REVIEW: UK Feminista Summer School

So like every other feminist around, well the ones who managed to get tickets, I headed down to the UK Feminista Summer School last weekend for a couple of feminist filled days.

Tired and grumpy on Saturday morning I questioned whether I should bother going to another feminist event. Will there be anything new? Don't I know it all already? Won't it be better to stay in my bed all day?

I brushed away my negative thoughts and made my way to the event held in Amnesty International's flash looking centre.

Walking through the stalls of leaflets, sign up sheets, merchandise and books (I tried to resist but I had to pick up the Equality Illusion by UK Feminista creator Kat Banyard) I wasn't entirely sure what kind of weekend this would be turn out to be.

The weekend started off with a panel discussion on the importance of feminist organising and why we are still not as equal as society would have us believe. The summer school was set up as a way to teach feminist groups and individuals how to set up their own campaigns or groups. The idea being that they will go back to their towns creating feminist activism in every corner of the UK. It's ambitious but possible if enthusiasm, numbers and how re-politicised people are anything to go by.

The days were split up into workshops and big panel discussion in which we were treated to a talk on campaigning from a key member of Barack Obama's team, taught how to run a Ladyfest, taught how to fundraise and learnt how to use stand up comedy to be confident in business amongst many other things.

The weekend ended with a Feminist Question Time style discussion featuring Julie Bindel, Dr Aisha Gill, Sunder Katwala and Karon Monaghon QC which was chaired by Bidisha. The discussion became slightly heated on a few occasions, feminist gatherings are like family reunions someone's going to get drunk and tell grandma to piss off but you don't who, when Julie Bindel complained about the treatment of sex workers by anthropologists and when someone in the crowd shouted out that men must feel left out from this discussion.

UK Feminista have done a lot in a short space of time to help raise the profile of feminist activism, create a link between the dislocated feminist groups in the UK and also raise the profile of feminist concerns. We still have a long way to go and to quote one passionate feminist at the summer school "We need a tsunami of feminism not another wave."