‘We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know. The Question Is, What Are We Going to Do About It?’: Sophie McNeill’s International Women’s Day Presentation

Chenelle Liyanage (she/her) is a Boorloo-based emerging researcher in Political Science and International Relations, whose work predominately touches upon diasporic and religious nationalism studies in South Asia. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations, and English, she is currently undertaking her Honours year, researching the impact of the transnational movement of Buddhist relics on Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism in Perth. Chenelle is passionate about the importance of political engagement and awareness, particularly among students, believing that remaining ignorant is in itself a political act. She hopes to use her writing to demonstrate this.

Typically, I’m a little bit sceptical of International Women’s Day events. I find that sometimes they feel a slightly tokenistic: companies and organisations postering women for one day of the year and continuing to fall short on advocacy and gender equity in their day-to-day practices. However, when I saw the Walyalup Library was commemorating the day by hosting a talk with Sophie McNeill MLC, I knew this was an event I could not miss. Having had the privilege of working with Sophie last year, I know one thing for certain: Sophie lives her values, loud and proud, every day of the year. Donning a shirt reading “DIFFICULT” in support of Grace Tame, this day was no different.

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day was “Balance the Scales”, advocating for the urgent need for fair, inclusive, and accessible justice for every woman and girl. For Sophie, this theme resonated with her own experiences as a human rights journalist in the Middle East and, currently, as a climate advocate, interpreting the theme to mean the need to uphold international law and justice, while also advocating for intersectional feminism.

Sophie McNeill MLC is currently a member of the Greens Party in the Legislative Council of WA. Prior to this, she was a renowned human rights journalist and a member of the Human Rights Watch. However, Sophie’s journey to advocacy began long before she set foot in the newsroom. Sophie was inspired to pursue a career in advocacy and journalism during high school, when she learnt about the atrocities of the Indonesian occupation of Timor Leste. Volunteering at the Leeuwin Barracks in Fremantle, which became home to Timorese refugees, Sophie made it her mission to bring light to the devastation occurring in the region. Through personal fundraising and the support of her high school, Hollywood High, Sophie travelled to Timor-Leste, while still a teenager, and filmed a one-shot documentary exposing the inadequacies of the healthcare system and death tolls associated with preventable diseases. As a result, within eight months of graduating and starting a degree in Politics and Film at Curtin, she was approached by SBS, having caught wind of her advocacy work, beginning her new life in Sydney as a human rights journalist. By the time she hit her twenties, she was living in the Middle East and broadcasting live from the ground, celebrating her twenty-first birthday in Beirut with Robert Fisk, a renowned English human rights journalist.

During her time in the Middle East, she saw the horrors endured, particularly by women, when international law and justice were not upheld. She gave examples of Gazan women she met who were denied visas into Israel to accompany their children as they received chemotherapy. She talked about the Syrian women she’d met who had been left behind in conflict-ridden villages as their husbands had gone out to seek refuge and a better life for their families in European countries. However, the story that stuck with me, both for its demonstration of Sophie’s own inspiring commitment to act and the power of intersectional sisterhood, was that of Rahaf Mohammad Al Qunun, a Saudi woman who escaped the oppressive regime and her family’s control. During a family trip to Kuwait, Rahaf left her family and boarded a flight to Thailand with the intention of flying to Australia in an attempt to seek refuge. However, upon landing in Thailand, her passport was confiscated by a Saudi embassy official, and she was detained by Thai authorities at the Miracle Transit Hotel. Having seen Rahaf’s Twitter posts from Sydney chronicling these events while working in the ABC newsroom, Sophie spontaneously booked a flight to Bangkok and boarded within a couple of hours of buying the ticket. Upon her arrival, she snuck into Rahaf’s hotel room and barricaded herself alongside Rahaf to protect her from deportation back to Saudi Arabia. The two of them refused to exit until Rahaf had met with UN representatives. With Sophie’s support and international attention from social media, Rahaf was given asylum in Canada.

Sophie’s willingness to jump on a plane, sacrificing her own safety and abruptly pausing her life in Australia, to help a woman she had never met, demonstrates a level of sisterhood that many of us would never even dream of fulfilling. Very few of us would call our significant other in the middle of work to let them know we won’t be home because we were jumping on a flight to help another woman in need, but Sophie did, and no one questioned it. “Whether you’re a woman from Syria or a woman from Fremantle, we are all the same,” Sophie argued at the event. Rahaf was one of Sophie’s own, and she was determined to be there for her, no matter what it took. And while I am not implying that we should all have the bravery and self-sacrifice to get on a plane and barricade in a hotel room, if we could show even an ounce of solidarity with other women in the world, listen to how they want us to help, and advocate for all women, regardless of class, race, religion, and so on, I cannot begin to fathom the impact we could make in balancing the scales.

Having moved back to Perth, Sophie’s advocacy has shifted to what she calls the most immediate human rights crisis—the climate crisis. She is a fierce campaigner against WA’s current position as the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, and calls for meaningful and tangible action to reduce our contribution to emissions, particularly in Global South nations. With rising temperatures leading to climate emergencies that disproportionately impact women, particularly in Global South nations, Sophie has dedicated herself to exposing how the WA government and organisations continue to contribute to increased emissions and climate impacts globally, not just in our own backyard. In discussing this crisis, she reminisced about conversations she had with Middle Eastern mothers who were grappling with the tragedy of not being able to tell their kids that it would all be ok. As a mother of two boys, she admitted that she was worried that if we didn’t take climate action seriously, she too would not be able to tell her boys that it would all be ok. She reminded us that we cannot let this crisis take that power away from mothers in Australia.

Sophie’s presentation was moving and inspiring, demonstrating that this year, particularly on this International Women’s Day, it is more important than ever to be intersectional in our conversations about feminism and ensure that we are balancing the scales not only for the women in our lives every day but for every woman. However, looking around at the end of the talk, I was shocked at the lack of young people in the audience. Reflecting on this with Sophie after the event, she said this was typical of political events, claiming many younger people have started to tune out when they should be tuning in. We watch the 30-second snapshots on our screens about catastrophic weather events and global conflicts, turn them off, post a story in support, and then become numb to it. However, this is no longer enough. We live in a time when advocacy, particularly by students and younger voters, matters now more than ever. Our voices matter now more than ever. The choices our governments make impact us now more than ever. So, whatever it is that you care about, whether it’s the environment, Indigenous sovereignty, or global peace, now’s the time to act. Go to a protest. Sign a petition. Become educated. Have conversations. Go to talks. Listen to experts speak.

In the eloquently-put words through which Sophie ended her talk at Walyalup Library, “We can’t say we didn’t know. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

Image credit: Wikipedia.com