Wonder Women, the city’s annual, creative
celebration of feminism returns next March, and we’d like you to join us.
Feminism. It's a thing, isn’t it? It causes
Twitter storms and campaigns, and it draws attention to a pay gap so wide you
could (fingers crossed) lose Jeremy Clarkson in it. And occasionally, it leads
to some surprising, creative acts of protest. Like, crochet masks drawn tight
over the heads of the Town Hall statuary to illustrate the fact that Manchester
doesn’t have a single statue dedicated to its many women of note. Or three
“respectable” women running into Manchester Art Gallery one afternoon, each
raising a hammer and smashing the glass that covered some of its most famous
paintings – part of a nationwide campaign designed to draw attention to women’s
rights.
The fact that those two events occurred 100
years apart (the crochet masks this year, the glass smashing in 1913) speaks
volumes: as in, here in Manchester, the birthplace of the suffragette movement,
we are not done yet. Or as Jeanette Winterson, writing in the Guardian on the
centenary of the art gallery protest, put it: “the suffragettes believed that a
woman who could vote was a woman who could change the way society operated.
That hasn’t happened. We are not equal.”
“It speaks volumes. As in, here in Manchester, the birthplace of the
suffragettes, we are not done yet”
Jeanette Winterson is the supporter of
Wonder Women, our annual series of events that runs for four weeks every March.
Wonder Women looks at the feminist debate in the only way we know how:
culturally. Through exhibitions, art and music, film and an annual academic
conference, via after hours events in galleries, writing and debate, and taking
in International Women’s Day, it is our contribution to a debate that just
keeps on running.
Wonder Women returns in March 2015 and we
are planning its now. It has the support of the city’s museums and galleries –
in particular the People’s History Museum - but we’d like you to support it,
too. It relies on clever, creative people coming up with clever, creative ideas
that collectively we can make happen. And we can make great things happen:
previous years have seen everything from a Pussy Riot-inspired music and art
event at Manchester Art Gallery to an international conference on the
suffragette movement.
Interested in taking part? Join us at our
open meeting on Thursday 18 September at Gorilla to find out more. We’re
holding it upstairs in the Gin Bar (appropriately we thought; mother’s ruin and
all that) from 4.30pm until around 7pm. All are welcome. Feminism might be a thing
right now, but it still needs fuel. Come along and help us feed the flames.
This was also published on Creative Tourist here http://www.creativetourist.com/articles/festivals-and-events/manchester/this-is-how-manchester-does-feminism-with-deeds-not-words-with-a-month-of-art-music-more/
This was also published on Creative Tourist here http://www.creativetourist.com/articles/festivals-and-events/manchester/this-is-how-manchester-does-feminism-with-deeds-not-words-with-a-month-of-art-music-more/
