It’s not everyday that you have the opportunity to sit in a room filled with Feminists talking about feminist archives. In fact, this was a first for myself and I must say it was the most powerful, eye opening thing I’ve ever experienced.
I’d consider myself as privileged in a sense that I grew up as a white straight teen that didn’t really face any issue’s with discrimination or judgement. To be completely honest I never truly knew what being a feminist was until a couple years ago when I took it upon myself to research and see exactly what I should be supporting.
I got the privilege to be surrounded by empowering women sharing each of their personal stories revolving being a feminist.
The first speaker was a women who shared her story about the time her mother first admitted that she was gay. After years of denying that her daughter was gay, she finally decided to join her daughter at pride week in Toronto and supported her daughter in her choice of women.
The second speaker was a women who showcased a film she created over 20 years ago at the age of 23. The film included a lesbian couple talking about their feelings toward each other, a gay couple that secretly had intercourse in a mens washroom hiding from others and last scene showed a man having phone sex with a unknown lady.
The third speaker was lesbian who spoke about her struggles of getting pregnant with her partner. In the 1990’s lesbians weren’t allowed to adopt or get inseminated to have children. This making it almost impossible to have children.
Another women talked about how fortunate she is to be living the life she’s living, when everyday there are others struggling with issues such as child marriage. The women decided to share her opinions and memories through a poem.
The final women I’m going to talk about was actually a group of women who decided to make a film that was based around interviewing a number of men. When interviewing the men, they showed a fake poster advertising a new law that men over the age of 13 have a curfew of 10pm. This was to prevent the incidents of rape that have been occurring in Canada.
By going to this meeting, I was able to discover a common theme between all these feminist memories. Although all the stories are different from one another, all of the stories shared show case a strong feminist lead. Weather it was a women who didn’t back down from admitting on who she is, to a women showing the world different types of love through film, or the women who wouldn’t take no for an answer well trying to create a child, the women who was being a voice for those who don’t have one or finally the group of women who created a fake law ignorer to make a point are all beautiful strong feminists with amazing memories to share.