Yesterday I attended UK Feminista’s annual feminist conference in London. Feminists have always been stereotyped as men-hating, bra-burning, baby haters. If there was only one thing I could have taken away from yesterday, it was that this stereotype is absolute nonsense. There were a 1000 people at the conference, this included: mothers and fathers with babbling babies, children, school girls, brothers, LBGT people and people of all ages. Obviously these aren’t all mutually exclusive, but you get the idea.
The conference began with a brilliantly motivational talk from Kat Banyard, director of UK Feminista, and their activist group who were promoting their latest protest, the Muff March. It is a protest against the rise of labiaplasty (for cosmetic reasons) and the way plastic surgeons are profiting from body hatred. It’s taking place on December 10th, on Harley Street, London. I’ll definitely be taking part. Some of the proposed slogans on twitter have been hillarious, my current favorite is:
Harley St puts my muff in a huff! – UK Feminista twitter
Next, Sandi Toksvig spoke about feminism and women in the media, this was of courses, exceptionally funny. I disagreed on certain parts of the talk – namely the ‘left vs. right side of the brain’ content, although most of it was good. My favorite quote was about princesses in popular children’s books. She asked, “If Rapunzel had enough hair to let down for a man to climb up why couldn’t she make a rope to climb down?” and questioned why on earth they would sit around in towers for years and years waiting for a Knight in shining armor to save them “unless they’re fresh from a lobotomy, there’s no excuse for it!”
I then attended the Endangered Bodies talk, which focused on the incredibly damaging and profiteering diet industry and it’s effect on women. The talk started with the video below then continued to give us facts on the industry – for example, I never knew that Heinz owned Weight Watchers! Most of the talk was an open forum for attendees to discuss body image and their own experiences. It was very candid and upsetting in places but, for me, the best session of the day by far. My only criticism would be that the talk needed to include more of a health-focused view on body image. I completely agree that no-one should ever be made to feel guilty for who they are and being the size they want to be, but I believe there needs to also be a positive message for good health and mindful eating. A more detailed post by @thatsoph, which focuses on this panel, can be found here!
Naturally Critical from Stephanie Heart on Vimeo.
The second session I attended was The White Ribbon Campaign’s workshop entitled “Why aren’t you doing more?” – Engaging Men as allies. Unfortunately it was over-full so the workshop sessions were a bit of a mess. For me, I really believe that to make a real change we need to bring feminism to the mainstream and really engage men in a way that is non-confrontational and inclusive. I loved the fact that there were so many men in this group that were happy to openly discuss issues and methods in which to motivate men to participate more in feminism. To hear open-minded opinions on feminism from the opposite sex was very valuable to me. It was also the one session where I felt a majority of the room were able to express themselves and share knowledge.
The feminist question time was a bit uncomfortable for me. The ageist cat-calling of an old man who was rambling slightly was quite unsettling. There was also a lot of discussions around ‘the sex industry’ which had a real air of anti-sex. As someone rightly pointed out on twitter: “I’m not anti-sex, I’m anti-sexism.” I’m not entirely anti-pornography, but I can see both sides of the argument. I would talk more about this, but this blog post clearly does a much better job than I could! I’ll be honest and say that I can’t remember a majority of the questions asked, however I was particularly impressed with Carlene Firmin’s articulate and incredibly relevant points about the importance of reaching out to young people and women who feel the feminist movement is not relevant to them.
Lastly the event ended with a question and answer session towards the Mayor of London candidates. Although I am not a resident of London, I often visit for work and the points about public safety and transport were especially important to me. Some of the responses were well-thought out, but I couldn’t help but feel cynical throughout the talk as I simply do not trust politicians. I feel like there were a lot of empty promises given out during the hour-long panel. Of course there were also a lot of jokes (and snipes) towards Boris Johnson, who failed to show up.
To finish up I want to link to link to Rhiannon Lockley’s post about the event as it echos many of my sentiments in a much more articulate and detailed way. You can read the post here!
