Summer School Premiere at Women of the World Festival, Southbank Centre, 12 March 2011
Documentary film Summer School, produced and directed by Marcie MacLellan for Incontext Productions, premiered at the Women of the World Festival at Southbank, 11-13 March 2011. The film started as a personal project for Marcie and was made on almost no budget. She is now looking to distribute the film, perhaps through educational organisations.
Summer School documents an activist training event run in Summer 2010 by UK Feminista. It focuses on the story of a small number of participants and follows their journey to, during and after the Summer School. Geri, for instance, came to the Summer School from Rugby, not a place welcoming of feminist activism. On her return, after the School, she set up a feminist group at her university. Matt McCormack-Evans founded the Anti Porn Men Project.
The screening was followed by a talk about the Future of Feminism with Pragna Patel of Southall Black Sisters and Kat Banyard founder of UK Feminista.
Points raised in the film and in discussion included the need to involve men in feminist activism, the need to change fundamentally what it means to be a man - a change that needs to come from men - and the need to overcome the myth of the man-hating feminist. Also the need to consider feminism in a global context.
Pragna Patel emphasised that it is key to connect with struggles around the world - Middle East uprisings, struggles for human rights - to achieve unity across struggles. She felt the greatest challenge is the rise of religious power and what that means for women. Kat emphasised that the porn industry can not be tackled in the UK alone - transnational links need to be built; feminism has a long history of transnational organising, she highlighted.
The chair asked what were the benefits of women joining together. Pragna's response was that strength lies in unity. 'I don't think we can achieve anything on our own - we really need to be able to connect with other interests. It has to be a feminism that is inclusive but that is also located in wider movements. But that can be difficult because men often say that feminism needs to wait until after the revolution.'
How do we learn from the past and keep feminism going?
Kat felt that key was developing and maintaining an organising infrastructure - other campaigns have better structures (the TUC, for example). For the future of feminism, Kat feels, it's really important to be engaging men on a sustained basis. For instance, rape is now legislated against, but how do we stop it happening? Kat sees a need to change what it means to be a man; to change the socially constructed ideas of masculinity. Likewise, men need to actively engage - it's not enough to stand back and support it in principle only.
Pragna felt that activism is how feminism will be kept alive. She felt that in the past too many feminists were coopted by the mainstream and forgot what the message of feminism was. There needs to be feminists on both the inside and the outside of institutional power structures.
Links:
Incontext Productions: http://incontextproductions.com/
More information about the Summer School event in 2010 is available here:
http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk/all-events/3-ukfeminista-event/72-summerschool.html
UK Feminista: http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk/
Southall Black Sisters: http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/
The Anti Porn Men Project: http://www.antipornmen.org/
Reposted from: http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/837659
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