+/- 1,000 words on the new feminist movement

This is an article I wrote in early September for a new online magazine that apparently never launched. It was supposed to be about the new feminist movement, and it mentions Kat Banyard (founder of UK Feminista) extensively as she kindly agreed to be interviewed over Skype for this. I already briefly mentioned her book The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today in the review of UK Feminista's Summer School. Banyard was also profiled in The Guardian around that same time.

Women earn 23% less then men. The conviction rate for rape is only 6.5%. 1.5 million people have an eating disorder, and 90% of them are female. During the 1990s the number of men paying for sex acts has doubled. One in four women will experience violence at the hands of a current or former partner. And that’s all not in the third world, but the UK.


Ever since feminism existed, in whatever shape or form, there’s been arguments that its mission is done and hence the movement outdated. Virginia Woolf (!) in 1938’s Three Guineas claims that ‘since the only [women’s] right, the right to earn a living has been won, the word [feminism] no longer has a meaning.’ The illusion that equality has been achieved persists: nowadays, when a widely read liberal paper runs a story on feminism, the comments underneath are shockingly aggressive and sexist, the mildest insinuating that whoever wrote the article was transported back to 1969 in some homemade time machine.  Oxford University Press’ Short Introduction to Feminism stops around the turn of the millennium. Women got the vote, women can work, they’ve got the pill - what else could they possibly want?

I’m sorry to break it to you - feminism is not finished. Actually, I’m not sorry at all; but whoever wants to believe that the world they inhabit is fair and free will have to reevaluate their standards, and that is never a pleasant thing to do. Some people claim that women in allegedly developed and great first world countries should stop ‘moaning’ and instead focus on the enslavement of women in Islam. What? Do you think that’s a valid response to the fact that Harvard President Lawrence Summers believes that there are fewer female scientists because of the ‘innate’ differences between the sexes, or to the UK government’s recent emergency budget, where 72% of cuts will be met form women’s income, as opposed to 28% from men’s? Yeah. If you think for more than 30 seconds, you should agree that feminism is not just another piece of 60s/70s/80s/90s nostalgia. It’s a real necessity in 2010. And it’s not just for women either: according to Kat Banyard, recently profiled in the Guardian as one of the UK’s most influential feminists, if you believe in the inherent dignity of people, in justice and human rights, then feminism is for you.

Banyard is the author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today, a carefully researched study that takes an interesting shape of an ordinary day in a life of British women. Issues begin as early as 06:56 am with Waking Up To Body Image, continue through the morning with A Gendered Education and Sexism and the City, turn to Coming Home to Violence and A Night Out in the Sex Industry, to culminate with Bedroom Politics at night. Banyard’s focus is incredibly broad, which makes her work even more impressive. It only took her 9 months to write the book, and apart from researching academic journals, she conducted case studies, finding individual women who agreed to speak to her about their experiences. She is not a theorist: everything she writes about is deeply rooted in reality. And exceptionally, it reaches much further than the bookshop. Banyard believes that academia and activism have to go hand in hand, and so she used the advance on setting up UK Feminista, an organization that brings together feminist activists, campaigns, and organizations. It only started in March, and with no external funding, already in August UK Feminista ran a free feminist activism Summer School, an amazing training and networking opportunity with panels, workshops, and talks for experienced activists as well as complete beginners in fighting gender inequality. It generated a huge buzz online, and proved that the book+organization initiative is symptomatic of a wider upsurge in feminist activity. As Kat Banyard told me when I briefly interviewed her, despite the huge amount of stigma that has grown around feminism in the last decade(s), change is happening. There’s been a steady growth in activism at a grassroots level: more groups, more blogs, more websites, more marches, more conferences. More feminist publications came out in the last twelve months than in the last twelve years (Catherine Redfern’s and Kristin Aune’s Reclaiming the F Word: New Feminist Movement, Ellie Levenson's The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Feminism, Nina Power's One Dimensional Woman, Natasha Walter's Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, Sheila Rowbotham's Dreamers of a New Day, or the recent and hotly debated Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cornelia Fine). It all shifts feminism back into the center of the political debate so policymakers, the media, and all sections of society have to pay attention.

Local London initiatives abound, from big organizations like London Feminist Network (its huge annual conference Feminism in London happened on Saturday 23 October; review here), London Third Wave, Equality Now, OBJECT or two London branches of the Fawcett Society, to specific campaigns like LASH (London Anti Street Harassment) or Hollaback London/ Hollaback UK, a dozen of local groups and Women’s Institutes like Shoreditch Sisterhood, Feminists of Hackney, East End W.I. or Feminist Societies based around universities at Goldsmiths, UCL or LSE; and even groups for men: London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group, White Ribbon Campaign, or the newly launched Anti Porn Men Project, ran by young male activists who oppose the aggression and sexism in pornography. Launched in mid-September, this initiative ties in perfectly with what Banyard believes is a crucial condition for feminism to advance: the involvement of men. ‘The future of feminism depends on focusing on the role of men and masculinity. We need to change what it means to be a man’, she said when I asked about feminists who have inspired her most, and she listed academics Robert Jensen and Michael Flood alongside famous US PhD Rebecca Whisnant. Hopefully the rise of the new feminist movement means that the stereotypes around man hating and marginality will disappear, and we will all accept that women’s issues are everyone’s issues, and sexism harms all genders. And that doing something about it is awesome, and as valid as it ever was.



