Change. We can wait for it to happen or we can seek it out. David Bowie once sang that he didn't know what he was waiting for, that time may change him but he wasn't about to waste time waiting for it.
So; change. If Bowie wasn't going to go on waiting for change, then neither are we.
When we started our blog it was because we had witnessed what was perhaps one of the worst examples of an absence of change. Despite Dr. Ford's painful testimony detailing how her sexual assault had drastically changed her as a woman, we watched as this did nothing to change the course of history for the man whom she was accusing. We heard him testify that this accusation had changed his life irrevocably for the worse, then knowingly followed his fate as he went on to take a position in the highest judicial body in the US. Of course, it has in fact been Dr. Ford's life that has been irrevocably changed by her bravery. While Brett Kavanaugh was being sworn in, she wrote of being hounded from her house and from the life she had spent years building for herself.
So; change. During these #16days of activism we have been considering the prospect of changing the world for women.
Since issuing our feminist call to arms, we have written about those feminist activists whose work is in the pursuit of change. Marching, making placards and shouting into loudhailers is its most visible representation. But make no mistake, you could be sitting next to a feminist activist on the bus and not even know it.
Perhaps she has her lacy thong pinned to her rucksack because she is seeking an end to underwear being considered a form of consent in rape trials. Or maybe she becomes an 'active bystander' when a woman is groped while ringing the bell for her stop. It could be that she's on her way to run a menopause cafe or that she's on her way back from mentoring a sexual assault survivor who is facing her first day back at work. When the bus slows to gently roll over a speed bump, you might even lazily look over at her smartphone screen and notice she is editing her PhD on victim blaming or the latest article for her women led news site.
So; change. Though it can take a myriad of forms, be in no doubt that feminist activism can be anything that consists of a steady effort in the direction of change for women.
But what do we need to change? The homogenisation of 'change' seems to speak of the oppression of women as similarly uniform. When in fact the truth is, that just as women are nuanced and complex beings, so too our subjugation.
1 in 4 women are survivors of rape or sexual abuse. 54% of women have reported incidents of workplace harassment. Only 5% of Fortune 500 CEO roles are held by women. 0.006% of films are directed by BAME women. 1 in 3 women experience violence in their lifetime. 2.1% of women in London are affected by FGM (that's approximately over 4,000 women). Women writers earn only 75% of what their male counterparts do. Only 23% of the world's politicians are women. Over the course of 61 years only 3 women have won Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year. Female artists rarely comprise more than 30% of the artists shown in museums and galleries around the world. Just over 5% of the world's commercial pilots are women.
It seems that what we lack in the similarities of our oppression, we make up for in prevalence.
So; change. Where do we start?
What we've learnt here @afeministcalltoarms is that we start small. We start by recognising the truth of our situation. We turn to face the strange. Because it IS strange that women are not yet recognised as being equal to men. It IS strange that we don't fly as many planes, that we experience so much violence or that some of us can even expect to have our sexual organs cut away from our bodies. How strange that because we are women - or indeed, because we are not men - we must learn to live so differently.
We turn to face the strange because in doing so, we start down a path that we can't turn back from. It is impossible to be in this world and not be part of the fight for equality, once we realise what it means for us when we are not.
Start by correcting someone when they ask a woman how much she had to drink before the man she didn't know tried to kiss her. Ask your local cinema why they haven't programmed any films made by women this week. Tweet your local MP about the lack of safe spaces for women in your area. Stop buying coffee from the place that asks breastfeeding mothers to leave.
You could even email us a story of feminist activism that you feel deserves to be told. We believe storytelling can be the most accessible form of activism and that even telling one person about the project or campaign you've come across, is in itself a way to make activism contagious.
So then; change. It isn't easy but it is something we must seek out, together. We must do so fearlessly, in whatever ways we can and in spite of those who spit on us as we try to change our worlds.
We must do it for all women. It's what Bowie would have wanted.
SheCurates.
When they #answerthefeministcall, we tell their stories.
