Organizing this festival makes you think – that's a logical consequence and nothing to get worried about. There are some things you have to go through before you die and it's all over, and thinking is definitely one of them, even if some people seem to do their best to avoid it. Ooops – see how easy it is to go there!? Allready two sentences into the text and i'm allready writing about some people.
Some people live and some people die, some people wear pink clothes and some people don't have any civil rights, some people believe in global warming and some people go to art school, some people like to get stoned every day and some people think that we have to consume our way out of the crisis... Ah, those people! And what about those feminists, what do they think about the state of the world? Hey you – Feminist! What do you think about the sexism in alternative cultural centers today?
Hja... Honestly, I have better things to do than to get upset about sexism 24 hours a day. What I'm interested in is what you think? Don't you have an oppinion of your own? As an anarchist, carpenter, teacher, artist, doctor, engineer, environmentalist, vegan, heterosexual, polygamist, christian, woman, ateist, journalist, transsexual, curator, neoliberal, man, vagabond, DJ, consumer, muslim, hacker, farmer, gastarbeiter, immigrant, emmigrant, nationalist, stripper, diplomat, director, secretary, insomniac, alcoholic...? Do you think? I'm sure you do.
Lets take prostitution for example, a hot topic on this years festival. Do you think that sex is a consumer goods just as any other or do you believe that the very act of buying and selling sex is equal to patriarchal violence? Is sex a civil right that should be substidised by the state, or should Johns be criminalized and sent to psychiatric institutions for reprogrammation? Do you believe sex work should be treated as work or exploitation? Does male and female sexuality differ in any way and if you believe it does – how? Is trafficking and illegal immigration gender issues or class issues? And what's the difference anyway? Those are not-so-simple-questons-at-all and don't stop to think that feminists (as a rase) agree about the answers. But as questions that are obviously concerning sexuality and gender I don't see how you could push it away from you as if you had nothing to do with it.
So why would you care what I think about it, don't you wonder what you think about it yourself? Instead of wining about those feminists that apparently got "issues", that feel "discriminated", that want "equality", that hate "men", that like "womyn" (oh, i love to play with those ironic little quotation marks...). You can project whatever prejudice you want on me, the only thing it says about us is that you can't handle the field where personal and political questions overlap and get complicated. We're not here to deconstruct our gender identities to a mythological prebinary zero, we're here to get our hands dirty with present day reality.
If you ask me, neither women nor men are automatically emancipated. Just because your mother ate food doesn't mean you can skip that step. Emancipation is about lifting yourself above predestinations and act as an independent human being. It's about transgression and growth. It's about exploring your human potential. It's to learn from experience. It's to demand justice not only when you're the one that's been done wrong. It's about ethics and responsibility. And the result is not some politically correct, perfect, sterile, androgynous clones – but authentic people! Authentic people that have the strenght to struggle with the contradictions of life. People that can love and be loved. But it's hard work of corse. A labour of love.
Oh, and I love men... I love men that take risks and dare to be self critical. I love men that take responsibility for their actions. I love horny men that feel secure about their sexuality and are curious about border crossing. I love men that challenge sterotypes and give others the same privilege without making a big deal about it. I love men that aren't afriad to loose their face in public and laugh in the face of power. I love men that don't bury all possibilities for change in narcissistic self destructivness and cynical self loathing. I love men that look at the future with hope, even when there's no reason to be positive at all. And yeah yeah, just for the record – that goes for women too. And all the rest of you. And me. And me. And me.
Anna Ehrle
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