----

 
In other, more recent news, this Saturday is Reclaim the Night, an annual national march in London to say no to rape and all forms of male violence against women.

"A recent survey by the young women’s magazine More in 2005 found that 95% of women don’t feel safe on the streets at night, and 65% don’t even feel safe during the day. 73% worry about being raped and almost half say they sometimes don’t want to go out because they fear for their own safety.

In every sphere of life we negotiate the ...threat or reality of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. We cannot claim equal citizenship while this threat restricts our lives as it does. We demand the right to use public space without fear. We demand this right as a civil liberty, we demand this as a human right.

According to the British Crime Survey (2001) there are an estimated 47,000 rapes every year, around 40,000 attempted rapes and over 300,000 sexual assaults. Yet our conviction rate is the lowest it has ever been, one of the lowest in Europe, at only 5.3%. This means that more rapists were convicted in the 1970s when Reclaim The Night marches first started than they are now. Did you know that the maximum sentence possible for rape is life imprisonment? Probably not, because rarely are rapists even reported or convicted, let alone with a realistic sentence. This situation has to change.

We march to demand justice for rape survivors."



Reclaim The Night
Saturday 27th November 2010

Assemble 6pm, Whitehall Place (near Embankment tube) for women-only march followed by mixed rally and party at the Camden Centre, Euston till late. All welcome.

Men can support the Reclaim The Night march by joining the London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group solidarity demonstration. Meet by the Edith Cavell statue, opposite the National Portrait Gallery at 6pm on Saturday 27th November to make your protest against violence against women.


http://www.reclaimthenight.org/
http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=156359841057661


I will be visiting Nadine in Glasgow this weekend so sadly neither of us can come, but we will no doubt stage our own mini march in solidarity.

Feminism in London 10

The huge Feminism in London conference took place last weekend. Over 1,000 feminists came. I was one of them.

Many amazing speakers; too many to summarize, but an evident theme that kept being mentioned was cuts and the massive inequalities implied in them. Women hold 65% of the public sector jobs, and women also rely on these services more because they earn and own less. Intro panel Women in Public Space had a young mother and activist Lindsey Hills speak out about harsh stereotyping of teenage mums, film director and writer Virginia Heath who started a campaign against sex trafficking, Ceri Goddard from The Fawcett Society and Helena Kennedy QC concentrating on the economic policy gender bias issues, and journalist Rahila Gupta commenting on how even in fairly liberal media sexism and misogyny are rife.


The following session was on Reproductive Health, which in my mind meant contraception, but was in fact largely about how women are massively restricted by hospitals in terms of giving birth. There was even a short film about home births and all kinds of issues I never gave a second thought. Another issue that gets just about zero coverage and so I imagine the general public is entirely unaware of there being any controversy about it.

I ordered vegan lunch, and got a piece of cake that contained milk and eggs - that was the only major fuck up (predictably, the venue was to blame). I didn't mind, because I'm merely vegan-curious, but I imagine actual vegans must have been very unhappy about it. Because almost all the sessions ran over there was really not a lot of time to explore the stalls, and because the venue had to be cleared right after the conference finished lunch time was the only chance to see any of them, which I sadly didn't get a chance to do. I'm sure it has to do with venue costs and all, but it would maybe be a good idea for future events to have the stalls available for a bit longer.

Post-lunch I was booked in a workshop called Exploring Your Internalized Prejudice. There was a whole bunch to choose from (including one workshop exclusively for men!), but I decided on that one in hope to get some unchallenged stuff out of my system. It was led by FolesHillfields Vision Project, who sat us in two circles, so that each person was facing someone else, and for the first half of the workshop we were switching a lot to be able to talk to a different person each time. The 'questions', or issues to talk about for about a minute each were about why it's good to have men as allies, imagining what our lives would be if there was no sexism, remembering first instances of gender prejudice, or considering what we would change in our childhood or youth if we could today. It was a bit all over the place, but because we had to think on our feet, quite inspiring. Then we got into slightly bigger groups and were trying to remember the first time we'd noticed racism, or were exposed to racist comments. Some people's stories were quite unbelievable; it was very interesting to hear many perspectives on that, and even just to try to identify yourself the very early and often un-intellectual instances of racism. The premise of the workshop was to prove that noone is born racist or sexist or in any other was unfairly biased, but that culture/society have their creepy ways of installing those prejudices into our minds very early on. I guess what might conclude from that is a higher awareness of those processes and somehow guarding yourself from them, but sadly the workshop didn't go as far as that. The final bit was a panel of women of colour who talked about what it's like to be women of colour: what's hard about it, what's great about it, what they'd never want to hear again from white people and what one thing they would change if they could. That was a very interesting, though also a slightly strange setup, to have all us white girls listening - it would have been excellent if there was more time for dialogue. Still, apart from slight technical/organizational hitches it was an interesting experience.

