The Elephant in the Room 2

[DJLippy]

As some of you may be aware Make More Noise are holding an event in Manchester called Feminism: The Elephant in the Room on Saturday the 27th of July. This is the first time we have done anything like this. In the past we have blogged and recorded a podcast but we decided we wanted to provide a real life platform for women to meet - to educate, agitate and organise.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/feminism-the-elephant-in-the-room-tickets-64496743496

We are very new to activism and this past year a whirlwind of activity as we learn everything on the hoof as we go along - doing all this with nothing but our gobs and our cheek. Along the way we have been supported by some truly AMAZING women. We really could not have done any of this without their support.

We want to do all we can to give women the mic and amplify women's voices. We had an idea of creating an article on our blog called The Elephant in the Room where we asked some of our favourite women to tell us what they thought was feminism's great taboo. We have zero funds to publicise the talk and so we were trying to be inventive with our marketing strategy. We also thought this might be a good way to engage with the wider feminist community. We were blown away by responses it was truly humbling the amount of women who have agreed to speak with us. So far every person has a different take - a different "elephant".

I started a thread on Mumsnet on Sunday night to find out what Mumsnet thought. It was very badly done and I didn't explain the context of the ask. It was done in good faith I just did not think that long about the post as I have crazy busy with organisations and promotion for the talk - this just slipped through the net.

I wanted to start a fresh on a new thread. I will be posting on here the responses from the women I have asked. I think it will make for some fascinating discussions. I have taken the text verbatim from them. This is about providing a platform for women to speak we offer no comment.

None of the comments on here will be used for publicity purposes or shared outside of Mumsnet by Make More Noise.

If you want to come to the talk early bird tickets are available until Monday the 8th of July at 11.30pm.

Gemma Aitchison campaigns to help sexual assault victims. She founded the charity Yes Matters following the death of her sister at the hands of an abusive man. She has done research for the prevention of violence against women and spoken at European Parliament. More recently she has worked with the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities to successfully secure consent-based sex education for the curriculum, and she has also worked on child sexual exploitation prevention policy.

For me the elephant in feminisms closet.

The feeling like a fraud when you fall victim to things you feel like you should have been strong enough to fight. When I was trapped in a domestic abuse situation, one of the things that kept me covered in the shame he tried to drown me in was that I was supposed to be a strong feminist who knows the signs, who knows the abuser profile and tactics. But I was still a victim. What sort of feminist was I, how could I talk about being strong, not believing what he was saying/doing out of entitlement and control when I was affected too.

On reflection I think part of the answer is that, like the rest of the world, women have higher expectations of other women including ourselves. If a man does something great, that is used to excuse the multiple bad (Winston Churchill, Micheal Jackson, Jonny Depp etc) however with women, if they do one thing we don't agree with, we dismiss the many great things she has done. Because of this we become the MRA cliché "they will be too busy bitching amongst themselves".

I agree with feminists about somethings and don't about others but the reality is that there is no queen of feminism with a list of things you must adhere to, to earn enough points for your shiny feminist badge. I disagree with sexual objectification and that working in the sex industry is in any way empowering however I have worked on campaigning to address unpaid work of women and the pay gap with women who think it is. Because the reality is its all linked and by working together on the issue, will change things for the ones we don't. If unpaid work was paid, it would affect how many women saw the sex industry as a viable option. We have to be more aware of the divide and conquer tactics.

If we don't shout together, we are easier to ignore. We are all learning and developing. We are all shaped by different experiences. Feminism needs to be less hard on women.