Thread by @cctheatreco

Thread #Activism what we do & what inspires it
Did an interview this week about my activism - theatre activism & the #deadwomenwalking march to remember women killed in the uk by known men I wasn’t prepared for the impact the questions had on me

Asked what was my first memory of political awareness/activism I recalled being in a pub as a teenager & the bar maid had hair under her arms We saw it when she reached up for a glass above the bar My friend was disgusted- disgusted!

I couldn’t grasp why female body hair was so abhorrent to another woman & of course I was awakened to all the messages we get - bleach your moustache, shave your legs, wax your ‘down there’ It’s unnatural get rid of it! It’s dirty get rid of it!

I also remembered being in a dance group at college where the male teacher ‘empowered’ us Our bodies were ours they were the tools of the story we would share Shed your inhibitions! A female teacher complained about the content of our show

& at the time we thought she was a no fun Nelly but I see now she was right He was grooming us so he could touch our bodies Making us feel we were women not girls That we were in charge when HE was

This sparked my real first memory The way men treated me - male family friends, priests, men on the edges of my family life. I didn’t go into detail but the realisation caught me in the throat.

I was 6 yrs old the first time I realised men were a danger to me.
Six. Years. Old.

We talked in the interview about small acts of personal activism - today I hid some Blondie t-shirts in a shop as my personal protest to Debbie Harry’s flippant comments about rape when asked about the trauma women feel she said ‘ha join a band’

And as much as we all respond differently to trauma it was thoughtless and insensitive to fellow survivors It dismissed so many very real and very normal responses and my small act was a reaction to that

I did a lot of hiding stuff and putting up posters during the whole fifty shades of grey days in support of @50shadesabuse I also put stickers on cds and videos in shops where men had convictions for rape and domestic violence to day don’t buy this

My theatre work is its own activism I believe the only way to change people’s actions is to change their beliefs and to do this we must engage them emotionally Theatre does this it helps us question the world we live in & our part in it

The @onein4 #deadwomenwalking #dv march was something I had a lot to say about Fed up of hearing ‘lessons will be learned’ every time one of us is murdered by a partner I wanted to raise awareness because they haven’t been learned I’m still hearing that phrase after over 20yrs

one in three of us women will experience #domesticviolence & so just as the dead man walking phrase means someone who is about to die – we are all dead women walking – because until those lessons are learned & women’s lives valued statistically we are #deadwomenwalking

What are your memories or triggers for #activism ?