The final panel, or as it was officially called, a 'rousing finale' was indeed very strong: speakers declared they were angry, cuts again were mentioned extensively. My favourite two quotes: 'We don't hate men. We hate what capitalist patriarchy does to men as well as women' and 'If equal rights mean equal rights for exploitation of others, we want something different'. Many speeches interspersed with applause, and a standing ovation for Finn McKay at the very end. Definitely a very successful day for feminism. Many women and men who attended also brought their kids - it was really amazing how children-friendly and considerate the whole event was: so rare, though it should be entirely evident.

Tons of content, including videos, photos, write-ups, blog links, workshop descriptions, detailed speaker lists and anything else you may want to know about the conference available on Feminism in London's website: http://www.feminisminlondon.org.uk . I hope to go again next year!

Courtney Love FTW

Courtney Love played Warsaw last week at Orange Warsaw Festival - I went to the press conference she gave backstage, which was exciting as hell.

I was never into grunge at all, but I can’t disagree with Rolling Stone when they say Courtney Love is the most controversial woman in rock history. Widely known not so much for her own career, but for her husband’s suicide, she is the object of hate for legions of his fans, and an object of admiration for those who actually listened to her music and lyrics, appreciated her role as a style icon, or just the fact she’s been creatively active for 25 years. She is just as likely to appear on celeb gossip websites and in tabloids as she is on esteemed music blogs. She’s in her 40s, and still an iconic bad girl, transgressing a dozen social norms at a time. Pop culture loves spectacular troublemakers. The more the public hates her, the more symbolic she becomes - but with so much more class and artistic credibility than similar figures who have emerged in the last decade. According to feminist Rachel Shukert, she has the guts to be just as nihilistic and self-destructive as a man, knowing all along that the world, instead of praising her like a genius, will crucify her and make everything her fault.

As Shukert says in her brilliant essay, telling the story of her becoming-a-feminist-lightbulb-moment, Love is no one's role model but she still changes lives. She has, above all, no shame. She says or does what she wants, genuinely not caring what people will say. She's the kind of person always described by the press as 'troubled', her every action being reported as the final condemning proof of her disgusting lifestyle, threatening the morality of the rest of the world. And she would still flash her tits on tv, post semi-nude pictures of herself on twitter, rant all she wants, and above all, continue to write and record. Aged 12, she applied to join the Mickey Mouse Club and was rejected after reading Sylvia Plath's Daddy for her audition. A most recent controversy is that surrounding her loss of custody over her daughter, venting on twitter insulting everyone involved, then on Frances Bean's 18th tweeting a 'crazy-ass incoherent 35-tweet rant', expressing out-of-control, contradicting, yet undeniably sincere emotions. I think there's no doubt that she's crazy: hard childhood, years of substance abuse, personal trauma; but you know what - she isn't trying to pretend like she isn't. She's out there just like she is, crazy, conflicted, troubled, whatever. She's not acting like it's all great and a piece of cake. People naturally hate that: it's disturbing, shocking, and also real. Love isn't scared of being real, whatever it can mean. That's why I may not get what she's about, but I admire her greatly nonetheless.

It was incredible to see her in real life. She was really pale and really skinny, unhealthily so, kept smoking compulsively and jumping from one digression to another, occasionally making little sense. What was incredible though was how confident and calm she was in all that. Much more vulnerable than onstage, but still totally unafraid to be who she is. Piotr Metz, the festival's creative director, asked her about a Pearl Jam cover she played in Paris, and here she's replying to that, sort of, at the same time talking about a million other things:






Further questions were not up to any standard - what do you expect from the Polish public, playing here for the first time? Why aren't you headlining, is it a conscious decision? Were you upset by the reviews of Nobody's Daughter? And Love answers, in a totally reasonable way, even if the questions are inane or designed to intimidate.

