It's official. After a month of gathering interest online, we had our first Cambridge Women's Anti-Speciesist Reading Group meeting. And it was AMZING.
If you define yourself as a woman and are willing to sign our safer space agreement, you are more than welcome to join this group.
We are meeting every other Thursday. Here are the upcoming dates (location to be confirmed)
30.10. Reading: Chapter 2 of Carol Adams the Sexual Politics of Meat.
13.11.
27.11.
11.12.
It was very interesting for me to realise after the meeting how much groups like these are needed. This is one of the projects that I took up, out of the inspiration and frustration that I brought back home from this years International Animal Rights Conference (IARC). I've climbed quite a steep feminist learning curve last summer. When I heard about IARC I wanted to be part of it. When I saw that there were already three confirmed feminist speakers (out of perhaps 70/80 total), I thought: They will never take me, as there are already people covering the ground for 'us' (as in us feminists/women). After I had sent in my abstract, Heiko, the organiser, responded with the friendliest email explicitly stating that it is urgent to have more feminist speakers present. I was baffled, this has never happened to me before. I was so used to having one token feminist speaker at any gathering and it never occurred to me that I never questioned this before.
Although most participants were women at IARC (in fact the animal liberation movement consists mostly of women), most speakers were men. This is by no means a critique of the organisation, as I know that the organisers value intersectionality and marginalised experiences to a great extent. Rather, is it a fault of the system, a system in which a woman who has a lot to say, thinks that because there is one other woman speaking about women's issues, everything that anyone will want to hear about this will be said for her. So she might not even apply to speak.
Thank fuck that I tried despite thinking I wouldn't be wanted. The experience I took away from meeting people from all walks of life and exchanging ideas and experiences in this almost utopian setting was overwhelming. It is there that the feminist friends I met, suggested to open an all women's group. An idea that would have never occurred to me!
My first question was: How will I explain the purpose of this group to anybody? The answer I got to this was that I don't have to explain anything. I don't owe anybody any justification. If they join, they will see why the group is valuable.
And despite the fact that up until the first meeting I only got good feedback, lots of support and a shitload of gratitude (even though I hadn't done anything except said: hey girls, let's meet up) I kept having imaginary conversations in my head with someone, anyone, no one really, in which I would justify the crap out of my group and keep explaining my frustration with patriarchy as well as animal rights, as part of this culture.
So the moment came. I was sitting in the room. Nervous and anxious about whether anybody would actually turn up. The clock hit five to six. The first person came in and I died inside from happiness and relief. The person left again to take a phone call and didn't return until much later. I was alone in the room with my symmetrically arranged snacks and drinks on the table where I planned to seat about 10 people. At five past six then a group of 5 people flooded into the room and I the euphoria took over me.
After the meeting, when saying our goodbyes for the night, two people subtly acknowledged how nervous I must have been, saying that they have been there, they know exactly how it feels, which again surprised me, because I just thought that in my anxiety I was just being dramatic without even knowing what was causing it.
Another friend, 1000 kilometres away from here, went through exactly the same agony up until yesterday, when she invited women only to regularly meet up. This got me thinking about what a draining (but also exciting) experience it is for a woman to say: I want to have a women's only space in a world where most spaces are dominated by men.
There were points, leading up to our first meeting, during which I questioned the activism of the group. What's so active about a bunch of people getting together and reading a book? What is this going to change in the world? And I realised very quickly, that it will actually change a lot. Our mere collective presence means that we are re-learning how to be, so as not to exist only in response to the dominant culture but to live as ourselves. Yes, it is about not living a live dictated by patriarchy, a demand we share (to a small extent) with the demand of animal liberation, the emancipation of our animal sisters and brothers from the same patriarchy that oppresses us.
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