Who said feminists were not fun?

Jessica Reed, 27 July 2007

Subjects:

Pathways of women's empowerment

Cecilia Sardenberg

If one thing wasn't missing from the conference, it certainly was humour. The 40 participants might have been holding PHds in gender and development, gender studies and history, but it certainly did not seem to prevent them from being refreshingly silly, making (feminist) jokes and puns, very much to our delight.

After all, the conference started with Cecilia Sardenberg, leader of the Brazilian Hub, exclaiming: "In 2004 we talked about "repositioning feminism". In 2007 we are reclaiming it!".

While presenting their work (the topics participants specialize in range from globalisation studies, feminist economics and theory, refugees and development), many of them jokingly refered to their job titles as 'being a femocrat' or a 'pracademic" (practionner and academic). My favourite self-depreciating joke however came from a 60-something year old academic calling herself a "jurassic feminist".

Jokes aside, the conference did associate women from the first, second and third feminist waves but interestingly enough the difference(s) between generations was not striking. If some disagreements were voiced, there were always about practices, semantics or efficiency - never about an age-gap.

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