I really wanted to ask her about her daughter, but felt it was way too painful and personal. Love mentioned sexism in her previous answer already, talking about her manager and how she's the only female artist he manages; so I asked her about the current state of feminism:






I'm not entirely sure what she was saying about the lunch she was having with another feminist, nor what she said exactly about her daughter in the beginning (I didn't catch it on video, but I think she said Frances Bean doesn't identify as a feminist, yet she recently made a bunch of feminist statements), or why the Credit Suisse bacchanal story was there, but it's really out of order how the interpreter then mistranslated the entire thing, saying that Love believed feminists were unattractive. What she said was that the connotation for the word was still negative, that 'we who wear heels and lipstick' can spell it femme-inist to make it sound more classy and French, but for most people, a feminist is still an unattractive woman. She also said she believed she was the last woman standing from her generation. She said she passed Kathleen Hanna in the street in New York the other day ('who has grey hair and runs a salon'), and they didn't say a word. It was sad.

I should really read Courtney's 2006 memoir Dirty Blonde before I say any more underreasearched stuff.But let me just mention Rachel Shukert's Nice Girls again, which is definitely worth reading, whether you care about Courtney Love or not. For a gist-of-the-story shorter reading, see Standing Up For Courtney Love And Outcasts Everywhere by Anna North. That's only the tip of the iceberg of controversy, but shows some fucked up and sexist shit that women who dare have to deal with.

UK Feminista Summer School

I ecstatically posted about this as soon as I found out: UK Feminista, despite only existing since March 2010 and operating wholly through the work of volunteers, organized 'two days of feminist training, explaining and gaining', a FREE event on feminist activism in London. Held at Amnesty UK, it was overbooked and a visible 99% of the 350 registered attendees came. Nadine and I were moving house that weekend, which made it a bit difficult, but I skived off for some time and went as Women Fire's delegate.

Maybe the most amazing feature of the event was that it provided genuinely fun and interesting talks for activism beginners and veterans alike. Despite many cautionary remarks that 'we're preaching to the converted', it was far from redundant to hear statistics, learn skills, and absorb enthusiasm from various speakers. Just from listening I felt so inspired I started taking notes for future endeavours/involvements/articles and frankly, nothing beats that intense feeling of wanting to do something RIGHT NOW, and being given some actual tools as opposed to just walking up and down the room reeling from frustration. It's also refreshing to be able to talk to people who despite very different backgrounds and occupations share your views, and you don't have to defend yourself before you even finish making a point. Also very important is the realization that your power lies in numbers, and there are those other people out there - so if you organize, you can actually achieve something, and you really should try.

UK Feminista was started by Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today, who gave a particularly inspiring speech during the first panel The Importance of Feminist Organising: that more and more grassroots feminist movements are emerging, despite the general society's claims that equality is achieved and there is nothing else to fight for. Banyard's book dispels those myths, displaying research of amazing scope proving that gender inequality is still a serious issue. She pointed out that after a 'ten year drought' we had 'six feminist books in the last 12 months', and that publishing trend was definitely reinforced by an upsurge in actual activism, from NGOs and local groups, in form of blogging as well as marches, campaigns, demonstrations. In a stark contrast, perhaps the most cited statistic of the weekend had been about women taking about 70% of the consequences of proposed budget cuts in the UK. On the same panel was Gwendolyn Sterk from UK Joint Committee on Women, who reported that of the four sister organisations from across the UK that made up the Committee (Engender, network of women’s organisations in Scotland, the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO) in England, Women’s Voice in Wales and Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform) only three were still operational: Women's Voice in Wales was recently denied funding and its future is uncertain. Women's issues are widely seen as a fringe, as something marginal 'real politicians' don't have time for. Actually thinking about it, most people probably don't realize women's issues are everybody's issues. And allegedly there are more men called John in the Parliament than women - sounds like a joke, right?

© Kirsty McCall-Thornley

The enormous strength of the first day of summer school was its focus on practice. The afternoon was split into workshops on different levels of involvement: from how to run a feminist group to how to organize a Ladyfest, on running effective campaigns, organizing demonstrations, creative campaigning and direct action, using gender equality duty and other laws to promote your campaign ends, or what to look forward to in the feminist year ahead. If that wasn't amazing enough, all the materials fromt he workshops will be available at the UK Feminista website in the coming days. Simultaneously to the events, UK Feminista volunteers were tweeting, providing good quote selections and links, and doing it so well I didn't even feel the need to take many notes and instead have that online record of what was being said. I encourage everyone to go through the resources grouped under the #femschool hashtag on twitter (you can view it even if you don't have an account yourself), and to have a look at the materials when they're posted on UK Feminista - where in fact you'll find all kinds of useful info on local groups, campaigns, feminist links, and also discussion boards. A goldmine of news, information, and also people! What struck me about the event, aside from supreme organization, was the enthusiasm of everyone involved, organisers and participants alike, and the general friendliness - people were chatting away and forming new alliances all the time. After the event ended, UK Feminista volunteers announced they were going to dinner somewhere nearby, and everyone was welcome to join - in the end, about 20 of us went to a Vietnamese place on Kingsland Road to spend another 2-3 hours exchanging stories. I was about to go home after that, when on the way to the bus stop we passed a strip club, and someone said we should sticker it with the Sexist Shit and Feminisn't stickers we got earlier in the day. As a result, an ad hoc feminist action happened, and the next day the club's email address was still enhanced with a Sexist Shit note. All this was filmed - I hope to post the videos soon. That relatively small action made us feel so inspired for at least a couple of people who were going home to fall down on a couch instead found a nice pub to sit down in and keep talking to each other. There's no better feedback for an event than when people just don't want it to end.

