5 Big Questions: JAMIE KLINGLER

this episode contains references to sexual violence that some people may find upsetting.

How does someone become an accidental activist?

What do men really need to do, in order to make the world safer for women?

And what's the best way to turn anger into action?

In this week’s 5 Big Questions interview we talk to women's safety campaigner, accidental activist and global movement-maker JAMIE KLINGLER

Twitter: @jamieklingler

Instagram: @photogirluk

Known for:

• Organiser - Sarah Everard Vigil, London + around the world
• Co-founder - Reclaim These Streets
• Founder - Creative Influence Alliance
• Former Head of Publishing - ShortList Magazine

The Big 5 Questions:

1. How do you measure the impact of what you do?
2. How should people/businesses be preparing for the future?
3. How do we build the workforce we need for that future?
4. How do you use creativity to solve problems?
5. How do you collaborate?

Key quotes:

"Everyone says you can’t give oxygen if you’re not getting any yourself — and I tend to not listen. Burnout is a big thing and we all have to be careful and cognisant of it.”

“I’m a girl from Philly, the idea that I was ending up in High Court was crazy!”

“Had they just let us go ahead, we would’ve had six hundred women have a moment of silence and then on Sunday we would’ve gone back to our lives. That fact that they antagonised and poured oil on it — and then their behaviour at the actual vigil — is what ballooned it into what it became."

“I thought: is this my legacy, being drunk with my dog? If I came out of the first lockdown drunker, heavier, more depressed and more dependant on booze, then I’d wasted this — horrible opportunity — but this opportunity. That’s why I called time on it.”

“It took me six months of full-time twenty hour days before I called myself an ‘activist’ because I didn’t think I had my chops, because I didn’t think I’d done enough.”

“We have been threatened and harassed enough times, so you giving us three more minutes to cross the street and a wider berth, is just the right thing to do. Think about it from our point of view.” 

Useful links:

Reclaim These Streets // reclaimthesestreets.com/

Jamie Klingler on LinkedIn // linkedin.com/in/photogirluk/?originalSubdomain=uk

Jamie Klingler’s TEDxKingston talk (link via YouTube)

‘The Moment That Changed Me’ — Guardian article // theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/04/a-moment-that-changed-me-party-host-puppy-mcnulty-king-charles-spaniel

Reclaim These Streets fundraiser via CrowdJustice // crowdjustice.com/case/defending-our-right-to-protest/

Jamie on Ctrl Alt Delete podcast // shows.acast.com/ctrlaltdelete/episodes/382-jamie-klingler-a-year-of-intense-transformation-part-1

This episode was recorded in May 2022

Interviewer: Richard Freeman for always possible

Editor: CJ Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts