From the river to the sea...

What does freedom mean to you and me?

For me, it changes depending on the phase of life and circumstance I find myself in.

Some of the things it has meant over the years are:

Playing out with my friends as a kid, in the road of our quiet cul-de-sac; riding on our bikes, scooters, and on one memorable (for all the wrong reasons!) an old TV stand on castors with a bit of foam strapped to it! Whole street water fights, rigging a piece of netting across the street as a badminton net, which we ran to lift on the odd occasion that a car wanted to pass…

A little older, being able to get the bus ‘up town’ or riding my bike for miles with my bestie all day, sleepovers…

As a teen staying out later, going out dancing, drinking (!) and stayovers with boyfriends, part-time jobs which introduced me to people and places outside of my social group and family, encouraging me into…

Expanding my world and pursuing my education at university in Manchester, far away from the small, midlands town in which I grew up.

In my adult years, my freedom has been felt in different ways:

The ability to snatch a couple of hours away from an exclusively breast-fed (not deliberate!) baby and/ or clingy toddler to enjoy a meal with friends...

The opportunity to extend my maternity leave to spend MORE time with my kids when they were small...

Access to social media, once again breaking down barriers and expanding my world view beyond what I could ever have imagined!

Freedom of thought outside of the socialised norms via my introduction to feminism, which gave me the language, tools, basic education, and community to build the confidence to engage in the world of social justice.

In 2020, the restrictions that removed so much freedom from us all, gave me new creative outlets to imagine a different story for myself; a new kind of freedom.

Being able to take time away from work to try and process my late ADHD diagnosis in 2021 and again earlier this year to deal with the ongoing effects of trauma...

Being able to leave the kids (now in adolescence) with their dad and clear off creative retreat at one end of the country or the other!

I don’t and have never taken these freedoms for granted. Even as a kid I saw that there were other children who weren’t allowed to play away from home or couldn’t play in the street because they lived on main roads. Friends who weren’t allowed to stay out as late as me, or to have boyfriends to sleepover.

I didn’t know the word ‘privilege’ in the social justice sense until I started learning about feminism, but I have always understood it as a concept; seeing where I did and did not hold it, precisely because in most of the circles I have moved in through my life, I have held less than those around me. That’s not a pity plea, it’s just a fact that has shaped my experiences and therefore my worldview, and sense of justice.

It’s shaped the way I see the world, and the way I would like to see it.

Some of the earliest, most difficult, and important lessons I learned in feminism were:

For things to be made right in the world, you must be prepared to be wrong. The world of social justice is huge; there are so many ways in which the white supremacist, heteropatriarchal, capitalist hellscape tries to divide and rank the value of a human life. There is always going to be someone who knows more, points out the flaws in your argument, challenges your beliefs on a particular subject. In the best cases they will do so with grace and kindness, and you will respond in like. But it is neither helpful nor reasonable to demand kindness and grace from those who suffer under systems of oppression that are upheld by ignorance (and greed), whether blissful or intentional.

If you f*ck up or say the wrong thing, don’t demand the person you have upset teach you the error of your ways, or throw your hands up and say, ‘well if you can’t be nice no wonder XYZ’. Apologise, thank them for pointing out the gaps in your knowledge and go fill those gaps elsewhere.

‘Do your best and when you know better, do better’

Discomfort is normal; Growth is not comfortable and examining your own complicity in the systems of oppression that marginalise others is not easy. If changing society for the better, for all, was easy, the work would be done by now.

‘My feminism will be intersectional, or it will be bullshit.’

We must start by freeing ourselves, but true freedom can only be known, when it is experienced by all, otherwise it will only ever be illusionary. Where there is inequality and oppression, there will always be resistance, and because peaceful resistance tends to be ignored by those unwilling to relinquish the illusion of power that they hold, that resistance will sometimes be violent.

‘None of us are free until we are all free’

The genocides in Palestine, Sudan, and DRC…

Racism, sexism, disability discrimination, homophobia, transphobia…

Rampant consumerism, climate catastrophe, ‘cost of living crisis’, underfunded hospitals, schools, and other public services…

It’s all linked: It’s all part of the intricate, delicate web upon which the tower is built. Removing too many of the threads could bring the whole thing crashing down. That’s why those protected by it will never be the ones to break the threads. It’s up to us (the many more of us!) to break the threads. To fight oppression in our own lives and where we see it impacting on others. We can’t individually fight every fight, but we can keep making changes in our own spheres of influence; sharing what we know and learn, whilst learning from and amplifying those who have differing experiences and expertise.

‘We get free together’

I’ve missed you and as always, I’m curious… What does freedom look or feel like to you? What are the ways in which you have had to fight for those freedoms? Which are you still striving for? What do you think is the biggest block to feeling free?

All of the incredible images in this issue are by the incredible Rachel Larsen Weaver, from her fantastic 4x4 workshop in Devon this September. I’ll tell you all about it sometime…

If you haven’t already (and actually, even if you have), sign petitions, march, remind your representatives of their job, and spread the word. If you still feel like you don’t know enough to be able to speak out, either publicly or privately, get in touch and I’ll give you my basic 101, then hook you up with folks with a wealth of more in depth knowledge. If you think that Israel’s response to the (yes, abhorent) Hamas attacks last month is anything short of depraved, this is not the place for you.

                                                    Humanity must prevail.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.