 

© Kirsty McCall-Thornley

The second day was a lot more opinion- and discussion-based, but great training was still being given: from how to use the media to how to influence politicials (theyworkforyou.com to check who your MP is and what they're doing), how to fundraise, include disabled people in campaigning, promote diversity within feminist groups, and why is climate change a feminist issue (I'm especially looking forward to the materials from this to come up online as I missed it, attending using media instead). At lunchtime there was a stand up show from Lynne Parker of Funny Women (which I shamefully missed getting actual lunch - I hope there will be videos). Two arguably biggest events of the day, however, were the opening and closing panels with Big Names. Women in the Media was led by Jess McCabe of The F-Word and had Hannah Pool (ex-Guardian/freelance journalist) and Kira Cochrane (Guardian women's editor). All three talked about their experiences with the media (including a funny, but actually quite depressing story of how Hannah Pool set up a white male comments account as Harry Pond and didn't get any of the abuse she did get as herself). Only 18 of 100 people on media's most influential list are women, and out of 18 national papers one has a female editor, reported the panel, and the recounted experiences were more or less along the lines of challenge and hardship (but also some hope). Pool's story exposed sexism and misogyny on the Guardian's website (cause just because you read a lefty paper doesn't mean you can't be sexist..), but also instantly motivated people to get their opinions out there, whether working in the media or not, just by presence and comments. Granted, under the excellent post-summer school write-up from Bidisha there is already a sea of disgusting, disgusting comments. Just asking people whether they were feminists is a very revealing question, and an important one to ask. Someone from the audience tackled the enormously important but very unpublicized issue that most instances of ageism in the media are in fact straight cases of sexism. All panelists agreed that to be a female journalist takes more effort and more talent, but through their examples showed it was possible, and important. Exposure is crucial for a greater awareness and understanding of feminism, so every publication counts - in all types of media, not just ones targeted at liberal audiences. Also platforms brought forward by web 2.0, like commenting facilities on all media sites, as well as blogging, facebook, twitter - it all counts and helps to change people's minds.

© Kirsty McCall-Thornley

That first discussion was heated, but mostly in unison - the closing panel, Feminist Question Time with Bidisha, Dr Aisha Gill (Roehampton University), Sunder Katwala (Fabian Society), Karon Monaghan QC (UK Feminista) and Julie Bindel, provoked a lot more controversy. Julie Bindel said there was a lot of terrible anthropological research, particularly concerning women in the sex industry, and that they should not be treated as an anthropological field research group, but that there should be good quality social research instead. She went as far as saying that if she had one bullet in the gun, it would not go for the pimp, but for the academic who's all into the sex industry. Dr Aisha Gill was talking a lot about how the media essentialize women and in cases of trafficking for example, create stories of 'good victims'. Both raised a lot of comments and if it wasn't for time limits, this could have gone on forever. Interestingly, one of the questions on an earlier panel concerned dealing with disagreements within the feminist community. There isn't really an answer for that, just as there isn't one for tackling antifeminism, especially when it's displayed by women. There had been attempts to give advice on this (watch a video of this question on femblr), but all, in my opinion, failed: 'just being on the girls team' is a really not that simple, it's a slogan that doesn't help much when you face women who are misogynist themselves, nor does it when faced with super offensive comments (like those under Bidisha's article). Julie Bindel said 'we make a lot of excuses for men to the point where we praise them for not being fuckheads', which made everyone laugh, but about five minutes later someone angrily said from the audience that the men (there were a couple in attendance) must feel very excluded in the current talk, to which both Bindel and Bidisha reacted heatedly. As @inspirewithhope on twitter remarked, it was sad to see gender binaries reinforced in most of the conferences - people kept talking about *both* genders, *both* sexes, as opposed to all of them. The sex industry came up a number of times, but without a clear and visible designate - prostitution, trafficking, porn, strip clubs were all mentioned, but those issues are so broad, and the sex industry comprises of many more branches, each deserving an analysis. Not saying that sex industry doesn't hurt women and isn't a product of inequality, but these matters have traditionally been massively controversial within the feminist movement and that variation of opinion was not addressed at all (like the mixed stance on pornography, and the emergence of what could by some be called 'feminist porn', or pornography for women - see a previous post). However, overall I am inclined to say it was the best summer school I ever attended - really inspiring, a great opportunity to learn as well as meet people, and acquire skills and information to proceed with conviction and fury. 'We've had wave after wave of feminism; we need a tsunami of feminism. Mass civil disobedience is the only way they'll listen.' 'There's not a central office for activism, you have to do it yourself.' 'Feminism is about social justice and basic human rights... Of course we still need feminism, that shouldn't even be a question.'

