“‘Go fuck yourself’ is a phrase I often find to be useful,” Jessa Crispin, author of Why I am not a Feminist told the crowd at the All About Women Festival at the Opera House on the weekend.
She was answering a question from a woman in the audience; ‘How should I respond when men at work tell me I’m ‘being too emotional’?”
Crispin’s gift for packing a punch with well-placed profanities is enviable. The audience was hooked.
Crispin doesn’t call herself a ‘feminist’ but she also believes in tearing down the institution of marriage. That we need to change the system because it’s based on patriarchy. “Striving for equality with men is unambitious,” she told the crowd. “Women can create radical change.”
Crispin was one of many speakers at this Sunday’s festival. It was a day of ideas. Intelligent women talking abut real issues facing, not only the world’s females, but the world as a whole.
Author Lindy West spoke about body shaming and growing up believing she was "failing at being skinny". She took questions from mothers who were worried about the self esteem of their teenage daughters. West spoke about her own experiences; that it took a long time to decide to be happy in the body she was born with.
Rape victim from Iceland Thordis Elva stood on stage alongside her rapist, Australian man Tom Stranger. He was her boyfriend when they were teenagers. He took her virginity without her consent. She spoke about victim blaming and survival.
Before she was raped, Thordis said she loved silence and spending time on her own. Afterwards, the silence became toxic. Dangerous. She needed to find forgiveness to make the silence kind again. "The forgiveness was for myself, not for him," she told the crowd.