Eve Ensler's One Billion Rising campaign is named after the one in three women who have, currently do, or will experience violence against them in some form during their lives. So to keep them in mind, and start to set other people's minds thinking on it, today - Valentine's Day - has been at least in part reappropriated from Hallmark for events to get people talking, thinking, and most of all, DANCING.
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| First came the fem-cakes.... |
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| Then came the dancing! Very brave Linguistics MA student Petya got everyone up and belly-dancing... |
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| ...then we were wowed by some seriously hot rumba |
What I did turn my hand to though, and I will nervously share, is a few thoughts on that huge, great, pink elephant in the collective room at the moment - say it quietly - feminism. People (not just women) seem to be embracing it and abandoning it in equal measure at the moment, with both apathy and a LOT of 'pathy going around. So here's my attempt to get my head round it.
What is feminism?
It has no code, no doctrine
No great (or Greer) leader
It has no secret handshakes
No uniform - dungarees NOT excepted -
Not even a gender restriction.
If you don't want to be a feminIST
or associate with decades of tired, conflicting baggage
Be a femophile
Like women, love women
Learn all about them and try to speak to them in their language
Be a fem-fan
Support women, cheer them on,
Elevate them to a higher league and rejoice in their successes as if they were your own
Be a Femian, a Femlim, a Femdu, or a Few
Believe in women, have faith in them
Trust them with your earthly happiness
And maybe you'll find
You too
Are a feminist after all.
A work in progress. In all senses.
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