2008 Visions in Feminism conference
On Saturday the 29th I went with invisione to the Visions in Feminism Conference at American University. The conference was pretty amazing, it was SOOOO college student, and by far, *not* your mom's feminism! :) It seemed to be entirely college student conceived, planned, and executed, no trace of old-lady stuff there! The workshops ranged from LGBT Muslims to trans allies to kinky sex, i.e. the sorts of things I guess college students are thinking about these days. It's always refreshing for me to keep tuned in with the younger generation. I'm especially happy and relieved to see that feminism (as one workshop called it, "the new F word") is still alive and kicking among youngsters today, however much its areas of focus have evolved since my day. We're counting on you kids to carry it on when we're gone.
One of the best things of all that day: When I went to the LGBT Muslim workshop, I felt intuitively drawn to sit next to a woman I'd never seen before and the two of us hit it off immediately. When she said she moderates an online feminism forum, I asked what it was, and was astonished to learn that it's the LJ feminist community, which I already belonged to, and my new acquaintance was none other than crafting_change, whose contributions I had already seen and admired there as well as in the faith_feminists community. So we each got a new LJ friend out of the experience! Small world, huh!
Sometimes you just have to take a step in a direction and good stuff happens, like the Arabic proverb says, harakât barakât 'movement is blessing'.
One of the best things of all that day: When I went to the LGBT Muslim workshop, I felt intuitively drawn to sit next to a woman I'd never seen before and the two of us hit it off immediately. When she said she moderates an online feminism forum, I asked what it was, and was astonished to learn that it's the LJ feminist community, which I already belonged to, and my new acquaintance was none other than crafting_change, whose contributions I had already seen and admired there as well as in the faith_feminists community. So we each got a new LJ friend out of the experience! Small world, huh!
Sometimes you just have to take a step in a direction and good stuff happens, like the Arabic proverb says, harakât barakât 'movement is blessing'.