.
“Unfortunately there’s this idea that feminists are anti-men. It’s not the case at all: feminism promotes gender equality, the same rights for men and women.”
She gives a practical example: if there’s maternity leave, then there should be paternity leave.
The most satisfactory achieve-ment for WfW has been its activism for the introduction of the morning-after pill as an over-the-counter medication following a judicial protest by the Women’s Rights Foundation.
“Emergency contraception gives women the possibility to control their destiny, and the fact that it has finally been sanctioned is a victory for all of us women.”
She believes that Malta needs more women in top roles, because they will be more sensitive to family issues. “Look at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and what amazing things she has done for the United States,” she says.
But there is a need for a chain of change: “At the moment, it is very difficult to be a mother and a politician, Parliament needs to work in a format which is adaptable to today’s world.”
Is this her next campaign? You can immediately see the mission spark up, but there are several other issues she would like to take up: a more holistic education system, varied reproductive health, the right to equal pay.
“We need to be aware of issues and talk openly about them, even if we disagree,” she says.
“What’s important is that women wake up to the power of sisterhood – it’s amazing.”