© Kirsty McCall-Thornley

More feminist summer school coverage:
UK Feminista official summer school resources (including some of the presentations)
Kira Cochrane's article 'Feminism is not finished'
Bidisha's commentary Women's mass awakening
Radio 4's 'Exciting time' for British feminism with Kat Banyard and Gaby Hinsliff
Discussion post with summer school reflections, links to blog posts, etc
review on Daily Feminist Action
We Mixed Our Drinks review 
At Home blog
Notes on a Campaign by Delilah
femblr video with advice on countering antifeminism


More links:
Equality Now
Women's Aid
Womankind
Eaves
Fawcett Society
Southall Black Sisters
Women Against Violence
Justice for Women
European Women's Lobby: Centre on violence against women
Pink Stinks
Ladyfest
Strom In A Teacup 
The Girls Are
OBJECT
Lash campaign

all photos by Kirsty McCall-Thornley (Flickr / Twitter / Blog)

NEXT CONFERENCE: Feminism in London 

I'm going. Register here!

Iriarte Iriarte online shop

Just to let you know, Carolina of Iriarte Iriarte who I last posted about just opened an online shop for her bags (and wallets). Check it out at iriarteiriartestore.bigcartel.com!

Iriarte Iriarte

Iriarte Iriarte is a shop/studio/atelier of leatherwork in Barcelona. It’s ran by Carolina Iriarte, who makes the bags, belts, wallets and other leather products by hand on site. She also completely manages the business, is her own PR manager and all that. The place is set up on two floors - the current collection is on display on the ground floor, and overlooking is a tiny mezzanine where she works at a sturdy desk.

The first time I went, Carolina immediately noticed my bag - one I found in my grandmother’s old stuff. She was so friendly - as soon as I entered the store, she put down her work, came down the steps and chatted and explained things about the bags. I made a mental note to do more research and come back for an interview - and so today I did! A big thank you to Carolina for a nice chat.

Carolina moved to Barcelona about three years ago from Argentina. She first came to visit at 18, and called her mother saying she loves it and is staying for good. In the end, she went back and completed a degree in art with a focus on theatre direction and production, counting days till she can move. Her sister was already in Barcelona. The two started working together on the project.

Marta: Not only is your shop also your studio, but you often hold events here.
Carolina: Yes, I like to have stuff happening. The space has only been open for a year - we’re having a big party coming up to celebrate this in about two weeks. Before we had a concert - I have many friends who make music, and a collection presentation - a very elaborate one, almost a performance. A number of people were dressed up and doing different things around the store, there was a bride with a bouquet of flowers, people going up and down the stairs, sort of like playing little scenes.

M: How did you find this place? According to the Sight Unseen article on Iriarte Iriarte, ‘fate intervened’.
C: No, not really; we were looking for a place to work. And this one became free..
M: Was the district of Born a conscious choice?
C: Yes, this is traditionally an artisan street, and though I don’t really think of myself in these terms, it’s a commercial area with nice little streets, people walk around here a lot.

M: Another article said it was unpopular for young people to pick up traditional trades, like yours - so you are close to a traditional artisan in a way.
C: Well, yes, it’s all handmade, it’s a pretty traditional material. Before I worked on shoes as well, but now I have no time, so I concentrate on bags. I did make two dresses for this collection, too - they’re not in store, but there are some photos on the website. I might make more, but at the moment, I do everything, literally everything myself. That means I basically have no life of my own!

