Warsaw Fellowship 2016

About Me, Women, LGBTIQQPA+ and why I want to talk about Rape!

Levke Burfeind
2016 Ideas Incubator Fellow, Germany

Who am I? And from which perspective do I see the world?

Did you ever think about it?

For us as social activist, it is in particular important to explore where we stand in this world. Identity is a multilayered construct and our trainer Dominika Cieślikowska explained a simple and widely used distinction; primary layer and secondary layer surround our nuclear identity - the first one is understood to be permanent, whereas the second one is flexible. Various fellows felt uncomfortable with notions such as nationality and sexual orientation placed in the primary layer and it is certainly a very controversial question. However, as much as we'd like to question categories, we have to acknowledge as well, that the power of definition does not exclusively lay in our hands. One is constantly defined by others. Even if we perceive certain categories as obsolete, they do matter in the social reality of discrimination. We live in a world shaped by categories and our belonging to the one or the other does very often influence the access to power. Another important aspect in terms of identity and hegemony is the question of majority and minority. Who has the power of definition? Who is excluded? While considering those questions from a meta perspective one notices quickly that majority and minority are not necessarily questions of quantity, but of power.

The next session was leaded by Sylwia Wodzińska, a Humanity in Action senior fellow, founder of #mamyglos initiative (https://www.facebook.com/mymamyglos/?fref=ts) and a soon-to-be-married-feminist. At first sight the situation of women in Poland seems great - long maternity leave and chauvinist men in Poland. What else could a women want? Well, for example the right to the own body. Recently a new law proposal has been pushed forward, which makes abortion almost impossible and potentially even criminalizes women in case of unfortunate miscarriage. Another alarming aspect in terms of women's right and protection is the discrepancy in surveys concerning sexual violence and rape. NGOs devoted to women's right reveal more than five times higher numbers of Polish women, who suffered from sexual violence than surveys conducted by the EU. The problem seems to be the silence and the shame of many women to talk about their experience. My personal take away is the hope for us to find ways to talk about rape. It has to become a public topic, in order to combat it. If personal trauma stay in the shadows of our patriarchal society, circumstances will hardly change. Feminism is a rising, but still small movement in Poland which has the potential to influence the public debate in a vital way. However, feminism has as well its struggles; next to internal controversies it does often dismiss the reality of the majority of women and remains therefore inaccessible for many. Feminism is very often limited to academic, middle class women and to radicalized. Therefore, let's talk about rape and let's make feminism accessible!

After this emotional session we had the pleasure to meet an activist from KPH - Campaign against Homophobia. He explained to us the struggles of the organization, especially in regards to hopes for legal changes. The current government leaves very limited, maybe no ways at all, for organizations to improve the legal situation of couples of the same sex. Therefore the organization focuses on education.

LGBTQQIPA+ or Gender and Sexual Diversity? The last session was guided by two fellows. We discussed important internal controversies within the LGBT+ community and how complex gender and sex are. Indeed, not every attempt of inclusion does necessarily address the problem appropriately and sometimes even encourages the binary construct within gender and sex. An insightful summary offers the Genderbread Person (http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/03/the-genderbread-person-v2-0/), by showing the distinctions between gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, sexual attraction and romantic attraction.

Levke Burfeind