The eighth episode of the Feminism Under Corona series is the result of an audio-epistolary conversation with Silvia Agüero Fernández that took place in November 2020. On her Twitter account she introduces herself as follows: “Mother, Gitana, Mestiza, Feminist. Worker in my home. In the ghetto I discovered my Roma identity, outside the ghetto I discovered anti-Roma harassment”. The conversation was translated by Ainhoa Nadia Douhaibi Arrazola, a social educator and co-author of the book The Radicalization of Racism. Islamophobia and the Prevention of Terrorism (2019).

The rules imposed during the confinement have at no point taken into account the particularities and vital needs of many idiosyncrasies and individuals. In the case of the Roma people, restrictions on their traditional professions, itinerant trade, open-air markets and artistic creation have left many without work, income, and food. And it is seriously affecting the economic freedom of Romany women. The lack of political support and understanding has led to the creation of different networks between platforms and members of the Roma community. Silvia Agüero Fernández writes in one of her articles published in Pikara Magazine: “The Roma insurrection is the ultimate resistance to the established system, it is my alternative to a world, to a system of thought, economy and society that others have established”.

Together with Nicolás Jiménez Gonzalez, Silvia Agüero Fernández runs the project Pretendemos Gitanizar el Mundo, a valuable archive in process where they create and share a counter-narrative to fight structural and cultural anti-gitanismo. As a specific form of racism against Roma, anti-gitanismo is not only condoned but also trivialized. Their project proposes an in-depth study through numerous articles of scientific, historical and cultural popularization, while also providing support for institutions and associations that want to fight against anti-Roma harassments.

In the particular case of Romany women, anti-gitanismo is merged with structural patriarchy. As Silvia Agüero Fernández tells, feminism has always existed among Romany women. It is born and lived in the kitchens of homes and within families. It is a box of tools, values and struggles that are transmitted from women to women through emotional proximity and by ways of living together. The leader’s narrative, omnipresent in feminism, creates a herstory that makes invisible the work and daily forms of resistance of so many women throughout history. Within those forms there has been the feminism of Romany women for centuries, which is an ongoing collective anti-racist and anti-capitalist resistance.