I attended a national conference for student feminists!

So, a 4 day student feminism conference. Sounds a little hectic, you think? You're not wrong. Overall it was good, and I got a lot out of it! There were some great workshops about how to be a good ally, how to actually be an activist and run campaigns, how to deal with street harassment, campaigning for disability rights and abortion rights and - the most fun one! - a slam poetry workshop that the leader didn't show up to, so we just ended up watching poems on YouTube for an hour! I learnt a lot of things I didn't know about people with disabilities, particularly feminists with disabilities; for example, the leader of the workshop explained that its almost as if disability activists were fighting for some things that are the exact opposite of feminism - to be seen as sexual beings and to the right to motherhood as approximately 2/3 of parents with disabilities have their children removed from their care, with mothers specifically over represented.

In terms of abortion rights, we talked about just how muddled the laws are in each state of Australia, and about the fact that nowhere in Australia is there any laws that disallow any hospitals (eg catholic funded hospitals) to deny access to certain procedures, despite the state laws - with no obligation to tell patients before admission. For example, it's common for rape victims taken to emergency rooms of these hospitals to not be given any information on emergency contraceptives, or denied access even if they request it. It is also common for those hospitals to refuse to refer them to rape crisis centres, as they see doing so as 'coordinating with pro-choice organisations'. In the case of early membrane rupture, they wait until either the fetal heart beat stops or the woman becomes infected with sepsis to do anything, so it's not seen as an abortion, despite risk to the woman. 

This information was in a talk by Leslie Cannold, the founder of Reproductive Choice Australia; an organisation focused currently on changing the social stigma surrounding abortion. Immediately after her talk I went to the abortion rights activism workshop, run by a volunteer from RCA. After learning more about the organisation, abortion rights and abortion activism, I've decided to volunteer for RCA! I haven't started anything yet, but I'm looking forward to getting involved! Pro-choice activism isn't something that I've always had a solid opinion on - my opinions have changed drastically in the last year or so, and they're still forming and solidifying. It's not an issue that has deeply and personally affected me, but I am passionate about it being a woman's choice (and her choice only!), regardless of the views of others.

So that's exciting! A hell of a lot more good things came out of the conference, and overall I enjoyed it! However... There were some things that I disagree with, which caused me to feel a lot of negativity while I was there. I've struggled a lot with how to process these things and how to talk about them without crossing lines. In simple terms, I felt like there was far too much emphasis on "privilege checking". To me it makes no sense to meet at a conference in an attempt to unite and learn, only to separate into clear groups and tell others they basically have no right to an opinion if they are not part of that group.

To an extent, this is not a problem: I agree that I can never truly understand what it's like to be a low socio-economic woman of color, for example. But ya know what? Quite frankly, I didn't go to a conference to be told, more than a few times, that I'm a white middle class woman and therefore privileged. Anyone who wanted to be there knew that already. I know that. Telling me that doesn't actually achieve anything. Telling each other "you are different from me, you can not weigh in on these issues" unites no one and solves nothing. And wasn't the point of this conference to eradicate division within the student feminist movement?

But I can elaborate on this in another post.

Overall, it was quite a learning experience. There's way too much for one post, but luckily it gave me a lot more material for the future! Brace yourselves!

Hey guys!

Been a while, eh? I need to get better at this. Exams, assignments and the opposite of quiet and relaxing holidays held me up a little! But I'm back! Miss me? ;) I'll soon get back to regular pictures and rants! In the spirit of that, here's one:

 This picture has recently been making the Facebook rounds. During exams, I didn't let myself go too crazy about it. But watching Facebook friends, especially girls, "like" it has caused an interesting mixture of frustration and sadness. Here's the take home message of what my response is going to be: HONEY, THAT *IS* FEMINISM! 

Not the demonising men bit, obviously. But being "capable of taking responsibility for myself and my actions" and having the freedoms to "define myself and derive my value by my own standards" are exactly what feminism is fighting for. Exactly. That. 

A lot of people seem to think "I have those freedoms, why would I need feminism now?" Well, those freedoms are threatened. All the time. For women, for men. When you live in a society whose definitions of gender roles for both men and women are defined by the media; when you live under a government who thinks its ok for committees of men to make nationwide decisions for women's health; when you live among people who think its ok to make fun of a boy who likes pink or to demean a girl who likes to fix cars and has short hair YOU NEED FEMINISM. Yes, you define yourself and derive your own value. But that doesn't stop people from discriminating against you for your definition, it doesn't stop people deriving their own value for you and treating you as such. For that, we need to speak up. We need to say "these things are not ok, and this is what we need to do about it" - I'm talking about the rights of the LGBQT community, the rights of men and women in low socio-economic areas, the rights of victims of domestic and sexual abuse; the value of every child and every adult and their individual right to the exact same opportunities and the same treatment. 

As for that other part? I don't really understand why there's an assumption that feminism means not taking responsibility. In fact, I think it's just the opposite. When we talk about slut shaming and victim blaming, we are not passing the buck off to someone else. For victim blaming, it's as simple as this: The only person responsible for rape is a rapist. That seems logical, right? But we can go into that more deeply another time.

As for slut shaming, that ties into the freedom to define yourself and derive your own values. For those who don't know, slut shaming is "defined as the act of making a woman feel guilty or inferior for engaging in certain sexual behaviors that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations, or that which may be considered to be contrary to natural or supernatural/religious law. Some examples of behaviors which women are "slut-shamed" over include: dressing in sexually provocative ways, requesting access to birth control, or even for being raped or sexually assaulted". Lets talk about the standard definition of "slut": someone who sleeps with several different people during any given time frame. Can you tell someone does that by the length of a skirt, the cut of a dress? No. You cannot. Is there anything wrong with having an active and healthy sex life, provided it is safe, consensual, responsible and not hurting anyone? No, there isn't. Lets not even go into the double standard of men who sleep around being idolised, but women who sleep around being condemned. 

Furthermore, feminism is not demonising men. Yes, forms of radical feminism are not kind to men. But radical feminism is to feminism as terrorists are to Islam. They're there, but they aren't talking about the same message or goals. They aren't the majority. The feminism I stand for wants the opposite: to INCLUDE men in these conversations. To talk about why rape culture and rape exists, and what we should do about it; to talk about slut shaming and why it's wrong; to talk about why it isn't ok for male politicians to be the ones deciding on women's health issues; to discuss how we're going to work together, on equal footing, to change the world.

Lastly, you personally may not be a target for violence, but women are. If they weren't, women in India would not face the risk of having acid thrown on them for turning down a marriage proposal (something that doesn't happen to men). If they weren't, women in certain areas of Saudi Arabia, India, Sudan and many more places wouldn't face the constant risk of being killed for 'family honor', of having their genitals mutilated as children or adults, of having their fingers chopped off by their husbands because they dared to seek an education, of being beaten because they were raped, of being expected to commit suicide because they were raped, of being shot because they tried to go to school - the list goes on. And guess what? These things are not traditionally done to men, these things are not accepted if done to men, these things are not condoned if done to men, these things are not left unpunished if done to men. These things are very rarely done to men. 

Feminism is not fighting for just one group of women's rights. Yes, we're fighting for the right to abortion when it is the tragic but necessary choice, we're fighting for the right to birth control as easily as men can access Viagra. We cant ignore our own issues. And you hear about them more because social media is useful with those issues. But we're also fighting for the women all over the world who have it much, much harder than us. And in their worlds, there IS a war against them. 

There's a lot more I could say about this, but I'll leave it there for now.