Cherchez la Femme: Feminism and Violence was a brilliant show, full of righteous anger, sharp insight and dark humour. We were so privileged to host a panel of such amazing women: Celeste Liddle, Nabila Farhat, Grace Lee, Jax Jacki Brown and Fiona McCormack, along with a full house of engaged, enthusiastic audience members. Huge thanks also to everybody who participated on the hashtag and especially Katie Coulthard, our guest tweeter for the night on the @cherchezlafemmo account. We have collected a lot of this commentary for you to reflect and ruminate on, and as promised, we’ll also be sharing many of the questions asked in the second half that the panel didn’t have time to answer during the show, so that you can continue the discussion online. We also wanted to share some incredible resources that we found especially helpful.
This article has been doing the rounds and with good reason - a searing look at the strict gender roles people are expected to live within, and just how damaging these expectations are.
I mentioned this essay by Rebecca Solnit during the show, warning that it was a harrowing but unmissable read on the extent of violence against women in the States, which resonates deeply with the discussion we are currently having in Australian public life.
And as ever, Twitter provides us with a snapshot of broader and more complex conversations, by boiling down the essence of feminist concerns into perfectly succinct and furious hashtags eg. #MasculinitySoFragile, which is now helpfully flooded with angry antifeminist sentiment that totally proves the original point.
And if you’re a Twitter user you can check out #CLFVAW for everybody’s thoughts on the show, as well as the official feed for CLF.
As ever, we’re extremely grateful for the generosity and trust of the panelists, the support and warmth of our audiences, and the energy of the community we exist within and because of. Thank you, sincerely, and hopefully see you next month.
We’ve also collated some of the tweets and resources from the night in the Storify feed below, for your viewing pleasure.
Warmest
Karen x