M: What was it about Barcelona that initially made you so keen to stay?
C: First of all, my sister was here, but I also found an art school which seemed amazing, and it became my ultimate dream to go there. Then when I came back, already with a degree, I enrolled and it was completely not what I was expecting. I did a year there, before I started with this project, and by now I’m pretty sure I won’t be going back.
M: And so you learned to make purses and other things yourself?
C: Pretty much, yeah, I started cutting things out of paper, seeing how they would look in 3D.
M: That’s totally incredible, especially that all your designs look like you are working against a strong tradition, modifying old patterns.
C: My mum is a complete fanatic when it comes to shoes and purses, and so am I. So I always bought loads of purses, usually vintage ones because I rarely liked contemporary ones. I’d pay attention to the type of leather, the colours and all..
M: Is it true your bags are inspired by the schoolbags you used to have in British school in Buenos Aires?
C (laughs): Not entirely. I did have an old school schoolbag, but a lot of my inspiration comes from films. I love old films. 30s films, where they have a lot of leather stuff, luggage and things.. But not necessarily bags themselves, I find a whole film’s aesthetic inspiring. Like Truffaut. A bit Nazi, a bit naive.
M: So what are you planning on next for Iriarte Iriarte?
C: I’d like to have more exposure for the dresses. I made two models that are sort of similar, but really very different. A girl who was interning here helped me with the making of them. I used to make my own clothes when I was younger, my mum gave me a sewing machine for Christmas when I was 15 or 16.. But those are part of the collection, it’s a totally different thing. I prefer making bags, though. I do everything by hand, including dyeing the leather, that’s why no two bags have the exact same colour. But I do it with special dyes, so that the colour won’t run when it’s raining. Everything is done here, in the studio.
M: In plain view of everyone!
C: Yes, but I see them, too! I can see whoever comes into the shop, observe from above. I have a panoramic view (laughs).
M: Going back to the leather, does it bother you that it’s an animal product?
C: It does! I’m vegetarian. It’s a weird contradiction, that I like working with leather most. I try to justify it, it’s still more eco-friendly than plastic bags, and the product is long lasting. The animal is not killed for the skin, it’s killed for the meat that someone else will eat, and I just use the skin and give it a beautiful form..
M: Did you think of making vegan products as well?
C: I did, I’d love to, in the future - right now I’m struggling to keep up with the work I already have, and to make the effort worth the prices. But it’s certainly something I’d like to do.
M: Do you sell a lot?
C: I don’t need another job, so I guess I sell enough! I like making things, so it’s great I can live off it.
M: How did you get so much good press? New York Times, The Guardian...
C: By complete coincidence! The editors just happened to come by. Nothing is definite, but I might get retailers in America, Sweden, maybe London.
M: Not Argentina?
C: They love my bags there, but it’s super expensive with shipping, and people work more but earn a lot less there.
M: Would you say you make things in a specific style?
C: Everyone interprets it their own way. I thought it would be a more defined public, but in the end it’s all sorts of people, I regularly have old grandmas come into the store and ooh and aah over the bags. That surprised me a lot! But when I design, I always make things that I like, I don’t think of any target audience.
M: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to start their own business?
C: To actually do it! If you have an idea, act on it. It’s always scary, you don’t know if you’ll have enough money, if it’ll all work out, or that it will be hard at the beginning. But once you’ve done it, you’ve done it, it’s something you want to do. It certainly gave me a feeling of being independent and free.
M: Working with leather is a traditional trade, and a male trade, too. Also, 50 years ago it wold be unthinkable for a woman to just open a studio and run it herself. Do you think about what you do in a feminist perspective?
C: It’s true, working with a hammer and tough material that hurts your hands, it’s supposed to be male work. It’s not my primary motive, but yes, I do think about it.

At this point a woman walks into the store. Carolina greets her and tells her to have a look, points to the bags that can be made in different colours within two weeks. The woman walks around, looks at various bags and asks if that’s the only store in Barcelona selling these.

M: Does this make your bags even more special? That each one is unique and you can’t buy them anywhere else?
C: Also because of what we already talked about, that it’s all handmade, and I make it all here, in a studio open to everyone. That creates some sort of trust, and you can always come back here, see the progress of the work.
M: It was mentioned in one of the articles that you design ‘the old way’.
C: Well, the forms really aren’t that traditional. It’s a long way from design to finished product. I think about the whole collection first, how I want it to look all together. Then the making process, I guess that’s traditional, they’re made the same way they were being made before.
M: And you draw inspiration from toys, too?
C: Yes: toys, old cars, also military uniforms.
M: A bit Nazi, a bit naive. A vegetarian, but working with leather.
C (laughs): I never thought I was so extreme!

M: Do you take a siesta?
C: The store officially closes from 2pm to 4pm, more or less. I sometimes go home to eat, but mostly run errands. The siesta phenomenon surprised me a lot when I first moved, I would go out wanting to get something done only to realize everything was closed for a few hours in the day..
M: And do you still travel a lot?
C: Yes! Then the store is closed, but travelling inspires me a lot - people, architecture, everything. I might go to Berlin this summer, my friend just moved there, and she’s not totally settled, but I’d really love to go, I adore Berlin.
M: Favourite place to visit?
C: Berlin! And Lisbon. I like Portugal a lot, my boyfriend is Portuguese.
M: Dream journey?
C: Russia and China! On one of those five-day trains. I’d like to see somewhere that’s completely different in terms of language, people, culture - a total change.
M: Do you think you’ll stay in Barcelona for a while? Or are you sometimes tempted to go back to Argentina?
C: Argentina - not right now. I’m definitely not going to stay in Barcelona forever. I’d love to try Berlin, and maybe before that Madrid - I like it, and I think I could easily continue what I’m doing; people respect efforts like that over there.
M: Any chances for an online shop?
C: I hope so! I just can’t seem to take photos that are accurate enough. A friend of mine who does all the photos for me is great, but it’s not the kind of picture you need for an online shop. I sell stuff through email sometimes. But it would be easier if there was a ‘buy now’ button on the website. And also, it wouldn’t be the same thing - it’s so satisfying to see people come into the shop, find something they like, and see their faces light up. It’s a wonderful feeling.

