“I saw a [Reddit] comment asking for an account of Wolf Fest 2017, so here goes. It might have been the first weekend I’ve spent in a wimmin-only space in my entire life. So I arrived in the afternoon, got checked in and was shown where to put up my tent by a really lovely woman who showed me the different sites and helped me find a spot. On the way I got a few ‘hey sister!’ which gave me tingles. I set up and went to get some food and drink (15 hour drive) which was set up in a big field surrounded by forest. Looked for a seat to sit, it was like that feeling at high school when you don’t know anyone or where to sit, so I sat with the woman who had showed me the site, we talked a bunch and then I saw someone who I’d seen on a FB group and sat with them. At the table a couple of girls and I started joking and honestly, it was like I’d known them my entire lives. We met a couple of other women who needed their tents setting up, then after we had helped them we did a special dance to a song about Amazonian women…. definitely not my thing but helped by the fact a bunch of us were tripping and giggling the whole time! Then it was time to sit by the fire and share some beers, we took turns explaining why we were here and our story as women. So many amazing perspectives and it was very bonding seeing so many different backgrounds all coming together to the same conclusion. A few people fell asleep around the fire. We probably stayed a little late and I made the long walk back to my tent and bedded down for the night. The nights were really cold, so I slept in thick clothes with socks, and realized I’d basically camped on rocks… but I slept really, really well, knowing that I was surrounded by ONLY women, as being raped has been a consistent barrier to me wanting to camp in the past. Got up super early, had a pretty basic fruit and bread breakfast and went to a few fantastic workshops/seminars. One was about a transwidow who actually did an AMA on [r/GenderCritical] a few years ago. She read an extract from her book and it was beautifully written. I met a heroine of mine, Meghan Murphy too, who did a few Q and As over the weekend and was pretty fantastic company all round. Throughout the day I met some awesome women who made it all the way from Australia, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. There were people from the Pussy Church (no seriously!) who were fascinating and topless for almost all of it, and were inspiration to follow suit. It was pretty special to be naked in the heat and unafraid of something horrible happening. Dominique, a poet gave a spoken word performance I was dragged to (I really hate poetry, yo) but when she started I looked at my friend and burst into tears. The retelling of her story of her mother, another woman of color like mine, was extremely moving. I think I was giddy from the freedom of being able to fully express whatever I was thinking or feeling. I saw armpit hair, belly hair, leg hair, no makeup on anyone, I saw beard and for the first time I felt absolutely no self consciousness about my body. I cannot overstate how important or how beautiful this felt. We had open mics, where we were invited to say whatever we wanted, some read poetry, others prose, and others just thanked or introduced themselves. We played football with the little girls who’d come along with their moms, and listened to the older women about the evolution of feminism in their lifetimes. One, a nurse, gave us a talk on the history of reproductive rights and demonstrated menstrual extraction - this was very, very informative and I never thought about how important it is to keep the government out of our vaginas. Another night of firetalk and beer and other special substances… as all of us in the group were gay or bisexual we shared our scandalous stories, crushes etc. I work and operate in a very male dominated area and field so this was pretty hilarious and fantastic for me. Everything was funny, someone dropped their flashlight and we spent hours looking for it, but the whole time were laughing our asses off. More talks and workshops the next two days, had a speaker, Raquel from the Dominican Republic discussed femicide, which was fascinating and there were artsier things like painting and knitting too. Max Dashu gave an excellent slideshow on African depictions of women, and the next day untold stories of powerful women in history. At the end, despite my body being weary from the lack of sleep and food (it was plentiful but vegetables were quite limited) I was very sad to leave. I left with the numbers of so many new radical wimmin friends that I’m still in shock at how many in my city were hiding and I am overjoyed to have them. I had the privilege of ridesharing back and that was its own treat, as we got to discuss it all and bond further. I cried when I said goodbye. I feel stronger than ever in my views. We had big arguments at the festival, we had debates, raised voices. And that is a GOOD THING. When we don’t question what we’re told it is a sign we are indulging in a closed ideology and eating it all up, but we debated then all came back to a common ground. What was also wonderful and pardon me if I word this wrong, was that there were women of all types, poor and rich, of color, ethnicity etc. There were wimmin there that could easily have been models, they were so conventionally attractive…. as we’d ALL opted out of the bullshit. An abusive male friend I used to have once said ‘face it, hardcore feminists are just that way because they can’t get a man’. That bullshit I internalized was washed away immediately by Wolf Fest. Anyway, sorry if that all bled together. […] In sisterhood.”
titsay
gummygunk
prguitarman
dededos
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
andulkaphoto
janainaart