You can find Iriarte Iriarte at the atelier (C/ Esquirol N°1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain), or online (official website / facebook).

All photos, save for the first and the last, are Carolina's. Thank you!

UK Feminista Summer School

If you're in London in July/August, register! I just did.


via thefword.org.uk:

UK Feminista is holding a free two-day summer school in London on Saturday 31 July-Sunday 1 August. Schedule:

DAY 1: Saturday 31st July, 10:00-17:00

Speakers confirmed: Zoe Williams, the Guardian; Karin Robinson, Democrats Abroad; Shaista Gohir MBE, Muslim Women’s Network UK; Heather Harvey, Amnesty International UK; Denise Marshall, Eaves; Baljit Banga, Newham Asian Women’s Project; Kat Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion & Director of UK Feminista; WOMANKIND Worldwide; Fawcett Society

Workshops: How to run a feminist group; running an effective campaign; fundraising skills

Panel discussions & seminars: The importance of feminist organising; the feminist year ahead; men and masculinity

DAY 2: Sunday 1st August, 10:00-17:00

Speakers confirmed: Kira Cochrane, the Guardian; Hannah Pool, journalist; Michelle Daley, Disability Awareness in Action; Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters; Jess McCabe, the F Word; Joy Millward, Principle; Julia Minnear, Women’s Environmental Network; OBJECT; Lynne Parker, Funny Women

Workshops: How to use the media; how to influence local and national politics; creative campaign and direct action; promoting diversity within feminist groups; public speaking skills;

Panel discussions & seminars: Women and the media; Feminist Question Time; Why climate change is a feminist issue

More details and a registration form on the UK Feminista site.

Aleksandra Waliszewska

It's enough of a recommendation that my friend Katarzyna Szenajch (a visual artist herself) likes Waliszewska: "I seriously like her, cause she's authentically bonkers. I am hugely impressed by her bonkerness. Look at her last.fm: there's Lil Wayne! Or her pet society gallery WTF? Besides, she added me on last.fm, that's nice :) Oh, yeah, and her paintings are good, hehe"

Aleksandra Waliszewska started with beautiful big-scale oil old masters-like painitings. Authentically beautiful. She would receive praise and scholarships, have books published, and all that. But she suddenly changed her style completely. In a really interesting interview for Wysokie Obcasy, she says her old paintings became tiring. That she would labour at them, but have no pleasure from it: "The last one took me six months. And I decided it was mediocre". Now she paints one or two small format gouaches every day, and most depict little girls. Little girls among monsters; ambiguous, disturbing, uncomfortable situations. And she says it gives her real pleasure: "Before, I had a task-oriented approach to work. Now I want to do what gives me pleasure. And it so happens that I find painting little girls in oppressive situations pleasurable."

She insists her work is in no way autobiographic - rather, it's a return to what she used to paint when she was 4 or 5: "I would paint a big head with various animals coming out of it. Or elephants with dead cats. Then at 7 I started drawing naked women running away from Martians, who try to catch them on lassos. Or naked running families." Provocatively, she says it's her boyfriend who often comes up with the titles: Paedophile's Death, Handball with Fritzl, Guardian. "Guardian shows a sleeping girl and a goat. You can't tell if he's protecting her, or lurking. I don't really know myself what it's about - it's a mystery to me too". The most important thing is the composition, not the story - that's secondary. And Waliszewska doesn't feel any discomfort: "I prefer to treat [my paintings] as grotesque".

This one reminds me of The Tiger's Bride, a short story by Angela Carter

It's really interesting to speculate on the victim/perpetrator status in her paintings, the ambiguity of the roles of little girls and beasts. It's not a simple case of "the drawing is empowering when the girl wins". Most of the time, it's completely unclear what the outcome is, and as Waliszewska says herself, she is not interested in it. She likes drawing naked girls surrounded by monsters - it really takes guts to admit it, and say it out loud. It's still such a touchy issue, deriving pleasure from not-beauty, not-serenity, in whatever form. Gore, sex and violence are already controversial, but with the added references to paedophilia Waliszewska is really walking on shaky ground, tackling such issues as the age limits of sexuality, the role of bodily exposure, idols, fetishes, and all this is a context of gender - her protagonists are always female. I, too, admire her bonkerness, as well as courage.

All quotes translated by me from the Wysokie Obcasy interview by Paulina Reiter.
All photos from Aleksandra Waliszewska's Flickr photostream.


Waliszewska has a Facebook, blog, Flickr, and an exhibition at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw (until May 23rd). This Saturday, there is a closing party with live music and stuff. (and if you go, Centre for Contemporary Art (CSW) has a really cool Roni Horn exhibit, too)